It's not always practical depending on where the device and the router are and if is a bungalow or three storey house you could be looking at 30m+ of cable. Not everyone can drill holes etc though, especially if it's a rental. Sure it may be possible, but it's not always practical.
Powerline network is slower than my internet :(
- Thread starter eddiew
- Start date
It's not always practical depending on where the device and the router are and if is a bungalow or three storey house you could be looking at 30m+ of cable. Not everyone can drill holes etc though, especially if it's a rental. Sure it may be possible, but it's not always practical.
If you get a decent Wi-Fi signal then upgrading to AC should get you the speed you need.
Power line adaptors don't work well in this house and can't run cables as its a rental with a meticulous inventory.
I get about 350mpbs through Wi-Fi which is good enough for my needs (game streaming).
Power line adaptors don't work well in this house and can't run cables as its a rental with a meticulous inventory.
I get about 350mpbs through Wi-Fi which is good enough for my needs (game streaming).
You never understand that some people's situations and requirements might be different from your own?
That's fantastic, tbh!
What router/receiver dongle doohickey do you use to get that?For me I run my powerline to where its not critical, so to the TV downstairs or where wireless cant go. Joys of a grade two building with VERY think walls.
It was easier for BT when they came to install fibre to run it into my office where the rack is anyway. So critical and bandwidth heavy devices pull from there or via the AC wireless.
It was easier for BT when they came to install fibre to run it into my office where the rack is anyway. So critical and bandwidth heavy devices pull from there or via the AC wireless.
I've had my powerline adapter for a while, i'm currently recieving a Gigabyte connection, i've not had any down time with my network, even running speedtest.net an i get the same speed as my other computer that's directly connected to the router.
Ideally i'd like to run a cable the distance but thats just not practical for me.
Ideally i'd like to run a cable the distance but thats just not practical for me.
Soldato
- Joined
- 20 Oct 2008
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- 12,082
The computer may be reporting a Gigabit connection but you won't be receiving one.
The Gigabit connection will only be from the adapter's Ethernet port to the connected device. The actual throughput between the adapters will be much lower (a few hundred Mbps if you're lucky).
If you're only using the connection to access the Internet then the connection only needs to be as fast as that is. If you ever start shifting sizeable amounts of data around then LAN you'll see the difference.
The Gigabit connection will only be from the adapter's Ethernet port to the connected device. The actual throughput between the adapters will be much lower (a few hundred Mbps if you're lucky).
If you're only using the connection to access the Internet then the connection only needs to be as fast as that is. If you ever start shifting sizeable amounts of data around then LAN you'll see the difference.
Going to answer my own question now!
I took the plunge and bought a TP-Link TL-WPA8630P (1200mbit "theoretically" with wifi b/g/n/ac). Not a cheap bit of kit, but... the internet is now flowing to my man cave at 105mbit.
The TP-Link utility software is reporting a 363-372mbit link. That's pretty darn good, considering I know that going downstairs-upstairs is losing about 30mbit from what it'll achieve in the same room. Took a bit of fiddling to get it to extend the wifi from the Virgin Superhub, but it seems to have cloned properly in the end, so hopefully that'll improve the signal up here too.
Expensive, but satisfying
Fingers crossed that these don't suffer the same intermittent disconnect issue that the old ones did ¬_¬
I took the plunge and bought a TP-Link TL-WPA8630P (1200mbit "theoretically" with wifi b/g/n/ac). Not a cheap bit of kit, but... the internet is now flowing to my man cave at 105mbit.
The TP-Link utility software is reporting a 363-372mbit link. That's pretty darn good, considering I know that going downstairs-upstairs is losing about 30mbit from what it'll achieve in the same room. Took a bit of fiddling to get it to extend the wifi from the Virgin Superhub, but it seems to have cloned properly in the end, so hopefully that'll improve the signal up here too.
Expensive, but satisfying
Fingers crossed that these don't suffer the same intermittent disconnect issue that the old ones did ¬_¬
No need, the better powerline kit is working very well, and has the bonus of a built-in wifi extender
Also, I really didn't want to rip all my carpets off the grippers in my man cave, landing, and stairs to fit cable under them. My hallway and living room are wooden flooring, so that would just look terrible without DIY work that I personally would probably botch up anyway. Rather just pay for the powerline kit
No need, the better powerline kit is working very well, and has the bonus of a built-in wifi extender
Also, I really didn't want to rip all my carpets off the grippers in my man cave, landing, and stairs to fit cable under them. My hallway and living room are wooden flooring, so that would just look terrible without DIY work that I personally would probably botch up anyway. Rather just pay for the powerline kit
No need to rip up carpets, couple of holes through the wall and run cables externally. Saying that I do have some Solwise AV1200 homeplugs too and they are excellent. Still not as good as cable though.
Grr. Having been happily espousing the virtues of the new powerline kit, the darn thing disconnected last night. Ok, so it recovered about a minute later without me having to crawl under my desk and power it off/on, but still... I had hoped that my first cheapie units were faulty and that these fancy ones would work solidly 
Not sure whether to return them now... the wifi extender is surprisingly strong, but I suspect that'll go down too whenever it loses connection :/ Ordered on the 11th, guess I've got a week to sort them out or send them back. Maybe I should just look for a good wifi ac dongle and go straight to router. I'm only asking 100mbit, it's not that much to demand these days...
Not sure whether to return them now... the wifi extender is surprisingly strong, but I suspect that'll go down too whenever it loses connection :/ Ordered on the 11th, guess I've got a week to sort them out or send them back. Maybe I should just look for a good wifi ac dongle and go straight to router. I'm only asking 100mbit, it's not that much to demand these days...
Why are they called gigabit power line adapters though? Serious question. You can't achieve gigabit so why call them that? Is it because they have gigabit ethernet ports on the actual piece of hardware? Very misleading to consumers. Even top of the range ones I hear of people barely getting speeds better than wireless.
Yes, it's misleading advertising. Certain TP-Link models advertised as Gigabit come with a 10/100 port!
Yer, dirty tricks. Like all those "gigabit" NAS boxes that turn out to deliver about 12MB/s matter how good a connection you give them.
To be fair, the new gigabit set is better than the old 300mbit were. These ones report a network rate between 300 and 350mbit, and they do seem to recover from disconnects on their own. The old ones were nearer 60 and, it turns out, fitted with 100mbit sockets anyway so they could NEVER have gotten close to their advertised speed! They knew at the factory that what they were selling was a lie
I found a utility to turn off the power saving mode yesterday and, touch wood, the connection didn't seem to drop. Unless it just dropped some time when I was afk, which is entirely possible. Need to set up some sort of monitor that logs and alerts...
To be fair, the new gigabit set is better than the old 300mbit were. These ones report a network rate between 300 and 350mbit, and they do seem to recover from disconnects on their own. The old ones were nearer 60 and, it turns out, fitted with 100mbit sockets anyway so they could NEVER have gotten close to their advertised speed! They knew at the factory that what they were selling was a lie
I found a utility to turn off the power saving mode yesterday and, touch wood, the connection didn't seem to drop. Unless it just dropped some time when I was afk, which is entirely possible. Need to set up some sort of monitor that logs and alerts...
I got some TP-Link AV1200 and ignoring the "gigabit" label they've been very good. Although I only get 100 of my 150 VM, but close enough it's a 1930's house and the router is the other end of the property to the PC.
Why can't some people accept that "just run some cable" isn't possible. Some of us live in rented houses and in my case the agent had a 20 page document of every single fixture, fitting and mark through the house. "Just drill some holes.." yeah okay.
Why can't some people accept that "just run some cable" isn't possible. Some of us live in rented houses and in my case the agent had a 20 page document of every single fixture, fitting and mark through the house. "Just drill some holes.." yeah okay.