PC Wireless Adapter Advice

[Aquinus]

Or do it ghetto style with cables lying on the floor

You obviously don't have a young child running around like I do.

 

[eidairaman1]

Yup trip hazard to the kid and damage to the ethernet adapters...

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

I have 15m of cable over a 5m run, so 5 meters on each end in case someone snags it.

I do have "little kids" as in my 7 year old sister and 10 year old brother running around. But they are probably old enough to understand what a cable is and that you should not trip on it or pull it.

 

[Aquinus]

I have 15m of cable over a 5m run, so 5 meters on each end in case someone snags it.

I do have "little kids" as in my 7 year old sister and 10 year old brother running around. But they are probably old enough to understand what a cable is and that you should not trip on it or pull it.

My 2 year old daughter don't know that and I would have to run a cable across the living room and into my office, which is a problem in my case. Not to mention that I think it would be an eye sore, but that's me. At some point in the future I'm just going to pull up floor boards in the attic and run the cabling through the wall but I don't need that yet.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

Well it's a choice about what you are willing to sacrifice in the end, and it depends on each person/situation.

 

[remixedcat]

most of my stuff is wireless cept my main desktop. i also got a smart tv and it's wireless too. most of my stuff is 5Ghz. I even have my aruba aps set to "force 5Ghz" with the band steering.

 

[Aquinus]

Well it's a choice about what you are willing to sacrifice in the end, and it depends on each person/situation.

Very true but, with a full signal on 5Ghz you're not sacrificing too much. At least I can use all of my bandwidth. I can't do that with the power line adapter. All in all, the only time it would benefit (right now) would be transfers between my tower and my server. I can deal with 150Mbps in each direction. Although if Comcast bumps their speeds again, I'll have a lot more incentive to run and invest in the bulk CAT-6 to do it. It would be a project for the spring if I did that relatively soon.

 

[newtekie1]

The Powerline vs. Wireless debate is tough. I will say, that the success of either depends greatly on each individual situation. There are times where wireless will be better and other times where powerline will be better. A lot of it comes down to how good of a wireless signal you can get. For example: I was just at a client, their barn, which they converted to a guest house for their son, is far enough away from their house that they only get 1-2 bars of wireless N signal from the router in the house. And even though it says the connection is 150Mb/s, transfer rates are ~1MB/s and pings are super high and there is pretty high packet loss(over 15%). I plugged a 500Mbps powerline kit in, one end right next to the router in their basement and the other end in the barn and it works so much better. Transfers are now in the 9-10MB/s range and pings are back down to a normal level with no packet loss.

However, the reverse can also be the case. If you have a good wireless N signal(5GHz or 2.4GHz), it will generally outperform the powerline adapters. Though I'm still waiting to try the new powerline adapters that basically use the MIMO technology to see if they stand any chance against a good wireless signal.

No 5Ghz tho on that adapter...

In my experience, 5GHz is great in an open area, but the signal fades very quickly when it has to pass through walls. So in most home settings, 5GHz is useless unless the router is in the same room with you. So getting an adapter that is 2.4GHz only for a desktop 2 floors away from the router isn't a problem, IMO.

 

[eidairaman1]

The 200 Meg Power Adapters can handle Uverse Wired Boxes and those who want their pc in a spot with out a tv in area.

There is this for spare coax jacks in a home


http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001N85NMI/?tag=tec06d-20 (I believe they use the latest hpna standard)

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

Just a bump for the cable hype

IMO there is no point in spending a lot on wireless adapters. As long as you don't get some full on el cheapo thing you'll not be losing out much.

 

[eidairaman1]

Just a bump for the cable hype

IMO there is no point in spending a lot on wireless adapters. As long as you don't get some full on el cheapo thing you'll not be losing out much.

fyi i worked in telecom triplay svc. Uverse tv boxes could use coax (Latest hpna standard) or ethernet. What was interesting is you could use a coax to ethernet adapter to run a pc off of the coax line. If your home has plentiful coax jacks but no cat5 it can cost alot to have those lines ran especially in a 2 story home if you attempt wall drops.

 

[newtekie1]

There is this for spare coax jacks in a home


http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001N85NMI/?tag=tec06d-20 (I believe they use the latest hpna standard)

Wait, so $1200 for "up to 270Mbps"...why would anyone even consider this as an option?!?

 

[eidairaman1]

Wait, so $1200 for "up to 270Mbps"...why would anyone even consider this as an option?!?

There are several other makers of them, that was just 1 example of coax to ethernet adapters

 

[newtekie1]

There are several other makers of them, that was just 1 example of coax to ethernet adapters

Yeah, I looked a few up on amazon. Still a little price though for only 250-270Mbps. 500Mbps powerline adapters are still cheaper from what I can see, and 1000Mbps powerline adapters are only $130 for a pair.

 

[Aquinus]

Yeah, I looked a few up on amazon. Still a little price though for only 250-270Mbps. 500Mbps powerline adapters are still cheaper from what I can see, and 1000Mbps powerline adapters are only $130 for a pair.

My 500Mbps powerline adapter claims to be connected at 200Mbit up and down and a speed test shows how I only get like 57Mbps. While it works, it definitely can't utilize my 105Mbit connection or even achieve the speeds it claims it can reach. Interesting solution but I think they vastly overestimate how much bandwidth you really get out of it.

5Ghz wi-fi will double my download speed versus the powerline adapter and the Netgears say I have a solid connection on the powerline, not quite sure what to think.

 

[newtekie1]

My 500Mbps powerline adapter claims to be connected at 200Mbit up and down and a speed test shows how I only get like 57Mbps. While it works, it definitely can't utilize my 105Mbit connection or even achieve the speeds it claims it can reach. Interesting solution but I think they vastly overestimate how much bandwidth you really get out of it.

5Ghz wi-fi will double my download speed versus the powerline adapter and the Netgears say I have a solid connection on the powerline, not quite sure what to think.

Like I said before, it all depends on the situation.

In my home, the 500Mb/s powerline is faster than 5GHz WirelessN, but slower than 2.4GHz WirelessN. But none of the 3 will take advantage of my 100Mb/s internet connection. I have a pair of the 1000Mb/s powerline adapter on order, I hope they at least get close to 100Mb/s. The old powerline adapters only use one of the 3 wires in the outlet to transmit data, the new ones are supposed to use two wires. We'll see.

 

[eidairaman1]

Theres a distance limit on powerline adapters. Also they cannot be plugged into a powerstrip they work best if they are on same breaker too.

 

[Jetster]

With power-line adapters you have to look at the specs carefully. First you want a gigabyte port. Your not going to get 500mb with a 10/100 connector. Many of the manufactures do this. The others part is your house and its wiring or rather its panel. A 3 phase cross over will cut your stream %50. To cross one breaker you will loose about 20% So if you have a 25Mb line and its going threw a 3 phase switch it will end up about 8Mb. Which would be about the same as wireless. However latency would be much less. Now these test are based on results I have and my limited education on electrical. Your results my very

 

[remixedcat]

500mbps is the backplane speed.

I got two rated at 500 but they max out at 232 even just a room away on a good circuit.

 

[Aquinus]

With power-line adapters you have to look at the specs carefully. First you want a gigabyte port. Your not going to get 500mb with a 10/100 connector. Many of the manufactures do this. The others part is your house and its wiring or rather its panel. A 3 phase cross over will cut your stream %50. To cross one breaker you will loose about 20% So if you have a 25Mb line and its going threw a 3 phase switch it will end up about 8Mb. Which would be about the same as wireless. However latency would be much less. Now these test are based on results I have and my limited education on electrical. Your results my very

It has a 1gbps port on it.

500mbps is the backplane speed.

I got two rated at 500 but they max out at 232 even just a room away on a good circuit.

Yes, but the utility will say something like this:

Windows will say this:

...and SpeedTest.net will say this:

...and when I slap my USB wi-fi adapter in, I get this:

...and this on SpeedTest.net

I know that wi-fi is measured as full agregate bandwidth, so in reality it can't do more than 150Mbps in either direction, the power line adapter just doesn't make sense. Either that or Netgear's utility is full of it and it's marketing BS but I've never seen the speeds that it claims I should be getting.

 

[eidairaman1]

Drawback to wifi is spectrum congestion and they can be jammed out eventually. The powerline adapters work as an interim cheap and convenient solution just like wifi without having to go through an expense of running lines.

 

[Aquinus]

Drawback to wifi is spectrum congestion and they can be jammed out eventually. The powerline adapters work as an interim cheap and convenient solution just like wifi without having to go through an expense of running lines.

Very true. Fortunately I live next to a park and on an intersection of a street, so I only see the tenant below me's wi-fi which is only on 2.4Ghz, the router is on "auto" for channel so I'm assuming it's picking the least congested one. As for 5Ghz, hardly anyone near me has it, so I take full advantage of channel 161. Both bands where I live are pretty wide open.

I should also note my wi-fi AP is in the opposite room. The signal is cross a room, going through a wall and a couch to get to the AP. Very little signal loss. I suspect the overall range of 5Ghz is more limited as higher frequency waves tend to attenuate faster than lower frequency waves.

On a side note: My gateway was acting up yesterday. Today I diagnosed it down to my trusty Radeon HD 2600 XT failing. One of the few GDDR4 video cards to ever make it to production... I threw the GeForce 8600 GTS I got from Norton in a crunching rig a while back into it instead, not like it's doing anything with video being a gateway.

 

[remixedcat]

The numbers I posted were tests with LAN Speed Test.

 

[Aquinus]

The numbers I posted were tests with LAN Speed Test.

Copying over Samba or SSH makes no difference, the download speed I got in the speed test is what I get on the LAN too. The simple fact is that they're overstating the speed they claim I have.

 

[eidairaman1]

Your gateway as in a pc or a modem, you got me a little lossed there.

Very true. Fortunately I live next to a park and on an intersection of a street, so I only see the tenant below me's wi-fi which is only on 2.4Ghz, the router is on "auto" for channel so I'm assuming it's picking the least congested one. As for 5Ghz, hardly anyone near me has it, so I take full advantage of channel 161. Both bands where I live are pretty wide open.

I should also note my wi-fi AP is in the opposite room. The signal is cross a room, going through a wall and a couch to get to the AP. Very little signal loss. I suspect the overall range of 5Ghz is more limited as higher frequency waves tend to attenuate faster than lower frequency waves.

On a side note: My gateway was acting up yesterday. Today I diagnosed it down to my trusty Radeon HD 2600 XT failing. One of the few GDDR4 video cards to ever make it to production... I threw the GeForce 8600 GTS I got from Norton in a crunching rig a while back into it instead, not like it's doing anything with video being a gateway.