How to get Ethernet on the other side of my appartment

[joltx]

So I'm tired of my wifi. Signal is weak and I want to get Ethernet. But my PC room is quite far away from the modem/router. Have you an idea?

[ShadowCaptain]

1 minute ago, RoccoRiu5960 said:

So I'm tired of my wifi. Signal is weak and I want to get Ethernet. But my PC room is quite far away from the modem/router. Have you an idea?

powerline kit?

[Enderman]

Buy a long ethernet cable?

[joltx]

Ok but which one?

[joltx]

Just now, Enderman said:

Buy a long ethernet cable?

No way that is all the way on the other side of the building. That is unpractical. 

[Clanscorpia]

2 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Buy a long ethernet cable?

Signal degradation 

[AdmnPower]

Power line kits normally don't work well or at all if the two adapters are on separate breakers. Odds are, if it's as far away as it sounds like it is then the powerline kit probably won't work either. 

[joltx]

Just now, Clanscorpia said:

Signal degradation 

that too. I think I'm going to get a powerline.

[samcool55]

3 minutes ago, RoccoRiu5960 said:

No way that is all the way on the other side of the building. That is unpractical. 

I don't know what kind of building you have but what about taking the wire outside?

A normal ethernet cable is good up to 100m.

[done12many2]

4 minutes ago, RoccoRiu5960 said:

that too. I think I'm going to get a powerline.

 

You're not going to be happy with that if you are one separate breakers!

 

What signal degradation are you guys talking about?  @Enderman is right.  A long run is the way to go if you can do it.  Powerline adapters at long distances will probably be worse than your wireless signal.  

 

Tell us more about where your router is located and where you want the Ethernet.

[samcool55]

3 minutes ago, AdmnPower said:

Power line kits normally don't work well or at all if the two adapters are on separate breakers. Odds are, if it's as far away as it sounds like it is then the powerline kit probably won't work either. 

They usually work but they almost always suffer from dirty power.

The smallest jitter in wall power between 2 breakers can cause connection issues.

 

I have very clean wall power and even i have powerline issues. WIFI is for me more stable than powerline...

[Steampunk360]

I am running a 50 foot ethernet from my modem in the living room through my floor trim down the hall and it meets up to my office wireless router. I also have my Desktop, wifes laptop, printer and once in a while my friends hook up to it with wire when they bring their rigs. We all game and stream videos no problem. 

 

Its all in the modem and router for a good signal.

 

[edit: if it helps I am only running a CAT5e]

[Enderman]

25 minutes ago, RoccoRiu5960 said:

No way that is all the way on the other side of the building. That is unpractical. 

How is that impractical, just nail it to a wall and forget about it, it is pretty much invisible.

 

24 minutes ago, Clanscorpia said:

Signal degradation 

As long as it is less than 300ft there is no issue with signal degradation.

Signal degradation is something for wireless transmission, not digital.

[mariushm]

A wired connection (cat5e or better) is good for up to 105 meters. No signal degradation, no decrease in speed, you get full 1gbps up to 100+ meters. 

Just don't do extreme bends in the cable and use quality cable, not that crap CCA (copper clad aluminum) type of network cable. (CCA cables are made out of aluminum strands with a very thin layer of copper around the aluminum strands, which make them cheaper to manufacture but not so good for long distances)

 

Next option would be powerline adapters, but ideal only if both are on the same circuit. As others said, if they're on different breakers in the house, or you use often microwaves or high power stuff on the same circuit, the speed and latency will suffer.

 

 

[Clanscorpia]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

How is that impractical, just nail it to a wall and forget about it, it is pretty much invisible.

 

As long as it is less than 300ft there is no issue with signal degradation.

Signal degradation is something for wireless transmission, not digital.

I thought ethernet was analog? Or at least not digital

[mariushm]

No, coaxial cable was analogue (for TV, ISPs encode the data packets digitally on coaxial cable, these days even TV channels are digitally sent through coaxial cable).

 

Ethernet cable is digital, four pairs of wires sending bits through the wires.  For 100mbps, only 2 out of 4 pairs of wires are used, for 1gbps, all four pairs of wires inside a cable are used.

 

Network cards on both ends of the cable send the signals with enough power that signals won't be degraded at up to the distance in the standard, 105 meters. Some network cards even go as far as monitoring the signal quality and adjusting the power dynamically to save power when the cables are short or when the network device at the other end is equally powerful and cable of decoding the data without issues.

[MrDrWho13]

Do you have a loft or attic that you can put the Ethernet through? A cable is definitely the most reliable way to go.

I have a 40M Cat5e Ethernet cable and I'm getting the max speed possible from my ISP and router. (~50Mb/s)

[SageOfSpice]

What EXACTLY are you using in terms of a router right now, and how obscured is the path to the desired access point?

 

It's possible that a repeater could be used.

[SlipperyPete]

12 hours ago, RoccoRiu5960 said:

So I'm tired of my wifi. Signal is weak and I want to get Ethernet. But my PC room is quite far away from the modem/router. Have you an idea?

reach out to your ISP. some will move your router or wire a cable through your wall for cheap

[NumLock21]

Get a repeater so you can have a stronger wifi signal.

[AdmnPower]

17 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

Get a repeater so you can have a stronger wifi signal.

You have to be careful with these, they have to be placed correctly and even in a best case scenario they introduce another hop which increases your latency. Usually a symptom of this is a higher ping and seemingly laggy web browsing. 

[done12many2]

7 minutes ago, AdmnPower said:

You have to be careful with these, they have to be placed correctly and even in a best case scenario they introduce another hop which increases your latency. Usually a symptom of this is a higher ping and seemingly laggy web browsing. 

 

It's not just the latency increases that suck, it's the fact that they cut bandwidth in half due to design.  Generally speaking, repeaters are just garbage.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Clanscorpia said:

Signal degradation 

What? A good ethernet cable is able to be run 100m (That's ~330 ft for the yanks). Signal degradation should not be an issue.

 

1 hour ago, RoccoRiu5960 said:

So I'm tired of my wifi. Signal is weak and I want to get Ethernet. But my PC room is quite far away from the modem/router. Have you an idea?

What kind of heating do you have? In my old apartment, we had the heater running along one wall, passing through each room (It was water boiler radiator heating), so to make room for the pipe, small holes were already cut underneath the metal housing for the rad.

 

I was easily able to wire every room by using those existing holes, and hide all the cables nicely.

[ThomasD]

6 hours ago, Enderman said:

How is that impractical, just nail it to a wall and forget about it, it is pretty much invisible.

 

As long as it is less than 300ft there is no issue with signal degradation.

Signal degradation is something for wireless transmission, not digital.

I understand that pulling wire through walls can be daunting, and problematic if you do not own the building.  But why more people don't do this is beyond me.  Yes, it's not visually perfect, but it's quick, easy, easily removable, and it works so much better than any wireless. 

 

[Enderman]

19 minutes ago, ThomasD said:

I understand that pulling wire through walls can be daunting, and problematic if you do not own the building.  But why more people don't do this is beyond me.  Yes, it's not visually perfect, but it's quick, easy, easily removable, and it works so much better than any wireless. 

 

White cable + some cable mounts = nearly invisible, and only a few minutes or hours of work depending how long the cable is.

Some people think of "ugly blue twisted ethernet cable lying on floor" when you tell them to use wired, but honestly it doesn't have to be like that.