Thread: Powerline

I'm looking at getting an adapter. Current router is on the other side of the house (it's also limited to b/g, which are highly congested around my house). Running an ethernet line would require going into the drywall to the attic and then down through the drywall to my room. My parents would call that "too complicated". It's either this or pick up a cheap router with n. I thought I brought my nice router home, but it's not in my box of equipment with my cable modem.

Any suggestions? Current Fios is 50/50, I think. I wouldn't need to transfer any files over the network between computers.

pretty much any would work if you have good wiring. If you have 70 year old wiring like I do then wireless might be a better choice.

The house was built mid to late eighties, I think. Is that fine?

Originally Posted by DJ Mr. White

The house was built mid to late eighties, I think. Is that fine?

Should be fine as long as the two plugs you are using are on the same circuit. Some newer homes have segmented circuits for different parts of the house...if you have more than 1 AC or Furnace unit for the house it likely has multiple circuits for the wiring. You will not get 50 over Plug to Ethernet technology, especially at distance.


I paid a wire running company to come to my house and do ~24 line drops (cat 6) and it cost me just over 1k. If you only need a single point to point it wouldn't be that expensive to run the line. The company I used simply located power plug locations and ran the Ethernet cabling down the same section of wall and put in a plate next to the power. They ran 6 plates at 4 ports per plate in about 3 hours. If you do cat5e or cat6 (future proof) as a line run to your room you will get the best gaming experience.

Now with that said. Power to Ethernet has come a LONG way in the last few years. I used it in my old house for streaming media from the cable modem to the living room and over about 3 iterations of the technology it finally became possible to stream HD. I still ended up running cat5e to the living room because power to Ethernet builds up line noise over time which required either a reset every-time I wanted to stream to the living room or deal with occasional buffing messages.

TP-Link is one of the major players in the power to Ethernet market
Amazon.com: TP-LINK TL-PA6010KIT AV600 Powerline Adapter Starter Kit, Up to 600Mbps, Gigabit Ports, Plug and Play, Power Saving Mode: Computers & Accessories

They offer a few options from 200mb-600mb speeds. Keep in mind that the listed speed is best case at a much closer range than you will actually be using them at. If you buy them from amazon and they don't work they have a pretty decent return policy.

so ~$65.99 for power to Ethernet or ~$100 to have 2 lines installed to your bedroom

I will give a quick recommendation that if you decide to do the line run, I recommend never doing singles, its only a doubling of the materials to do 2 instead of 1 and cat6 isn't that expensive (labor is the same to run 2 as 1). Then if one line goes out you have a backup, or if you decide you want to plug in a second item (like a network printer) you don't have to worry about a router in your room.

I'm running one to my visiting bro in law's rv and it works fine except I had to run an extra extension cord because it wouldn't pass thru the inverter.

I have 5 Zyxel 600Mbps adapters running in my house. I previously had a D-Link running from my office (main router) to my living room (Home Theater PC), but when I wanted to add some additional powerline adapters, the D-Links were no longer being made. I couldn't even find them on eBay.

I now have them running into every bedroom as well as one out in my garage where I used to keep my mining rig and the wifi signal was weak. I use it all the time when gaming in the living room, and never have any problems.

Oh, I thought I should mention... The one in my living room goes out directly into a 5 port switch. I have that switch then connected to both my HTPC and a Wireless AC/N access point.

I can then game stream my Nvidia Shield while sitting outside on my patio. It has to go back through the wireless access point, to the switch, to the powerline adapter, through the electrical wiring in my house, to the other powerline adapter, to my main router, and back to my main PC that is sourcing the stream. No input lag.

So yea, the powerline stuff works very well in a pinch, or even in complex stuff like I am running. It all depends on the the wiring in your walls, as others have stated above.

I doubt my parents would approve the wiring. I don't know the new land lady well enough to guess which way she would go. So, powerline is the choice.

Thinking about getting this one.
TRENDnet TPL-406E2K Powerline 500 AV Nano Adapter Kit - Newegg.com