Advice / comments please?

[[Ins]]

Hi lads,

After having a very good lunch with my good friend Jimbo (XMS), I've told him about my upcoming problem with my network connections around my house.

In a nutshell, I have one phone point downstairs and my router and PC will be upstairs. Rather than running cables about the house, Jim suggested that I look at getting one of these "Ethernet over mains" devices. The idea being that I plug one of these into a plug socket upstairs and my PC into this and the other one downstairs next to my router.

Question is, has anyone used these before? Is there any particular make that you think is worth getting? I don't wanna spend over the odd's but at the same time I don't wanna get something that is crap.

My router is a Netgear DG834G Wireless 4 port router and I wondered if I should look at getting a Netgear version of the ethernet over mains?

Otherwise Jim and I have found these - http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=48539&doy=17m8&C=SO&U=strat15

Any good?

Thanks for any help guys!!

Insy.

 

[Ham]

Our own snatz has just ordered some of these. Wait till he's up and running too see if there any good

 

[[Ins]]

Ahhhh I see!

Yeah I just wasn't sure if they would suffer the same fate as a wireless connection - i.e. lead to a deterioration in the quality of speed?

Mind you as they are not using any form of wireless connection, I can't see them falling under the same problems.

I just want to make sure that my connection is stable, fast and decent. Unfortunately, getting BT to come back out and put in an extended phone line will probably cost an arm and a leg!

 

[Azreil_2]

Found these, and thought that they might help .

Never had first hadn experience with any type of network ova mains.

Ethernet to mains, to wireless lol

Networking Over Mains Review

Netgear Networking Over Mains

Hope that helps

 

[jiffz]

If you can get 85 Mbps through those it sounds fine! If your lights start flickering as you play CS:S then I'd think about running cables

Myself, I'd just run a long ethernet cable and keep the Netgear as close to the phone point as possible. Do a good job of hiding the cables and drill holes, this way you know it'll work and it won't deteriorate!

 

[Hyper]

I say stick your router downstairs and use the wireless, I am using wireless on my Laptop and even when my router is in my room and I am in the living room my latency never changes staying at 14ms.

 

[equk]

http://www.solwise.co.uk/net-powerline.htm

I would get them from there they seem a lot cheaper and solwise are a good company. I've got a few bits from them before.

I've never tried this ethernet over power thing tho I just ran some cat5 around for my network and adsl.

I have a NTE5 Faceplate splitter on my main line so there's no need for loads of microfilters aswell.

Personally I prob wouldn't try or trust ethernet over power

 

[K3Y]

i had to take a 30m network cable from the family pc to my room. Crawled under the floorboards, took the wire to the stairs, came up, goes straight up under the stairs then appears at the top, bingo, straight into my room ....the cable barely gets to my pc lol.

more to your question, ive never really heard any good or bad about these, which suggests the best solution is still to just run a cable, guaranteeing everythin.

 

[Snatz]

OK, i bought a pair of Solwise HomePlug Ethernet Turbos (85 mbps), they came today, very easy setup - ethernet into my Netgear DG834GT router and other end into the plug which in-turn went into the wall socket next to the router which is on the first floor very close to my front door and sitting on a large sideboard. Next plugged the other adapter into a wall socket next to my PC with ethernet cable running from that to my PC (which is in my bedroom on the third floor), i also installed the Utility on the Diagnostic CD, more to monitor speeds than anything, and note that you don't need to install anything software side whatsoever.

Now bearing in mind i am as far away from the router as possible in my house which is pretty big if i do say so myself, and i get a solid 60 mbps now i think thats pretty damn good, and my download speeds have doubled over my previous wireless setup (which was a 108 mbps network) and has lessend my ping by around 20.

All in all a great substitute to having a really long wire around the house, and a hassle free installation. What i would say though is try and plug it directly into the wall socket and try and stay away from using it through too many adapters, i mean a 2 or 3 way adapter should be fine, but if you start using these 7 or 8 plug extension leads and adapters you can get some interference as i discovered, however i didn't want to use the adapter like this and it was only a test on my behalf.

I would do a review for the site if the people in charge approved it and told me how to get it on the site. Thumbs up from me, easily better than wireless, and only a shade off the full wired in connection, however i reckon this is much more convenient for those of us who can't have the router at the top of a 3 story house lol.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-x-Solwise-8...ryZ40995QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I got my pair off ebay, good price for what you get. Comes with Diagnostic CD, 2x 1.8m Ethernet cables, 2x Solwise 85 mbps adapters and a well documented instruction manual - although i didn't use this i had a glance at it when i was already up and running.

Hope this helps,

Mark

 

[Toxteth O'Grady]

Yeah I just wasn't sure if they would suffer the same fate as a wireless connection - i.e. lead to a deterioration in the quality of speed?

I just want to make sure that my connection is stable, fast and decent. Unfortunately, getting BT to come back out and put in an extended phone line will probably cost an arm and a leg!

Not sure why you think a wireless connection would lead to a deterioration in the quality of speed? The ADSL over the phone line is always going to be the lowest common denominator for speed. Even with 24mbps ADSL2+ the phone line can only provide half the data rate of the 802.11g wireless part of your network.

I have a wireless modem router on the ground floor next to my BT master socket and a wireless access point in my loft 3 floors away. I WPA2 encryption and MAC filtering and I still get 20 ms pings to web servers and actual speeds of 6800 kbps on 8 mbps ADSL.

Before you invest in the mains solution you could try a fairly cheap comparison since you alreay have a wireless router. Temporarily move one of your PCs downstairs and connect it directly to the router with a patch lead and see what speed/latency you get on your connection. Then buy (or borrow) a cheap wireless pci card or USB dongle, put the PC back in its usual place, connect wirelessly to the router and re-measure. You may surprise yourself and hopefully save a few quid.



TOG

 

[[Ins]]

Well lads, after not being able to get onto the net as it should go live this Friday, I've just come back to read this post on my work internet

Over the weekend and after talking to Jim, I settled for some of these:

http://www.netgear.com/Products/PowerlineNetworking/PowerlineEthernetAdapters/HDXB101.aspx

They do 200mbps and look pretty darn good! So I'll see how things go this week. To be honest, I think this will be a better and possibly faster solution than trying to run a very long network cable downstairs from my study upstairs.

I'll let you know how it goes!!

 

[Snatz]

sorry to bring this topic up again, but Ins, have you got your powerline networking yet? and if so how is it for you? Mine are still working really well