Belkin powerline av starter kit

[AledJ]

Having had speed problem with belkin wireless adapters I opted for the belkin powerline adapters. Got them today but one or two issues here as well!

Firstly the closest power point has a high skirting board under it so when the adapter is plugged in, only a small bit jutts out. The plug connectors on the adapter seem to be in and connecting with the socket point inside the wall outlet.

Secondly, the power and ethernet led are green! But the powerline link is amber (looks red to me) and will loose connection and then regain connection. Now i'm not sure if this may be because the adapter is not flush with the wall socket (although i did put it into another socket where it was flush, and the amber light was still on) Or if it might be the wiring in the house!

So my question here is, is there any other explanation?


Also I have turned my wireless adpater back on just to keep a connection when the powerline does loose connection. Is my thinking right on this?

And lastly, is there something I could use to attach to the adapter so it would upside down, but have a flush connection with the wall?

[Funkstar]

Originally Posted by AledJ

Having had speed problem with belkin wireless adapters I opted for the belkin powerline adapters. Got them today but one or two issues here as well!

I see a pattern emerging

As for your problem, I would suspect that if there is enough of a connection for get power, there should be enough of a connection to powerline ethernet.

How is your house wired and how new is it? for example, do you have a ring main for upstairs and a seperate ring main for down? This is a hige impact of poweline ethernet, as it has to traverse the fuse box/circuit breaker. This is something that isn't recomended for PLE.

Having multiple connections (wireless and ethernet) won't stop you from being disconnected from things like Messenger, Skype, games etc. as you will end up with two seperate IPs (one for each connection) and traffic will not route between them. You'll have to establish a new connection when the one that app is using goes down. This will probably just mean signing in again, but it could be a pain. Will halt downloads too if whichever connection is being used drops.

[AledJ]

Originally Posted by Funkstar

I see a pattern emerging

As for your problem, I would suspect that if there is enough of a connection for get power, there should be enough of a connection to powerline ethernet.

How is your house wired and how new is it? for example, do you have a ring main for upstairs and a seperate ring main for down? This is a hige impact of poweline ethernet, as it has to traverse the fuse box/circuit breaker. This is something that isn't recomended for PLE.

Having multiple connections (wireless and ethernet) won't stop you from being disconnected from things like Messenger, Skype, games etc. as you will end up with two seperate IPs (one for each connection) and traffic will not route between them. You'll have to establish a new connection when the one that app is using goes down. This will probably just mean signing in again, but it could be a pain. Will halt downloads too if whichever connection is being used drops.

As far as I can tell its one ring main (there is only one fuse box downstairs) As for the house it was built start of the 1900's I think, no idea when electricity was put in. Hmmm don't think there is a solution

Just annoying it has to disconnect! I mean on the speed test i get 8mp now where as with he wireless adapter it would go above 5mp, even though at the start i could get 9mp. I would not mind that amber light as the speed test show 8mp, its just the disconnections.

[Funkstar]

A single fuse box has nothing to do with it, check the actual fuses. Often, especially in a large house, you would have one ring per floor for mains, and another ring per floor for lighting. Kitchen, cooker, electric shower, utility room, out buildings, etc. are also usually on different circuits.

If the plug sockets and fuse box looks pretty much like current new ones, then it's likely it was installed in the '80s of later.

[AledJ]

Originally Posted by Funkstar

A single fuse box has nothing to do with it, check the actual fuses. Often, especially in a large house, you would have one ring per floor for mains, and another ring per floor for lighting. Kitchen, cooker, electric shower, utility room, out buildings, etc. are also usually on different circuits.

If the plug sockets and fuse box looks pretty much like current new ones, then it's likely it was installed in the '80s of later.

Right just taken both adapters to one room on the ground floor put them in separate sockets, and still get the amber light. I have noticed that they also get hot not sure if that is normal or not.

As for the fuse box it has 6 on/off switches inside.

[Funkstar]

Originally Posted by AledJ

Right just taken both adapters to one room on the ground floor put them in separate sockets, and still get the amber light. I have noticed that they also get hot not sure if that is normal or not.

The heat will be normal, they do have transformers inside to run the electronics, so just like a regular power brick gets hot so will these.

That sounds like ideal conditions, and they can't cope this that? They don't sound very reliable to me then.

Originally Posted by AledJ

As for the fuse box it has 6 on/off switches inside.

Sounds like there is only one ring main then. It's a big house isn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if you have power issues at some point if lots of sockets are loaded up around the house. It wouldn't take long to hit 13amps and blow a fuse. The individual fuses should be labelled to tell you what they feed.

[AledJ]

Originally Posted by Funkstar

The heat will be normal, they do have transformers inside to run the electronics, so just like a regular power brick gets hot so will these.

That sounds like ideal conditions, and they can't cope this that? They don't sound very reliable to me then.


Sounds like there is only one ring main then. It's a big house isn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if you have power issues at some point if lots of sockets are loaded up around the house. It wouldn't take long to hit 13amps and blow a fuse. The individual fuses should be labelled to tell you what they feed.

Well i'm at a loss and out of ideas lol

About an hour ago the speed test showed 8mb (I have a 10mb line so this was ok) But now the speed test is going up to 7.5mb and in the last few tests has gone down to 5.5mb

Might just send these powerline things back and use the wireless adapter grgrgrgrg

[Funkstar]

Don't use an online speed tester to test your internal network, even just transferring a large amount of data between two PCs on the network will give you a better idea of internal network speeds.

It's likely that network traffic at your ISP is giving you the varying results on the speed test. This isn't something you can change.

If you plug a PC/laptop directly into the router with an ethernet cable and are getting consistently higher speed test results, then yes either the wireless or powerline ethernet is slowing things down. otherwise it is all down to your ISP and the general variances of the Internet to blame.

[AledJ]

Home pc which is connected to router is fine gives results between 8.8mb and 9.4mb

Two laptop on a wireless connection give same results. So i can't see the router being the problem. The only reason I got these powerline adapters was because my wireless adapter for my pc was playign up. When I first had the router all was ok on my pc upstairs. I would get the same speed results as those on the home pc or the two laptops. But then it suddenly stopped going above 5.6mb or there about.

On my third wireless adapter now No idea what is going on with that. Will trail these powerline adapters for a few days. Doubt it will improve. Saying that it has not disconnected me yet since the last time which was an hour ago.

Using the powerline adapter i get speeds ranging from 5.5mb to 8mb

[Funkstar]

Oh well in that case it probably is the poweline kit thats slowing things down.

You can't beat a length of CAT5e

[AledJ]

Originally Posted by Funkstar

Oh well in that case it probably is the poweline kit thats slowing things down.

You can't beat a length of CAT5e

powerline adapters and wireless adapters are slowing things down grgrgrgr.

Are there any other wireless adapters I can use? Any recommendations ?

[AledJ]

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedt...765716353.html

Odd! Always thought speedtest.net gave inaccurate readings.

[Apex]

AledJ, take the adapters and plug them into a double socket and see what sort of connection they get, either you have some bad mains wiring or they are faulty.

The adapters i have, one is in the new extension downstairs and the other is upstairs in the old part of the house with the router and when it's quiet on the network at night they will max the 10mb cable connection out.

[LuckyNV]

Originally Posted by Funkstar

Oh well in that case it probably is the poweline kit thats slowing things down.

You can't beat a length of CAT5e

This, while wireless and other none traditional cable tech has come a great distance, you can't simply beat tried and tested network cables.

I tried several wireless solutions and was one step from getting power line, I just didn't bother and routed a 30m cable, the time taken to do so is so much less than the total time having to fiddle with all these other solutions, this includes setting it up, any drivers, software, trouble shooting etc... plus its far far cheaper and internal speed is 100Mbps or 1Gbps if you have the hardware.
Not much can go wrong with a cable unless the dog chews it.

[AledJ]

Originally Posted by LuckyNV

This, while wireless and other none traditional cable tech has come a great distance, you can't simply beat tried and tested network cables.

I tried several wireless solutions and was one step from getting power line, I just didn't bother and routed a 30m cable, the time taken to do so is so much less than the total time having to fiddle with all these other solutions, this includes setting it up, any drivers, software, trouble shooting etc... plus its far far cheaper and internal speed is 100Mbps or 1Gbps if you have the hardware.
Not much can go wrong with a cable unless the dog chews it.

Thing is i'm living with my parents at the moment so can't run a cable up to my room!! If I had my own place my pc would be at the point where the cable came in!! Sadly I have to use wireless/powerline.

Although the powerline has been ok with 1mb download speeds on steam, and in game ping is as low as 16 some of the time. It goes no higher than 28.

[Apex]

If I had the option I would have ran some CAT 5E cable but carn't, the other half doesn't like the idea of cables and her mother would not let me either so the only way to get the xbox 360 on the net was to use power line adapters ( wireless is just too poor )

I manage to max the cable connection out so the wires in the house carn't be that bad ( it's a 1930's semi )