Linksys/Belkin/Netgear Power Line adaptors

[mrrman]

I am trying to get rid of my wireless bridge and replace it with something more reliable. has anyone actually used these power line adaptor modules that just plug into your AC power and you receive the net over your current line without drilling holes,running cables etc.

I am looking at the Linksys PLK300 Powerline 200Mbps AV Network Kit over the other brands. Comments?

http://www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/products/PowerLine

My intent is to hook up one unit upstairs on my main PC and 2 units on 2 separate PC's downstairs. I am also living in a 1 year old house.

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Moved to the "Networking" forum.

Zim Hosein

Off Topic Moderator.

 

[Leros]

I've heard they work fairly well. However, it all depends on how the wiring is laid out. Sometimes they won't work across a whole house. Sometimes they'll work across a few apartment complexes.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

They work OK, as long as you don't expect to be getting any kind of major bandwidth through them without a lot of dropped packets. I've used Belkin and LinkSys models, though not the LinkSys model you are looking at, and their performance was underwhelming. They are decent for basic internet/e-mail usage. That's about it though.

 

[Gunslinger08]

I'd recommend that you either change your bridge to WDS (if you're running DD-WRT) or get some USB wireless adapters for your PCs (I use a Linksys one).

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

PM Saulbadguy, I know he just got some...

 

[mrrman]

Originally posted by: joshsquall
I'd recommend that you either change your bridge to WDS (if you're running DD-WRT) or get some USB wireless adapters for your PCs (I use a Linksys one).

I am currently using DD-WRT...can you recommend a Model for the USB wireless adaptor?

Thanks

 

[Gunslinger08]

Originally posted by: mrrman

Originally posted by: joshsquall
I'd recommend that you either change your bridge to WDS (if you're running DD-WRT) or get some USB wireless adapters for your PCs (I use a Linksys one).

I am currently using DD-WRT...can you recommend a Model for the USB wireless adaptor?

Thanks

I was also running a DD-WRT router in client bridge mode. Very unreliable. I switched it to WDS tonight and it's been much better so far.

For the USB adapter, I have a Linksys WUSB54GS (version 2). I've never had an issue with it on XP or Vista and I get great throughput.

 

[Eug]

I use powerline. It's fine for internet access and because there is usually minimal lag (unlike wireless), it's good for gaming as well. Also, when it works, it's much more reliable than wireless. In your 1 year-old house, it should work fine. Much of my house is over 10 years old and it works fine too. (However, I've heard that those with 50 year old houses often have major problems.)

Last year I was able to use power line networking for HD media streaming as well, because I was getting 30 Mbps across the house. However, since then I've had lots of electrical work done on the house, and my average speeds have dropped below 9 Mbps. Still, it's a stable connection. With wireless I often find it more flaky if there is any distance involved.

Don't bother reading any reviews of older equipment. Only read reviews of the "200 Mbps" stuff, cuz that's the only class that matters. There are two main flavours of "200 Mbps" stuff. The Linksys stuff is PowerLine AV which is good because it's a standard. However, I bought the Netgear HDX101. It uses a different chipset which is not compatible with PowerLine AV, but it's as fast or faster, and I got mine as refurbs for cheap on eBay so I saved a lot of cash (cuz I bought 5 of them). BTW, you cannot use these behind surge protectors. Surge protectors kill the speed, or may prevent it from working altogether.

Here are some benchmarks from the c|net review of the Linksys. You'll see my Netgear compared against it.

http://www.eugbanana.com/files...ing/PowerlineBench.png

I use powerline as the backbone for my home network, and have multiple wireless access points attached to that. It's perfect for internet access. This way I don't have to deal with the flakiness of WDS wireless networks. However, I'm laying down CAT5e to connect two specific rooms - my home office where my media server is, and my home theatre, for gigabit ethernet. I hope to get about 200-300 Mbps on that connection.