Hello! I've been planning on reworking my home network and have run into a few areas where it'd be great to get some feedback from those with first hand experience. For starters, here's what I've got going on: I rent a two story house with a basement along with two others people (soon to be three). Between us we have four PCs, two PS3s, and a couple smartphones and expect another PC and PS3 soon. Our current setup involves a cable modem in the basement for internet access (20Mb broadband). This is then connected to a Linksys WRT54GL wireless router (supports 802.11b/g and has four 10/100M ethernet ports). The three PCs are connected to this via a wired connection, one via wireless and the PS3s are connected wirelessly with one on the first floor and another on the second. The problem: due to cable restrictions three of the PCs are placed in the basement, my HTPC connects wirelessly from my room on the top floor. As I'm sure you all can understand it's not exactly ideal having three geeks cooped up in a basement together nor is it ideal travelling down two flights of stairs to get to my main PC. As such, I've been thinking about moving my gaming PC up to my bedroom to serve as a dual gaming/media PC and convert the HTPC into a file server. So why is this a problem? I'll need a good internet connection. I'd love to run Cat5e through the house but it's a rental so no going through walls/ceilings and it's too far to lay cable in the open practically. I recently refreshed a year lease so buying components specifically for this situation isn't an issue, the only requirement is maintaining three ethernet connections in the basement and 802.11g wireless. What I've come up with is two options: -The first, I buy a router and wirelesss adapter supporting 802.11n and install the adapter in my gaming PC. The HTPC (and possible NAS) supports N via a built in adapter on the mobo. I simply move the PC up into my room and connect wirelessly. Speeds to my HTPC are increased, speeds to the PS3s are increased, and speeds to my gaming PC are theoretically increased, and if the router has gigabit ethernet ports the speed between the basement PCs is increased. This costs roughly $70-80 for a new router and $20-30 for an adapter. However, I'm worried about keeping a stable connection for gaming as this in the majority of my PC usage. I've never tried gaming over a wireless connection, particularly not 802.11n if that makes much a difference, but have heard some troubling tales. -The second, I buy a pair of HomePlug jobbies and a gigabit switch. I pop one of the plugs in the basement and plug it into the router, then pop the other one into my room and connect it to the gigabit switch which in turn connects to both of my PCs and my PS3. A pair of homeplugs should be about $70-80, the switch I can possibly get for free. The advantages: decent speed connecting my PCs and PS3 to the internet and great speed connecting all systems in my room (the only systems I transfer files between). The only downside is that the PS3 on the first floor and all other wireless devices are still at G speeds, but this can be remedied by buying a better router in the future. However, I've also never used HomePlug and have not always seen the best reports on it for gaming. Note that it wouldn't be used for file transfering, just gaming and downloading so it'd only need to keep up with 20Mb broadband, stay connected, and keep low latency. So the question: which one is likely to provide the best experience?
I've home plug at the moment but it keeps "breaking" so basically I would not get a signal from the router, it worked for a while but no more. I thought maybe it was fautly but it still works from time to time I just have to sync it all the time, it's frustrating and I went back to wireless, if you have a decent router your latency shouldn't be that bad
Out of curiosity, what brand of homeplugs do you have? While looking at pricing there were quite a few brands with names I'd never heard of and no reviews but were the cheapest. Going the homeplug route I'd probably be looking at Asus plugs for $10 more each, just to get the known quality of Asus products and customer service.
I have 6x Netgear 200mbps home plugs in my house and to be fair, they are pretty darn good. never let me down...
I'm gonna be a cheeky ******* and do this: Looks like 200Mbps. Joking aside, I'm assuming since the two of you don't have complaints that you've actually gotten speeds around that number? Personally I only need to out-do my internet's speed so the 85Mbps versions should be fine but it's nice to have peace of mind. Also future proofing for if 100Mb broadband ever reaches out here (20 miles from Seattle... across deep salt water ). Newegg's currently got a Netgear 200Mbps homeplug kit on sale, just my luck! It's also got excellent reviews, checked the listing for the single plugs and it also has good reviews save one person giving it 1 star because they only bought one and, amazingly enough, it doesn't work like that. Seems that's going to be my answer, thanks for the input all!
Homeplug any day of the week. Just got a set of 200mbps TP link ones from Amazon, and I can finally stream HD from the NAS without any jitters. Heaven.
Oops, I dun goofed. Did a little Googling and came up with some links. Theoretical, tested, theory/claimed. Seems safe to say 40Mbps as only one brand failed to reach this on the second link.
No, but I know that I have them connected via powerboards, which you aren't supposed to do and I get 100Mbps and can stream 1080p without any problems which I could never do with my wireless N connection @ 72mbps.
Depends entirely on your Homeplug and more importantly the quality of your home wiring. 100Mbps homeplugs on decent wiring should be able to hit near Fast Ethernet speeds but overall throughput will be in the region of 4-8MB/s. Watch out for 200Mbps Homeplugs though. The "200Mbps" is often a marketing ploy as the homeplug itself only contains a Fast ethernet hardware. The transmit and receive speeds are added together to get the 200Mbps rating. The same applies for 500Mbps models. In the OP's case going over multiple floors with homeplugs could prove problematic if the floors are on seperate "rings". If the connection has to bridge a ring it will slow dramatically. I don't know if this is such a problem in the US but I know in the UK, older properties will have issues. Wireless N could be a possibility here as depiste not being perfect it will be alot better than a poor homeplug on poor home wiring.
I used homeplug from home to barn conversion (read 200+ meters) no problems. But I did get the name brand Delovo AV series which are pricy but get best reviews. Note Homeplugs use your power cables so it all depends on how good/old they are. (Our connection was wired through 2 Mains boxes but over 3 phase high quality cables)
I went ahead and ordered the kit linked above, the same model was tested in one of the other links and averaged 44.8Mbps which is plenty for me. The house is only a year old so I'm fairly confident in the wiring even across the house.
