20Mb/s limitation on my powerline adapter

[Spork829]

So I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to networking. Since my router and PC are about as far away from each other as possible in my house, I've been using wifi, but it seems rather inconsistent. Instability, frequent ping spikes, and the like. So today I tried swapping to a powerline adapter. It seems to be much more consistent in terms of sudden spikes, but I'm only getting about 20Mb/s download. I get between 50 and 150Mb/s download on wifi, depending on how much Comcast likes me at a given time. So... is this just a limitation of powerline? I noticed when looking through ethernet settings that it says connection speed: 100Mb/s, but supposedly it's Intel Gigabit LAN, so maybe there's a setting I should change somewhere in there?

[ProjectBox153]

If it's as far away in the house as it can be, that's probably the issue. Powerline from one room to the next room over works great for me, but across the house (and only halfway, mind you) gets me about 8Mb/s.

[Spork829]

Just now, Jamiec1130 said:

If it's as far away in the house as it can be, that's probably the issue. Powerline from one room to the next room over works great for me, but across the house (and only halfway, mind you) gets me about 8Mb/s.

The powerline itself shouldn't have to travel that far. My room is actually right above the room with the router, it's just that my parents are not keen on me running Ethernet through the ceiling/floor, so a cable would have to go up and around basically the entire house. 

[Dargenfire]

2 minutes ago, Spork829 said:

The powerline itself shouldn't have to travel that far. My room is actually right above the room with the router, it's just that my parents are not keen on me running Ethernet through the ceiling/floor, so a cable would have to go up and around basically the entire house. 

Running a really long CAT cable would still net you bettter speeds, especially if you go wiith CAT6A, with it's thicker insulation allowing for higher bandwidth over a fairly long distance.

 

If you'll need to have part of the cable run outside, get an external-rated cable.

[dogetorhue]

If they're on different circuits then the signal will have to travel all the way to the breaker box and back. Try different outlets on both ends.

[Oshino Shinobu]

What's the model of the powerline adaptor? 

 

Powerline is dependant on the quality of wiring, amount of interference and distance (in terms of wiring, not just as a straight line, point to point) between the adaptors. You can try different sockets to see if speeds improve but you may just have a bad situation for powerline. 

 

I'd really recommend running a cable if you can. It will always result in the best speed and reliability. You can do gigabit up to 100m with CAT5e and up, so even if you have to run it around the house, it's unlikely the run would be too long. (a football pitch is about 100m, just to give you an idea of how long that actually is)

[Beowulff83]

17 minutes ago, Spork829 said:

The powerline itself shouldn't have to travel that far. My room is actually right above the room with the router, it's just that my parents are not keen on me running Ethernet through the ceiling/floor, so a cable would have to go up and around basically the entire house.

if you are sitting right above the router, you shouldn't be having an issue with the wifi unless something else is wrong

[Donut417]

17 minutes ago, Spork829 said:

The powerline itself shouldn't have to travel that far. My room is actually right above the room with the router, it's just that my parents are not keen on me running Ethernet through the ceiling/floor, so a cable would have to go up and around basically the entire house. 

You dont know for a fact how those power lines are ran. At least in the US, each room is generally on its own circuit. For all you know, the data has to travel to the breaker box and then to another breaker to the other room. Thats the draw back to power line adapters. If they work, they tend to be more stable, but speed wise you can get a lot less. 

[Spork829]

 

33 minutes ago, Beowulff83 said:

if you are sitting right above the router, you shouldn't be having an issue with the wifi unless something else is wrong

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's usable, only rarely spikes up really high, but my ping is just far more consistent on ethernet. 

33 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

You dont know for a fact how those power lines are ran. At least in the US, each room is generally on its own circuit. For all you know, the data has to travel to the breaker box and then to another breaker to the other room. Thats the draw back to power line adapters. If they work, they tend to be more stable, but speed wise you can get a lot less. 

 

35 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

What's the model of the powerline adaptor? 

 

Powerline is dependant on the quality of wiring, amount of interference and distance (in terms of wiring, not just as a straight line, point to point) between the adaptors. You can try different sockets to see if speeds improve but you may just have a bad situation for powerline. 

 

I'd really recommend running a cable if you can. It will always result in the best speed and reliability. You can do gigabit up to 100m with CAT5e and up, so even if you have to run it around the house, it's unlikely the run would be too long. (a football pitch is about 100m, just to give you an idea of how long that actually is)

 

50 minutes ago, Dargenfire said:

Running a really long CAT cable would still net you bettter speeds, especially if you go wiith CAT6A, with it's thicker insulation allowing for higher bandwidth over a fairly long distance.

 

If you'll need to have part of the cable run outside, get an external-rated cable.

 

49 minutes ago, dogetorhue said:

If they're on different circuits then the signal will have to travel all the way to the breaker box and back. Try different outlets on both ends.

I'll need longer Ethernet cables than what I have on hand to test out different outlets, but I may try that. Unfortunately, the parents are also not keen on me running Ethernet through the walls to the outside (though both rooms share an exterior wall so that is feasible), nor do they want a cable running that whole length through the house, which is why I've been stuck with wifi for so long.

 

Edit: also it's a TP-Link adapter, I don't have the packaging and it doesn't say the model anywhere on it though. 

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, Spork829 said:

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's usable, only rarely spikes up really high, but my ping is just far more consistent on ethernet. 

 

 

 

I'll need longer Ethernet cables than what I have on hand to test out different outlets, but I may try that. Unfortunately, the parents are also not keen on me running Ethernet through the walls to the outside (though both rooms share an exterior wall so that is feasible), nor do they want a cable running that whole length through the house, which is why I've been stuck with wifi for so long.

 

Edit: also it's a TP-Link adapter, I don't have the packaging and it doesn't say the model anywhere on it though. 

If you have coax in both locations you can look in to moca. Moca uses the coax like Ethernet. Its a better standard than powerline as Coax was designed to carry data. Moca will coexist with Cable and Internet on the Coax wire, as its uses bands of 1 Ghz or greater. The only issue with moca is the need for a POE filter on your main line coming in. Ive also heard that putting filters on all items connected to coax might be wise, as not all stuff has moca filters built in. You also need spliters that can go up to 2 Ghz as moca uses 1 to 1.7 Ghz currently from what I read. After that you should be good. A pair of moca adapters is like $160. Speed will probably be better than anything seen on WiFI and Power line. 

[Spork829]

44 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

If you have coax in both locations you can look in to moca. Moca uses the coax like Ethernet. Its a better standard than powerline as Coax was designed to carry data. Moca will coexist with Cable and Internet on the Coax wire, as its uses bands of 1 Ghz or greater. The only issue with moca is the need for a POE filter on your main line coming in. Ive also heard that putting filters on all items connected to coax might be wise, as not all stuff has moca filters built in. You also need spliters that can go up to 2 Ghz as moca uses 1 to 1.7 Ghz currently from what I read. After that you should be good. A pair of moca adapters is like $160. Speed will probably be better than anything seen on WiFI and Power line. 

No coax up to my room unfortunately. Thanks for the suggestion though, I didn't know about Moca.

[Donut417]

10 hours ago, Spork829 said:

No coax up to my room unfortunately. Thanks for the suggestion though, I didn't know about Moca.

Thats the issue. Not many do. Which is why there is only like 1 company making moca 2.0 adapters. The only people using moca are cable and satellite providers as they use it for whole home DVR.