A cheap ethernet solution

[Teik]

My house was build in 2006 and I want to get ethernet. I have looked at like rerouting my house or getting new cat 5e headers. The problem lies in that I don't know if my house is has cat 5e in the walls. If there are any other possible solutions that would be handy.

[Crunchy Dragon]

The cheapest one would be get a LAN cable that will reach from your computer to your router.

[TomW0102]

Powerline networking is fairly inexpensive and easy to use.

[paddy-stone]

Test what is in your walls right now then? for speed I mean, that would give you a good idea. Hook up a PC one end port and another at another maybe? then send a big file or 2 through to one from the other, and note the speeds, it can be bogged down by drives used and such, but it'll still giev you an idea of what you can handle right now. If you have outlets, then you must have a central router too, is the router the problem, like a really old router/switch or whatever used in your network?

Also what made you write this topic? I mean I can't see what the gist of your post is really, do you have problems with the speed of the current outlets? are you talking internet speed or network speeds?

[KenjiUmino]

13 minutes ago, Teik said:

The problem lies in that I don't know if my house is has cat 5e in the walls.

does it have RJ45 ethernet wall sockets ? if it has then pull one out and look at the back side - if there are only 4 wires connected to the ethernet socket then 100mbits is all you get. if there is 8 wires you might be able to do gigabit. if it has RJ45 sockets but the wires are connected to the 4 middle pins of the socket then it isn't even ethernet.

[Metal_Kitty]

Powerline adapters are one fairly reliable method, however... 

I would recommend getting into your loft space and purchasing a Cisco Switch you can install up there (if you have loft conversion - then find somewhere suitable) 

Failrly inexpensive and if "Cisco" scares you then don't worry - it's can all be used GUI based and the suggestion i am going to post here is small compact has either 8 or 12 port variants,  and is POE and Gigabit. ports all configurable to enable disable or even apply bandwidth restrictions if required...

https://www.amazon.com/SYSTEMS-8-Port-Gigabit-Desktop-SG110D08HPNA/dp/B00V8IZ5X0

this is just one possibility. there are other suggestions out there available but if you require everything on ethernet then i would look at considering a 12 / 16 / 24 port switch instead... 

Installing ethernet cables through the walls might require a specialist if you don't know what your doing - but getting a simple plastic wire covering that you can run around the walls might be an easier and cheaper solution if you don't have cabling there already. 
https://www.amazon.com/Legrand-Wiremold-Raceways-Management-Channels/dp/B0015EDVVU  you might be able to find a cheaper /  bigger / longer options though... 
 

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, Teik said:

My house was build in 2006 and I want to get ethernet. I have looked at like rerouting my house or getting new cat 5e headers. The problem lies in that I don't know if my house is has cat 5e in the walls. If there are any other possible solutions that would be handy.

Running Ethernet cables is easy to difficult. It depends on how your house is built. For example I have a two story home. Getting Ethernet on the first story is easy, because we just go down to the basement and I can run the cables up the walls and its pretty simple. Getting Ethernet to the second floor, not so much. If you have a basement or crawlspace, thats where you can easily run cables. Also, an attic works as well.