Converting phone jack to Ethernet jack?

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rednal

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Dec 9, 2012
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Recently, I bought and built my first gaming PC. I completed the build a few weeks ago and installed Windows over winter break however I had to use my mom's wireless adapter because I didn't have anyway to connect to the internet. While using wireless, I was averaging around 1-1.3mbps downloads. Since I decided I was going to build the computer, I planned to use a wired connection instead of wireless since it would help reduce lag. I thought I had an ethernet jack in my room however I later found out it was a phone port and I couldn't use it. I was wondering if it was possible to convert the phone jack to an Ethernet jack. From my understanding, it is possible if a Cat-5e cable is in the jack. Is this true? I haven't removed the plating because it's in a hard spot to get to. My house is around 13 years old if that matters. Is this a good tutorial for converting it, if not can you link to one? From my understanding also, I would need to buy something like this and this. Is that correct? How easy would this be for a fifteen year old to do? If it turns out it doesn't have a Cat-5e cable, how can I get one?
All help is greatly appreciated!
 
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nsafreak

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Oct 16, 2001
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For a house that's 13 years old there's a pretty good chance that it's not CAT5 cable at all at best it might be CAT 3. The tutorial you linked would only work if you had CAT5 cable in your walls. The problem is even if it is CAT5 in your walls it's going to be going back to the telco junction box and terminating there. In order to run a wired connection you'd have to do a whole new run of CAT5 from your room to wherever the router is at. I doubt that you have the skillset to properly fish cable through drywall from your room to wherever the router is at. So that leaves you with two options:

1) Run CAT5 from your room to the router and tuck it under the carpet if you can (if your parents allow you to do it).
2) Get an ethernet over powerline pair of adapters. These used to be not so great but they've improved a good deal and will be the easiest way to get a wired connection to your PC.
 
AnonymouseUser

AnonymouseUser

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May 14, 2003
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What router/adapter is in use? I ask because it may be easier to just upgrade one or both and be done with it.
 
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rednal

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Dec 9, 2012
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I'm using whatever router is included with the At&t service (not sure of the name or specs). I have one of these but I'm not sure if I can do anything with it. What do you mean by upgrade both or one?
 
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nsafreak

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Turns out that the op has two threads essentially on the same topic, the other thread is here: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2294110 . The adapter he's using is the PLE400 from Linksys which seems to generally get good reviews. After reading through both threads it could simply be that his speed is as fast as his current plan from his ISP which seems to be AT&T DSL. It's possible that it could be the powerline adapter though in order to test it out we'd need the op to do some transfers over the local network between his PC and another PC.
 
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rednal

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Dec 9, 2012
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I actually just bought this pair of powerline adapters yesterday and hooked them up. As I type this, I'm attempting to download Garry's Mod on Steam and I'm averaging only 100kbps. I did a test on testmy.net and I'm getting 1.1 mbps. I thought that with the powerline adapter I chose, I would getting a lot better than this. If I were to get a professional in hear to fish a Cat5 cable through dry wall, how much would it cost? Are there other options to get a wired connection?
 
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rednal

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Sorry I didn't know I wasn't supposed to do that. I'm somewhat new to the forums so sorry if I messed up.
 
AnonymouseUser

AnonymouseUser

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rednal said:
I'm using whatever router is included with the At&t service (not sure of the name or specs).
Click to expand...

2Wire wireless routers are quite common with AT&T.

rednal said:
I have one of these but I'm not sure if I can do anything with it. What do you mean by upgrade both or one?
Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with that router, but it's probably as good or better than the AT&T router. See if you can use it as an Access Point/Wireless Bridge. If so, set it up, place it next to your computer, and plug your network cable into one of the LAN ports.
 
AnonymouseUser

AnonymouseUser

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nsafreak said:
Turns out that the op has two threads essentially on the same topic, the other thread is here: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2294110 . The adapter he's using is the PLE400 from Linksys which seems to generally get good reviews. After reading through both threads it could simply be that his speed is as fast as his current plan from his ISP which seems to be AT&T DSL. It's possible that it could be the powerline adapter though in order to test it out we'd need the op to do some transfers over the local network between his PC and another PC.
Click to expand...

Well this helps, but also confuses.

rednal, when you say "mom's wireless adapter", are you using a wireless 802.11 b/g/n adapter, or this powerline adapter?
 
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nsafreak

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Oct 16, 2001
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Another thought I had was that Steam could be getting hammered and that's why the op has a slow connection. So I started a download of one of the games I purchased during the sale and I'm averaging 3.2MBps or about 35mbps with a peak of 4.1MBps (megabytes per second as opposed to megabits) so Steam's servers (at least in my region) seem to be ok. Have you checked to make sure that you're in the correct region? Have you tried downloading from sites other than Steam? The download region is in settings under Download + Cloud. You probably still want to test out your local LAN speed. There are a lot of tools out there to do this but the simplest one seems to be here: http://www.totusoft.com/downloads.html
 
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rednal

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Dec 9, 2012
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AnonymouseUser said:
Well this helps, but also confuses.

rednal, when you say "mom's wireless adapter", are you using a wireless 802.11 b/g/n adapter, or this powerline adapter?
Click to expand...
Now I'm using the powerline adapters I bought yesterday however before that I was using my mom's 802.11 b/g/n adapter.
 
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rednal

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Dec 9, 2012
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nsafreak said:
Another thought I had was that Steam could be getting hammered and that's why the op has a slow connection. So I started a download of one of the games I purchased during the sale and I'm averaging 3.2MBps or about 35mbps with a peak of 4.1MBps (megabytes per second as opposed to megabits) so Steam's servers (at least in my region) seem to be ok. Have you checked to make sure that you're in the correct region? Have you tried downloading from sites other than Steam? The download region is in settings under Download + Cloud. You probably still want to test out your local LAN speed. There are a lot of tools out there to do this but the simplest one seems to be here: http://www.totusoft.com/downloads.html
Click to expand...
I'm sure I'm in the correct region. I downloaded the test however I'm not sure how to use it.
 
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rednal

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Dec 9, 2012
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nsafreak said:
Another thought I had was that Steam could be getting hammered and that's why the op has a slow connection. So I started a download of one of the games I purchased during the sale and I'm averaging 3.2MBps or about 35mbps with a peak of 4.1MBps (megabytes per second as opposed to megabits) so Steam's servers (at least in my region) seem to be ok. Have you checked to make sure that you're in the correct region? Have you tried downloading from sites other than Steam? The download region is in settings under Download + Cloud. You probably still want to test out your local LAN speed. There are a lot of tools out there to do this but the simplest one seems to be here: http://www.totusoft.com/downloads.html
Click to expand...
Now it's not showing me the test results
 
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nsafreak

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Oct 16, 2001
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It is odd that your local upload is a lot faster than your local download however it's still plenty fast enough to do fast downloads over steam. What do you currently show as test results from speedtest.net ?
 
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nsafreak

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Oct 16, 2001
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AnonymouseUser said:
That's way too fast even for Gigabit network.

rednal, make sure you are choosing a folder on a networked PC, not your own! ;)
Click to expand...

Yeah, I just used google's handy conversion tool and realized that I was way off in reading your speeds. There's no way you could be getting those kind of speeds on your local network, you need to do the test again.
 
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nsafreak

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Oct 16, 2001
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rednal said:
:$ Well that's embarrassing. Does this seem more likely?
Click to expand...

Those are some pretty poor results although they're at least more realistic. Would it be possible to hook your PC directly into your wireless router by moving it and plugging it in via CAT 5 or temporarily running a long cable? Also, you do have both powerline adapters plugged directly into the wall outlets and not surge protectors, right?
 
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rednal

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Dec 9, 2012
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nsafreak said:
Those are some pretty poor results although they're at least more realistic. Would it be possible to hook your PC directly into your wireless router by moving it and plugging it in via CAT 5 or temporarily running a long cable? Also, you do have both powerline adapters plugged directly into the wall outlets and not surge protectors, right?
Click to expand...
Both of the powerline adapters are plugged directly into the wall outlets. As for hooking my PC directly into my wireless by moving it, maybe. When you say moving it, do you mean moving the PC up to the office where the router is or do you mean moving down to the basement where my PC is? I can't do the first one because my dad's "work computer" is in there and I could possibly do the second one however that would leave my dad's without internet because he doesn't have a wireless card, we can get him one though. I thought that I needed a special wall plug for the data cable on the router though. As for running a long cable, I don't think there's anyway I could do it because it would have to go through the hallway upstairs, down the stairs, through the hall downstairs and into my room. I don't think there's anyway I can convince my parents to do that.
 
AnonymouseUser

AnonymouseUser

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May 14, 2003
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rednal said:
Well that's embarrassing. Does this seem more likely?
Click to expand...

While those speeds aren't great, they are better than your internet Speedtest results, so it doesn't look like your internet is being slowed by your local network. Can you run a Speedtest from your dad's PC since it's closer to the router?
 
N

nsafreak

Diamond Member
Oct 16, 2001
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Well I think we've narrowed down the issues that are causing both your wireless issues and the powerline issues at this point. If your PC is down in the basement and the other powerline adapter is up two floors then the connection is likely has to go across the 220V mains and a fair amount of distance. Engineer, in the other thread, recommended installing a bandpass filter but that's not something I would recommend that you do unless your parents know how or know somebody that can install one. Your wireless issues likely stem come from interference from building materials since you're in the basement. Do you recall if you were connecting on wifi via the 2.4GHz frequency range or the 5.8GHz frequency range?
 
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rednal

Member
Dec 9, 2012
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nsafreak said:
Well I think we've narrowed down the issues that are causing both your wireless issues and the powerline issues at this point. If your PC is down in the basement and the other powerline adapter is up two floors then the connection is likely has to go across the 220V mains and a fair amount of distance. Engineer, in the other thread, recommended installing a bandpass filter but that's not something I would recommend that you do unless your parents know how or know somebody that can install one. Your wireless issues likely stem come from interference from building materials since you're in the basement. Do you recall if you were connecting on wifi via the 2.4GHz frequency range or the 5.8GHz frequency range?
Click to expand...
It was 2.4GHz. Also, it probably doesn't matter but the other powerline adapter is up one floor.
 
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