Best powerline adapter?

[RoboTechnal]

I'm currently looking for a good powerline kit around $30-50. I've looked at the tp-link AV500 and AV1000, and some reviews said they don't work, but it's probably because they didn't set it up right or they are using it on a separate circuit. I currently have a wireless adapter in my pc and it's giving my rubber band issues in-game. I want to know which brand/product would be best. Also what speeds would be good for online gaming. On some of the FAQ's on some of these powerline adapters, people talk about 10/100/1000 and I don't exactly know what those mean. When I go to my IP address and I go to wifi, the wifi' bandwith only shows 20Mhz and 40Mhz. I don't know if that helps.

[Oshino Shinobu]

Most of them will provide the same performance if they have similar specs, it's going to be affected mainly by the wiring in your building. 

 

10/100/1000 refers to the port the adaptor uses. A lot of powerline kits advertise "up to 500Mbps" but only use a 100Mbps port (10/100 port), so it cannot go over 100Mbps. Look at the specs of the kit and make sure it uses a Gigabit port (10/100/1000)

[Oshino Shinobu]

1 minute ago, rrubberr said:

There's no such thing as a worthwhile powerline adapter. Half the time they kind-of-a-little work, the other 50% it's crash and burn.

That's not true. It's often a better solution than WiFi, useful where running a wire is not an option. If the wiring in the building is crap, powerline isn't going to be great, but if the wiring is good, it can offer significantly faster and more reliable connections than WiFi. I used powerline for my PC before I got round to running ethernet around the house, it worked very well. 

[Mr.Humble]

Hi,

 

personally I've been using the TP-Link AV500 kit with AC passthrough for several years, never had any issues with it. You might want to get a kit of Gigabit adapters if you can afford it.

 

The quality of the electrical wiring of the building does affect the performance, but I've used it in a building with brand new wiring (my parents house) and in the flat I live in now, where only god knows who when and how wired it, and it's perfectly fine.

[Oshino Shinobu]

Just now, rrubberr said:

ECK. Running a wire is always an option.

But it's really not. Parents not allowing it, living in rented accommodation where drilling isn't allowed, having to run cables across hallways (which often looks super ugly). There's plenty of times where running a cable is not an option in a practical sense. There's also people who just want something simple that works with minimal effort. 

 

Technically, sure, running a cable is always an option, in the same sense that knocking down the house and rebuilding it with Cat6 wired in is also always an option, if you just ignore the reasons for not doing it. 

[Mr.Humble]

5 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

But it's really not. Parents not allowing it, living in rented accommodation where drilling isn't allowed, having to run cables across hallways (which often looks super ugly). There's plenty of times where running a cable is not an option in a practical sense. There's also people who just want something simple that works with minimal effort. 

 

Technically, sure, running a cable is always an option, in the same sense that knocking down the house and rebuilding it with Cat6 wired in is also always an option, if you just ignore the reasons for not doing it. 

Another reason why it's not always an option is parents F§/%ING FORGETTING ABOUT HAVING THE CONTRACTORS WIRE UP ETHERNET DURING A HOUSE RECONSTRUCTION, forcing you to use powerline for the next 7 YEARS

[Oshino Shinobu]

4 minutes ago, vojta.pokorny said:

Another reason why it's not always an option is parents F§/%ING FORGETTING ABOUT HAVING THE CONTRACTORS WIRE UP ETHERNET DURING A HOUSE RECONSTRUCTION, forcing you to use powerline for the next 7 YEARS

Haha, the house I live in doesn't have any ethernet wired up, even though it was built 3 years ago. I ended up running about 250m total of Cat6 around the outside of the house to provide wired connections to the rooms that need it. 

[RoboTechnal]

21 minutes ago, rrubberr said:

ECK. Running a wire is always an option.

My router is downstairs, like down the stairs. My pc is upstairs. 

[Mr.Humble]

2 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Haha, the house I live in doesn't have any ethernet wired up, even though it was built 3 years ago. I ended up running about 250m total of Cat6 around the outside of the house to provide wired connections to the rooms that need it. 

You know whats best about it? Last year my parents did another reconstruction, this time I hounded them about it for long enough that they got wired ethernet to all the necessary places. Well now it's really REALLY F%/*ING helpful since I moved away for uni a year before that.

[stconquest]

I use a powerline adapter (TP-link 500).  I used to have wires running through hallways. 

 

My connection is 100+Mbs down, 10Mbs up.  With powerline, I am getting 40 down and 10 up.  40Mbs is fast enough for me so I switched.  Stability is decent.

 

I did borrow my brother's powerline adapter to test with before I bought though.

[RoboTechnal]

16 minutes ago, stconquest said:

 

My connection is 100+Mbs down, 10Mbs up.  

Are you saying your connecting was 100+ when you ran cables running through your hallway? Also what do I look for in my fuse box to see if powerline adapters would work? Circuit breakers how many?

[stconquest]

2 minutes ago, RoboTechnal said:

Are you saying your connecting was 100+ when you ran cables running through your hallway? Also what do I look for in my fuse box to see if powerline adapters would work? Circuit breakers how many?

My connection is over 100Mbs (download), if I connect directly to the modem with an ethernet cable.

 

I tested my wiring first by borrowing my brothers powerline kit.

[divito]

I originally bought a D-Link set to go from my office to the bedroom. There wasn't really a realistic way to route it with a cable, as my office-to-bedroom has a bathroom and closet in between, there's no type of attic access, and the walls/ceiling are plaster as it's quite an old home. It was just a massive amount easier to do powerline over attempting to hardwire.

A little while after that, I added a TP-Link model to a computer I built that sits between the dining room and living room (which I've connected to a TV with another HDMI cable).

I was skeptical at first given that this house was built in the 70s, as to whether the electrical and routing would hamper the connection. And while I've never benchmarked it, streaming Netflix and other HD content has had zero issues with either location. They are both AV500.
 

5 hours ago, RoboTechnal said:

Also what do I look for in my fuse box to see if powerline adapters would work? Circuit breakers how many?

You don't have to look for anything; it'll simply work. As to how well it works, that will depend on the electrical wiring. Given my personal experience and the house that I'm in, I find it very hard to believe people if they say it doesn't work. Most of the time, end consumers are morons anyways.

[RoboTechnal]

9 hours ago, divito said:

Most of the time, end consumers are morons anyways.

True, some of the people on Customer questions on Amazon are like: is this monitor compatible with Windows 10? Or: does this monitor have vesa mounts, freesync/gsync. 

Well maybe if you actually looked at the title, description, and previews of the product before you started asking questions. 

 

Back on topic: Which would be better?

getting a new wireless adapter that supports 802.11ac which is what I'm pretty sure my router supports 5ghz on. Or get this powerline adapter, the TP-LINK AV500. 

 

Both of them have TP-LINK's 2 year warranty.

[divito]

7 minutes ago, RoboTechnal said:

Back on topic: Which would be better?

getting a new wireless adapter that supports 802.11ac which is what I'm pretty sure my router supports 5ghz on. Or get this powerline adapter, the TP-LINK AV500. 

 

Both of them have TP-LINK's 2 year warranty.

Hard to say without knowing your place and application.

Given my house, wireless worked, but it wasn't as consistent as when I switched to powerline. I used to use wireless in the bedroom, and at the 2nd PC, as well as my PS4 which still uses wireless. They were (and the PS4 still is) inconsistent with wireless signal and I'd occasionally get some buffering no matter which adapter I tried. Since moving to powerline, I've had no buffering whatsoever. 

Now, you could have less obstructions and interference, and you'll experience no issues and good performance with wireless. If your place is similar to mine, you might not get reliable performance.

Depending on where you purchase from, test whichever you buy in as many situations as you can and take advantage of their return policy (generally 14 days). Then you can try the other option and see if it works any better.

[Thunderpup]

I just recently bought the TP- AV1200 and so far so good.

The set up took 10 minutes, but 8 minutes of those was me trying to get behind my computer desk.

 

i cannot really comment on the speed as i am using it to provide internet for my ps3, which doesn't have the best network card to begin with.   Also my setup is the best case scenario as the two outlets each adapter is pluged into are directly connected to each other. 

 

If you do end up getting a powerline adapter you should keep in mind that some are very bulky and can block the 2nd outlet.  Getting one with a pass through is best.

Also don't plug it into a surge protector!. 

[Remix]

21 hours ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

That's not true. It's often a better solution than WiFi, useful where running a wire is not an option. If the wiring in the building is crap, powerline isn't going to be great, but if the wiring is good, it can offer significantly faster and more reliable connections than WiFi. I used powerline for my PC before I got round to running ethernet around the house, it worked very well. 

 

Powerline can be a better solution for WiFi, but often times is not. I can say if Powerline is connected without frequent disconnects, it can be rock solid for gaming. Latency is very stable on a good link. Wireless generally speaking has fluctuations, but that's becoming less and less of a problem as everyone migrates to 5GHz (wider spectrum).

 

Here's a story. A family member went to the store, looking for equipment to put internet in a detached home probably 200ft away from the main house. The homes were connected via the same power company, same meters, etc... I was very hesitant that it would work, but they still decided to go through with it. Sure, it worked... but it could've worked 10 times better. The installed plugged it into a Power Strip, which was shocking that it worked to begin with... the speeds were atrocious. It was .5 Mbps down symmetrically with the Power Strip, and without it was like 3 Mbps. An improvement, but nothing to be crazy about. 

[RoboTechnal]

20 hours ago, divito said:

Hard to say without knowing your place and application.

Given my house, wireless worked, but it wasn't as consistent as when I switched to powerline. I used to use wireless in the bedroom, and at the 2nd PC, as well as my PS4 which still uses wireless. They were (and the PS4 still is) inconsistent with wireless signal and I'd occasionally get some buffering no matter which adapter I tried. Since moving to powerline, I've had no buffering whatsoever. 

Now, you could have less obstructions and interference, and you'll experience no issues and good performance with wireless. If your place is similar to mine, you might not get reliable performance.

Depending on where you purchase from, test whichever you buy in as many situations as you can and take advantage of their return policy (generally 14 days). Then you can try the other option and see if it works any better.

So last night I tested my wifi again in csgo deathmatch and at first it was at 80 ping, and then after a while it went up to 200 ping and then out of nowhere went up to 500 ping. Then it went down, and now fluctuates between 100-200 and sometimes 80-90. So, I hope this powerline adapter will lower the ping. 

Also, is it worth it paying $20 more for the AV600? It has a gigabit port and well, like the name, it has +100 mbps more than AV500. And the gigabit port looks different than the one on the AV500 and would that cause any wiring problems? Would I need to have something to be compatible with the gigabit, or is it just a different port and nothing else? 

[stconquest]

4 hours ago, RoboTechnal said:

So last night I tested my wifi again in csgo deathmatch and at first it was at 80 ping, and then after a while it went up to 200 ping and then out of nowhere went up to 500 ping. Then it went down, and now fluctuates between 100-200 and sometimes 80-90. So, I hope this powerline adapter will lower the ping. 

Also, is it worth it paying $20 more for the AV600? It has a gigabit port and well, like the name, it has +100 mbps more than AV500. And the gigabit port looks different than the one on the AV500 and would that cause any wiring problems? Would I need to have something to be compatible with the gigabit, or is it just a different port and nothing else? 

Can you in no way get a cable neatly to your location?  I say this because you are focused on gaming, where stability is desired.  A cable is the best way. 

 

I would grab a long 50tf-100ft cable (Cat5e or better, under $10) just for when you play games like CS:GO.  If a game is important, you switch to the cable to assure stability.  I have done this with League of Legends from time to time.

[RoboTechnal]

1 hour ago, stconquest said:

Can you in no way get a cable neatly to your location?  I say this because you are focused on gaming, where stability is desired.  A cable is the best way. 

 

I would grab a long 50tf-100ft cable (Cat5e or better, under $10) just for when you play games like CS:GO.  If a game is important, you switch to the cable to assure stability.  I have done this with League of Legends from time to time.

Well, my pc is upstairs and I would say it's around 10 meters away from my router if  both were on the same level. I feel like it would be annoying to run the cable up and down the steps each time I wanted to play. I also have dogs. But I could run it down the side of the steps, and I kind of want to be able to turn my pc on and have immediate results. There's a small possibility I could run it up the steps but like I said it would probably be a hassle. I probably repeated a lot of things mostly because I was in school, and I got on my phone before class and after class.

[stconquest]

10 minutes ago, RoboTechnal said:

Well, my pc is upstairs and I would say it's around 10 meters away from my router if  both were on the same level. I feel like it would be annoying to run the cable up and down the steps each time I wanted to play. I also have dogs. But I could run it down the side of the steps, and I kind of want to be able to turn my pc on and have immediate results. There's a small possibility I could run it up the steps but like I said it would probably be a hassle. I probably repeated a lot of things mostly because I was in school, and I got on my phone before class and after class.

Since it is a house, you could ask someone to help you run the cable properly through the walls and floor to proper outlets.  It is not that hard to do and could even be cheaper than a power line adapter. 

 

I am in a condo and everything is concrete.  I might one day run wire under the hardwood floors and behind the baseboards, but I was not up to it at the time.

[RoboTechnal]

3 hours ago, stconquest said:

Since it is a house, you could ask someone to help you run the cable properly through the walls and floor to proper outlets.  It is not that hard to do and could even be cheaper than a power line adapter. 

 

I am in a condo and everything is concrete.  I might one day run wire under the hardwood floors and behind the baseboards, but I was not up to it at the time.

Tearing down walls is easier? Since when? Also I have a hole in my wall from my door stopper being broken, and my wall just took too many hits. I really doubt it would be cheaper, because I would have to go up the wall from the router and then go about 10 meters horizontally, and then go up to get to the closest wall in my room. 

[Stygian Zenith]

@Oshino ShinobuIk this thread is old but same situation here, any recommendations 3 years later?

[SansVarnic]

9 hours ago, Stygian Zenith said:

@Oshino ShinobuIk this thread is old but same situation here, any recommendations 3 years later?

Not much has changed with power line networking, the same suggestions/ solutions will work today.

[Stygian Zenith]

10 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

Not much has changed with power line networking, the same suggestions/ solutions will work today.

thanks!