Powerline or WiFi PCI card

danlightbulb · 12 Apr 2023 at 08:45

I have pc/office upstairs and my Virgin media router in the downstairs living room with no easy way to run a dedicated ethernet cable.

I currently have a usb 5ghz dongle but performance is poor, keeps dropping connection and for some reason only seems to work in one usb port on the pc. When it works though it's reasonably fast.

I'm considering putting in a WiFi PCI card instead which should be more reliable. But also I could try powerline.

What will get me best reliability and fastest speed?

Quartz · 12 Apr 2023 at 08:52

danlightbulb said:
I have pc/office upstairs and my Virgin media router in the downstairs living room with no easy way to run a dedicated ethernet cable.

An ethernet cable can be 100m long. That's plenty of length to route it around doors etc.

If you own your home then consider drilling holes in the wall and routing the cable outside.

matt100 · 12 Apr 2023 at 08:58

Alternative is a decent mesh, I upgraded to eero 6 pro late last year and get 4-500mb from my 600mb connection in much of the house.

Armageus · 12 Apr 2023 at 09:18

danlightbulb said:
I'm considering putting in a WiFi PCI card instead which should be more reliable. But also I could try powerline.

A PCI-E card won't necessarily be any better, especially if it doesn't have a separate antenna on a cable, so that it can be positioned away from the actual PC Case e.g. something like this:

My basket at OcUK:

1 x TP-Link Archer TX3000E Dual-Band Wireless AX3000 (WiFi 6) Bluetooth 5.0 PCI-E Adapter (SKU: NW-21U-TP) = £49.99

Total: £57.98 (includes delivery: £7.99)

danlightbulb said:
What will get me best reliability and fastest speed?

A wired connection

SpellowHouse · 12 Apr 2023 at 09:47

danlightbulb said:
I have pc/office upstairs and my Virgin media router in the downstairs living room with no easy way to run a dedicated ethernet cable.

I currently have a usb 5ghz dongle but performance is poor, keeps dropping connection and for some reason only seems to work in one usb port on the pc. When it works though it's reasonably fast.

I'm considering putting in a WiFi PCI card instead which should be more reliable. But also I could try powerline.

What will get me best reliability and fastest speed?

Personally I have always found powerline to be more reliable. Having said that, it is some years since I tried. I generally use a wire if it is an important connection.

danlightbulb · 12 Apr 2023 at 13:19

Quartz said:
An ethernet cable can be 100m long. That's plenty of length to route it around doors etc.

If you own your home then consider drilling holes in the wall and routing the cable outside.

Yes like I said, no easy way. The external route would be best but I can't at the moment drill walls, get up on ladders and make a wired port. In time that would be better.

Armageus said:
-E card won't necessarily be any better, especially if it doesn't have a separate antenna on a cable, so that it can be positioned away from the actual PC Case e.g. something like this:

I don't have any issue with signal strength anywhere in the house, but I just think this dongle I have is rubbish.

matt100 said:
Alternative is a decent mesh, I upgraded to eero 6 pro late last year and get 4-500mb from my 600mb connection in much of the house.

I don't know much about mesh - I'd still need a good WiFi dongle/card at pc end? Do the mesh devices still need to be wired back to the main router?

Armageus · 12 Apr 2023 at 13:34

danlightbulb said:
I don't have any issue with signal strength anywhere in the house, but I just think this dongle I have is rubbish.

Depends what you have at the minute?

At the minimum you want a dongle with decent size aerial, and ideally one that comes with a separate stand and usb extension lead so you can position it where the signal is best (rather than just hanging out of a port at the back near a wall, or from a front port where it will get snapped off)

The below would be the minimum standard I would look at, but you would have to look elsewhere for something with an external stand like the https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/adapter/archer-t9uh/

My basket at OcUK:

1 x ADDON AWU-G37 High Gain Dual-Band Wireless AC1300 Nano USB Network Adapter (SKU: NW-007-AD) = £18.95

Total: £22.94 (includes delivery: £3.99)

matt100 · 12 Apr 2023 at 14:11

danlightbulb said:
I don't know much about mesh - I'd still need a good WiFi dongle/card at pc end? Do the mesh devices still need to be wired back to the main router?

Not necessarily, you either need a wifi connection at the other end but you don't need it to be great because you're creating a much stronger/bigger wifi network... you can also do as I do with my office PC.. that is wired into one of the Eero nodes up there via a switch so you can have hardwired products behave more like you have a wired network.

And no, they don't need to be wired back to the router, you can for backhaul but I think if you needed that we wouldn't be having this conversation.

30 seconds on youtube will explain it.. My house is quite old, it's not practical to be running cables around and I'd rather pluck my eyes out than look at cables routed over skirting/doorframes so this is a great alternative. I'd say I'm getting about 80% of the max speed I could wired on products that I have wired (typically only the main PC/plex machine/work laptop) and then the benefit of really fast wifi for all the stuff that couldn't bother my fibre connection at max speed anyway.

danlightbulb · 12 Apr 2023 at 17:49

Just read up about mesh wifi and have one question.

The mesh system works by piggy backing onto the wifi network then essentially rebroadcasting the signal further. So the mesh devices need to be within range of each other. So why then, if the mesh device can pick up the signal from the original router, can another device not pick up the same signal? Why would the signal being picked up by a wifi dongle on the PC be strengthened by a mesh device, because both devices are within range of the original source? Does that makes sense?

Armageus · 12 Apr 2023 at 17:56

Because ideally you put the mesh units close enough together (and on central locations e.g. middle of room) that they have a good signsal between each other, and then can assist your pc that might be at the corner of the room.

Quartz · 12 Apr 2023 at 18:02

Aren't mesh networks bad for latency? If the OP is gaming online then wired really is the way to go.

danlightbulb · 12 Apr 2023 at 18:03

Right. I don't really seem to have any issue with signal strength though.

My VM router is in the corner of the living room right at the front of the house. My phone still picks up the network just fine in the kitchen at the back of the house (probably a straight line distance of 9m including one solid brick wall), or in the upstairs bedroom at the back of the house (straight line distance of probably 13m and through a couple of internal brick walls and wooden floorboards).

The PC office upstairs is nearly directly above the living room, only a straight line distance of about 5.5m, maybe through a brick wall (depending on path of the signal) and wooden floorboards. My phone and laptop both work fine in there.

kona786 · 12 Apr 2023 at 19:02

danlightbulb said:
I have pc/office upstairs and my Virgin media router in the downstairs living room with no easy way to run a dedicated ethernet cable.

I currently have a usb 5ghz dongle but performance is poor, keeps dropping connection and for some reason only seems to work in one usb port on the pc. When it works though it's reasonably fast.

I'm considering putting in a WiFi PCI card instead which should be more reliable. But also I could try powerline.

What will get me best reliability and fastest speed?

What signal does your phone get in that area? Speed test.

Edit. I see your phone is fine there so yeah a better wifi card or a repeater will do the job. Even powerline will be fine. Just depends on the quality of connection your after.

Orcvader · 12 Apr 2023 at 20:04

danlightbulb said:
Right. I don't really seem to have any issue with signal strength though.

My VM router is in the corner of the living room right at the front of the house. My phone still picks up the network just fine in the kitchen at the back of the house (probably a straight line distance of 9m including one solid brick wall), or in the upstairs bedroom at the back of the house (straight line distance of probably 13m and through a couple of internal brick walls and wooden floorboards).

The PC office upstairs is nearly directly above the living room, only a straight line distance of about 5.5m, maybe through a brick wall (depending on path of the signal) and wooden floorboards. My phone and laptop both work fine in there.

Depending on the path it may be too much for 5GHz to perform stable for your PC. Before committing to mesh or any other option have you tried the 2.4GHz range to see if that's any more stable?

Although saying that, depending on the VM hub you have, their WiFi performance isn't that great. Usually a 3rd party router or even just an access point can be enough to improve things.

danlightbulb · 12 Apr 2023 at 20:13

Ok so with phone in same room as router I get 110 Mbps download and 21 Mbps upload. That sounds like my broadband speed though not my ultimate lan network speed

With phone upstairs in office I get almost the same values.

With pc in same room using the dongle I get around 80 Mbps download and 21 Mbps upload.

So there is a clear difference there but it's the reliability that's the issue as well because this dongle frequently drops connection and then can't discover any networks or reverts back to 2.4GHz.