- May 19, 2011
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I've been using powerline adapters to supply networking throughout my house for a couple of years now, and until very recently it's worked pretty much perfectly: Maybe once a year I'd need to power-cycle one for 30 seconds, but pretty plain sailing and pretty much perfect throughput onto the Internet (speedtest.net).
Admittedly lately I've been thinking that my computer seemed a little slow in connecting to websites (like the response times were a little off), but today I can't remember what made me start to check, but a speedtest.net run basically got me about 10% of what my Internet connection is capable of (Internet connection is normally about 55-70Mbps down / 15Mbps up). My mains networking adapter had a red light on it for poor signal quality. I started by swapping it out for a spare. No difference.
As it's always been plugged into an 8-way with surge protection (not ideal I know, but it's always worked), I tried plugging it into the wall socket next to the 8-way. Still crap throughput mostly, though sometimes I might get 50% of the normal connection speed. I tried other PCs connected to the homeplug network through different adapters, and they seemed to be consistently getting 75-100% of the total capability of the connection, while sometimes my PC would get readings of ~1Mbit down. Another brand-new PC that's connected to the same network switch and then homeplug adapter has been getting similar-ish readings, but in general pretty erratic. Often the upload speed would be significantly higher than the download speed.
I've also tried power-cycling the adapter nearest the router, though evidently it's supplying the other two mains networking adapters without issue. My only other thoughts are to power cycle the lot of them or to disconnect the 8-way in my room in case that has some kind of issue (though as my room's network switch - which I've also bypassed is supplied by it I'll need to clamber around a bit to achieve that).
I've wondered whether another appliance in the house is causing problems. The only new one I can think of is a water fountain for the cats that my wife plugged in today, but I unplugged that early on in testing as a precaution.
Thoughts?
Admittedly lately I've been thinking that my computer seemed a little slow in connecting to websites (like the response times were a little off), but today I can't remember what made me start to check, but a speedtest.net run basically got me about 10% of what my Internet connection is capable of (Internet connection is normally about 55-70Mbps down / 15Mbps up). My mains networking adapter had a red light on it for poor signal quality. I started by swapping it out for a spare. No difference.
As it's always been plugged into an 8-way with surge protection (not ideal I know, but it's always worked), I tried plugging it into the wall socket next to the 8-way. Still crap throughput mostly, though sometimes I might get 50% of the normal connection speed. I tried other PCs connected to the homeplug network through different adapters, and they seemed to be consistently getting 75-100% of the total capability of the connection, while sometimes my PC would get readings of ~1Mbit down. Another brand-new PC that's connected to the same network switch and then homeplug adapter has been getting similar-ish readings, but in general pretty erratic. Often the upload speed would be significantly higher than the download speed.
I've also tried power-cycling the adapter nearest the router, though evidently it's supplying the other two mains networking adapters without issue. My only other thoughts are to power cycle the lot of them or to disconnect the 8-way in my room in case that has some kind of issue (though as my room's network switch - which I've also bypassed is supplied by it I'll need to clamber around a bit to achieve that).
I've wondered whether another appliance in the house is causing problems. The only new one I can think of is a water fountain for the cats that my wife plugged in today, but I unplugged that early on in testing as a precaution.
Thoughts?