I have wifi in the house but the signal is weak in my room and i need an Ethernet. has anyone used Ethernet powerline where you plug it into your outlet and it uses the copper to send the signal that way? If anyone knows how goo it is or what other options i have i would appreciate it.
what im talking about :
I recently had the exact same problem as you, had trouble connecting my phone to wifi as the signal was weak from my lounge to my room. I have an existing ethernet cord running into my room, so some people suggested I simply get another router or an access point/switch.
you can check out the thread here.
https://forum.teksyndicate.com/t/access-point-router-setup-help/96590
As far as the powerline goes, I haven't had any experience using them unfortunately. I'm assuming running an ethernet cord to your room would be difficult to setup?
As i live in a rental i use these to get my internet to go up stairs. the D link one i bought work great with no problems playing blue ray content and no difference in ping vs ethernet. the only down side is that you must plug them in to the wall and reset then ever so often.
I use one. I got this one because it was on sale at the time with a mail in rebate for like $35 or so. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=1BV-000H-00014
I also have 2 friends who have the TP-Link 500mbps one. One friend had to try a couple of plugs in his house in order to get full speed. Another had zero issues setting it up, and like you was on the edge of WiFi range.
Powerline/Homeplug is really picky on the wiring in your house. If your house isn't ridiculously old and hasn't been re-wired or expanded, it should work fine. Mine basically goes across the house and I get my full speed of a measily 22mb/s. More stable than WiFi.
I have one running from the downstairs to the opposite corner upstairs. While I'm not getting the full rated speed, it's hell of a lot better than the wifi.
To expand on what @Some_Tech_Noob said, powerlines are optimal when it's running on the same circuit. It loses considerable speed when it has to jump circuits, but still works nonetheless.
If you're gonna buy powerline adapters and you want good speed > make sure your house wiring is decent and buy the latest generation of them (HomePlug AV2 SISO/MIMO or at least AV500 if you can't afford the AV2's..).
For reviews I'd look at smallnetbuilder.com, I'll link something from them but right now it seems like their MySQL database is down or something. Pages don't load. Check a bit later.
Here's the 2015 FAQ
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/basics/lanwan-basics/32768-smallnetbuilders-powerline-faq-2015
Cached version
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:50LjlPPGDGkJ:www.smallnetbuilder.com/basics/lanwan-basics/32768-smallnetbuilders-powerline-faq-2015+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=fi
these dont always work for everyone. be sure to check the state of the power lines. and it may be worth noting that it may interfere with radio signals and your wifi reception. i had a few 500Mbps units hooked up only to find out that my wifi dropped in areas where there weren't problem before. radio was unusable from 92-95. also there was also discussion about hijacking data over the powerlines. the guy i bought mine from insisted that the data could be intercepted by someone simply plugging into my power sockets. may or may not be true. :S
I have used Powerline Adapters in several situations over the years. And yes they do work, however I have never found the sustained throughput to be anywhere near the published speed. Still way better than WiFi but not as good as a proper network cable.
i can't comment on the throughput speed as my internet speed is really bad and i don't really transfer big files through the network but otherwise i've had a pretty good experience with powerline. it's (relatively) cheap, easily expandable and pretty much plug and play.
One to thing to consider with power line equipment is the way they rely on the circuitry in the property.
If you are going from one part of an electrical ring to another, they are fine.
However, if you are going from one electrical ring to another (aka jumping a breaker in the breaker box) you will find it will might out right not work or be very slow. (Basically the amount of copper mass attached to the circuit breaker box splits and degrades the signal too much, especially on larger breaker boxes)
In my personal experience, WiFi has actually been the faster and more reliable solution.
I got a powerline because I've got no ethernet in my house. It might just be because the wiring is old but my performance is absolutely awful. I am unable to stream games, my dowload speed goes down from 150 to 30 and sometimes even 15 mbit, and often enough the network basically crashes. If your wiring is better than mine you might have a better experience but I personally wouldn't recommend it
I can also put my vote for these things, they can be great.
Again, alot has to do with your house wiring, but even in a house with 70 year old wiring, I've seen speeds of 20-30 Mbps!
In my house with newer wiring however I've seen pretty good speeds. And always take what the advertised speed is with a grain of salt, they normally don't live up to what speeds are advertised. But they'll still be a heck of alot faster than wifi!
If you had a choice I'd also suggest TP-Link branded ones, I've had the best experience personally with them. Some of the netgear's I've used had frequent disconnect issues.
I too have used them for a long time and right up till fiber they were running at top speed. But after we got up to 98/22 ish speed the power lines would only pass 80 ish still got the full upload though. I know there are versions for higher speed but mine were 300/300 advertised, it can also be a home wiring quality issue so don't read into it too much.
Yes they work, yes they are good.
I've been using TP-LINK powerlines for like 4 years, the ones that have 300Mbps adverstised speed. I live in a 30 years old house and I get full speed like I was using an ethernet cable, granted I have a 7Mbit down & 0.5 Mbit up.