What's the best way to get Ethernet a floor above the router, and is it even worth it?

[Spork829]

So:

 

My room is directly above the room in the house with our whole networking setup. I've been using wifi up here for years and it's...meh. I can stream videos, play games, and generally use it at a normal capacity just fine. However the speeds on wifi are *just* barely passable for streaming on Twitch and hosting game servers through port forwarding, both of which I want to do more of. These work fine, but everyone else in the house has very severe slowdowns when I use up that much bandwidth. I was told that if I plug straight into the router and use ethernet and they stay on wifi, then this won't happen. Is that even true? If so, I've convinced my parents that punching through a couple external walls and running Cat5e cable up here would be pretty reasonable and inexpensive (however I would need to find someone who would actually know how to set up the port and everything once it's run). So, is there a better way? My parents are definitely NOT open to running any sort of long cable through the house internally, or to spending more than like $200 on the whole thing. So how reasonable is this? And was my friend right that it will even provide a benefit in that if I use up bandwidth on Ethernet it won't affect anyone else on wifi as much if at all? Thanks. 

[saladcrack]

Idk about any benefits other than basically no slow down due to interference like wifi gets but I think the easiest is at least trying to run some cables through an air vent because it takes almost no money and no holes in the wall.  Or you can do what Linus did to his house and drill through external walls etc.

[BatFlackMan]

besides running an Ethernet cable through a wall a vent or dealing with the wifi is about it my friend

[InsertName]

7 minutes ago, Spork829 said:

So:

 

My room is directly above the room in the house with our whole networking setup. I've been using wifi up here for years and it's...meh. I can stream videos, play games, and generally use it at a normal capacity just fine. However the speeds on wifi are *just* barely passable for streaming on Twitch and hosting game servers through port forwarding, both of which I want to do more of. These work fine, but everyone else in the house has very severe slowdowns when I use up that much bandwidth. I was told that if I plug straight into the router and use ethernet and they stay on wifi, then this won't happen. Is that even true? If so, I've convinced my parents that punching through a couple external walls and running Cat5e cable up here would be pretty reasonable and inexpensive (however I would need to find someone who would actually know how to set up the port and everything once it's run). So, is there a better way? My parents are definitely NOT open to running any sort of long cable through the house internally, or to spending more than like $200 on the whole thing. So how reasonable is this? And was my friend right that it will even provide a benefit in that if I use up bandwidth on Ethernet it won't affect anyone else on wifi as much if at all? Thanks. 

Use powerline?

[gtx1060=value]

53 minutes ago, BatFlackMan said:

besides running an Ethernet cable through a wall a vent or dealing with the wifi is about it my friend

why has no one heard about powerline or ethernet over power. buy a gigabit powerline kit and you're set. no messy cable work just plug in some stuff

Edited September 11, 2016 by wkdpaul
passive aggressive answer

[Lurick]

4 hours ago, gtx1060=value said:

why has no one heard about powerline or ethernet over power. buy a gigabit powerline kit and you're set. no messy cable work just plug in some stuff

Because powerline doesn't magically guarantee you better speeds, so calm down.

Edited September 11, 2016 by wkdpaul
Edited quote and language

[gtx1060=value]

4 hours ago, Lurick said:

Because powerline doesn't magically guarantee you better speeds, so calm down.

My gigabit powerline set gets me gigabit speeds 70 percent of the time unless someone else is streaming 4k vids

Edited September 11, 2016 by wkdpaul
Edited quote and language

[tlink]

powerline is just as bad as wifi, they are known to be at least as unreliable as wifi...

[gtx1060=value]

2 minutes ago, tlink said:

powerline is just as bad as wifi, they are known to be at least as unreliable as wifi...

I bought an enterprise grade power line adapter. 

[Lurick]

2 minutes ago, gtx1060=value said:

I bought an enterprise grade power line adapter. 

Enterprise grade powerline, lol, now there's a new one.

[tlink]

doesnt matter, if your wiring is shit, if your on a different circuit, if you have other things plugged in, if there is any noise on the line, than those all interfere with data speeds, a lot. it sends trough an analog signal, no matter how high end your equipment is its always going to be shit compared to a digital signal. 

[kirashi]

2 minutes ago, tlink said:

powerline is just as bad as wifi, they are known to be at least as unreliable as wifi...

Not true; PowerLine AV is about as reliable as the electrician who wired your house. Which means it's completely unreliable :D

No, but really, if your house is newer ish and the electrician knew what he was doing, PowerLine AV works well over short runs.

What will determine your speed and reliability is the length of household wiring the signal needs to travel internally in your walls.

 

Also, in reply to @Spork829 regarding slowdowns for everyone on the network during Twitch Streaming, that will depend on many factors.

If your router doesn't have enough processing power and/or RAM to maintain a constant video stream with other users online, you may need a better router.

If your ISP speed is too slow in upload or download, or has BufferBloat or latency issues, your connection can appear slow to other users while streaming.

If your QoS configuration in the router is incorrectly setup, it may limit other devices connection speeds as well.

[gtx1060=value]

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

Enterprise grade powerline, lol, now there's a new one.

It cost almost 200 dollars so i assumed it was better

[gtx1060=value]

1 minute ago, kirashi said:

Not true; PowerLine AV is about as reliable as the electrician who wired your house. Which means it's completely unreliable :D

No, but really, if your house is newer ish and the electrician knew what he was doing, PowerLine AV works well over short runs.

What will determine your speed and reliability is the length of household wiring the signal needs to travel internally in your walls.

 

Also, in reply to @Spork829 regarding slowdowns for everyone on the network during Twitch Streaming, that will depend on many factors.

If your router doesn't have enough processing power and/or RAM to maintain a constant video stream with other users online, you may need a better router.

If your ISP speed is too slow in upload or download, or has BufferBloat or latency issues, your connection can appear slow to other users while streaming.

If your QoS configuration in the router is incorrectly setup, it may limit other devices connection speeds as well.

I love how us canadians are so polite in refuting other opinions and then the american guy just starts swearing and calling people dumb. Shows a lot

[Lurick]

Just now, gtx1060=value said:

It cost almost 200 dollars so i assumed it was better

Possibly, or at least built of out better quality parts and capable of delivering a stronger signal or filtering out more noise.

I imagined an enterprise trying to run a bunch of the powerline adapters to provide everyone with internet, gave me a good chuckle

[Spork829]

22 minutes ago, InsertName said:

Use powerline?

 

4 minutes ago, gtx1060=value said:

It cost almost 200 dollars so i assumed it was better

 

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

Possibly, or at least built of out better quality parts and capable of delivering a stronger signal or filtering out more noise.

I imagined an enterprise trying to run a bunch of the powerline adapters to provide everyone with internet, gave me a good chuckle

 

5 minutes ago, tlink said:

doesnt matter, if your wiring is shit, if your on a different circuit, if you have other things plugged in, if there is any noise on the line, than those all interfere with data speeds, a lot. it sends trough an analog signal, no matter how high end your equipment is its always going to be shit compared to a digital signal. 

Okay sorry I went to take a shower there, should have included this in the original post. I've tried powerline and it's worse than wifi here.

[kirashi]

5 minutes ago, gtx1060=value said:

I love how us canadians are so polite in refuting other opinions and then the american guy just starts swearing and calling people dumb. Shows a lot

 

Soorry, but it's so true a lot of the time. Also, I'd like to apologize for not offering you Tim Hortons, and Maple Bacon Poutine. Sorry again.

 

If you've already tried powerline AV, then running a Cat5/6 cable is the next thing to try @Spork829.

[Spork829]

1 minute ago, kirashi said:

If you've already tried powerline AV, then running a Cat5/6 cable is the next thing to try @Spork829.

Alright, that's what I was thinking. Although no one has answered this yet: If I'm using ethernet, will it reduce the slowdowns others in the house experience on wifi when I use up a lot of bandwidth? 

[gtx1060=value]

2 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Soorry, but it's so true a lot of the time. Also, I'd like to apologize for not offering you Tim Hortons, and Maple Bacon Poutine. Sorry again.

 

If you've already tried powerline AV, then running a Cat5/6 cable is the next thing to try @Spork829.

Don't forget nanaimo bars, canadian bacon, maple syrup, and justin trudeau

[tlink]

if there is already an ethernet cable running somewehere than you can always hijack the unused wires on it. ethernet has 8 wires of 2 pairs. of every pair only one wire is used, the other wires are free for use. you can strip the cable that is already somewhere and attach a cable to the unused wires, then at the router split the end and use the cables previously unused with a new rj-45 to plug into the router. 

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-your-own-Ethernet-"splitter"/

[Spork829]

1 minute ago, tlink said:

if there is already an ethernet cable running somewehere than you can always hijack the unused wires on it. ethernet has 8 wires of 2 pairs. of every pair only one wire is used, the other wires are free for use. you can strip the cable that is already somewhere and attach a cable to the unused wires, then at the router split the end and use the cables previously unused with a new rj-45 to plug into the router. 

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-your-own-Ethernet-"splitter"/

Nope, unfortunately no other Ethernet wiring is already in place

[tlink]

well another thing you can try is just plugging in a wifi acces point into your router and give it its own network and frequency(very important). set up QOS (quality of service) on the main router. if the current wifi really is the bottleneck than another wifi adapter should remove that. if someone you know owns one you can ask if you can try it out. or (i dunno where you're from but in the eu this is legit) you can order it online try it, and if it doesnt work send it back within 14 days and get a refund (just make sure they cover post costs)

[Spork829]

1 minute ago, tlink said:

well another thing you can try is just plugging in a wifi acces point into your router and give it its own network and frequency(very important). set up QOS (quality of service) on the main router. if the current wifi really is the bottleneck than another wifi adapter should remove that.

Hmm, I could try that. I would think that would be more expensive than just running an ethernet cable, though.

[tlink]

Just now, Spork829 said:

Hmm, I could try that. I would think that would be more expensive than just running an ethernet cable, though.

depends, routers are available for very cheap nowadays. i've seen routers cost as little as 10 bucks, its less destructive than running Ethernet anyways if that's your main concern. 

[gtx1060=value]

4 minutes ago, tlink said:

depends, routers are available for very cheap nowadays. i've seen routers cost as little as 10 bucks, its less destructive than running Ethernet anyways if that's your main concern. 

If you are handy with tools, just drill a couple of holes into the ceiling in a discreet place and you'll be good