Powerline Adapter Advice

[jamesriley94]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for recommendations for powerline adapters. I've bought a flat with gigabit internet. Does anyone have any recommendations for powerline adapters that can handle these kind of speeds?

I currently have some older TP Link "500Mbps" which are severely underperforming:

Sadly it isn't really possible to run an Ethernet cable through the walls, but this is what the line is capable of if I do hard wire:

I'm keen to get as close to this as possible!

Thanks

 

[FTLN]

I've never seen anything go over 170ish mbps on powerline adapters, your best bet is WiFi6.

Welcome to the gigabit club
Recently upgraded to 10Gigabit myself..

 

[grec]

You can get adaptors rated for 1200Mbps (Eg. 1200Mbps: Netgear PL1200-100UKS, or for 1000Mbps PLP1000-100UKS) but ofc all the usual caveats apply (Depends on houses internal wiring, whether going between floors or extensions on some houses, and the load and/or interference from certain types of appliances on the power lines), so it may not get anywhere near that in practice depending on those factors.

This link has both models I gave as examples
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N3YCC7R/ref=psdc_949408031_t1_B00WUACD3U?th=1
And a review: https://www.cnet.com/reviews/netgear-powerline-1200-review/

 

[grec]

To expand on this a bit further these adaptors never get near their full speed (So you might want a 2Gbps rated model to actually get close to that 850Mbps of your broadband), but if you wanted to see if you could hit higher on your existing adaptors first, extension cords(Especially multi-output ones), surge protectors, and sharing an output with switched mode power supplies (PC PSUs, laptop chargers and similar digital consumer electronics) or motorised devices(Microwaves, fans, ect) are some of the more common factors in decreasing powerline connection quality that you can attempt a fix at.

IE try to make sure they're plugged directly into house sockets and not sharing a 2-gang with say your PC on the output.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Tp link sucks. Just choose something else!!!

Also you are limited to the wiring in the building. If it's older then you'll get a lot of interference. Considering you live with many other people sharing the same electrical lines as well that also means you'll get a lot of interference.

So getting a better power line adapter is ideal but to truly avoid all that hardware is necessary. WiFi 6 is to new and expensive I believe. In a year they'll release all new better products for half the price like they always do.

 

[grec]

Luckily in the UK the house wiring issue shouldn't usually be an issue, because of WWII most housing had to be rebuilt anyway so they nationalised the infrastructure and created a completely new set of (exceptionally over-engineered) electrical standards (Including new sockets and such) that most housing would have had to convert to by now.

Part of these standards was the (optional but widely recommended & practised) use of a more efficient ring-circuit system, and these are particularly well suited to power adaptor layouts as the distance and resistance from one socket to another is quite short/low compared to the pre-war radial system(That is still standard in almost every other country in the world).

The exceptions here are extensions or additional sockets or additional floors may either have a radial addition to the ring, or be built on a separate ring that has a filtered circuit breaker.

 

[g0ggles1994]

I'm running a pair of TP-Link 1200Mbps adapters which seem like overkill for me as my ISP connection ks 200Mbps but as tgrech said, you'll never get their rated speed.

If you want to use power line adapters, always get a set that is rated for double your connection speed. That will give ample headroom for any speed decreases, also always get a pass through kit and connect it direct to the socket, not through any form of extension.

Lastly, it's also wise to run a ping script in the background to stop them going to sleep while your PC is on. I've some example code if you would like to see it