I was thinking about moving my setup up to my room but one of the problems is that I don't have Ethernet up there. The wireless connection in my room is godawful (sometimes takes minutes for a short, SD Youtube video to load) and I wanted to know how well Power Line networking will function. My house is only about 2 years old, so the lines are very new, but my room is a decent distance away from my router and modem. What hardware should I get if it is feasible to do this, or will it just be too slow and the latency too high for it to work? Please feel free to ask questions if any other information is required for a definite answer.
I'm not an expert on networking, but I personally would just run a cable to your PC. Cabling can be had on the cheap if you know where to look and can easily be hidden along the ceiling or the floor by the wall. You will prob have to drill a hole or two but they will be small and it would most likely give you a better connection.
Looks cleaner if you install a faceplate as well. Level it out with the rest of the outlets and install it near the pc. Parts are cheap, you just have to figure out the installation.
Yeah that is what I was implying. I ran a cable to my basement about 70ft and installed a faceplate into the wall next to the cable jack. Looks fine.
The installation is pretty easy if you have basic knowledge of tools or can follow written instructions.
I have a couple of friends that use Powerline adaptors. They are very pleased with Powerline. You could pick up a cheap starter kit and it'll give a pretty satisfactory gaming performance.
I agree with routing an actual Ethernet cable. In my house, due to various reasons, I have a cable running from one switch on the other side of the house, through the floor, along a joist, up into a wall, and into my room. I think the cable cost all of $10 for 50 or 75 feet of it. The switch itself cost less than $20 as well.
Alternatively, you could run a cable most of the way and add another wireless router. That way you can get better speeds and still have plenty of mobility.
Ethernet over power has become a pretty great thing after it was standardized a few years back. Since then it's been improved rapidly and, from my experience, gives a much better quality experience over wireless networking since you don't have all the limiting factors as you do with wireless.
You should have no issue simply buying the adapter pair, and plugging them in.
I have a set of TP Link power line adapters. I am in the exact same situation and they are great. I don't see any additional latency over just using a long Ethernet cable. Looks cleaner and if needs be I can move it anywhere on the house and continue getting the exact same speed without having to relay cable. They even have a socket pass through so I don't lose the socket. The only down side is they are more expensive than a long cable.
There are also options where you can pass in 3 Ethernet cables and have 3 separate outputs around the house, and the end point can be a WiFi plug if you like. They are incredibly useful.
I say get them.
Yeah but I would need to use 100+ foot Ethernet cable going up two flights of stairs and my front foyer. My staircase is very open and the cable would stick out (unless I got a wood colored cable).
you will lose some ping but otherwise from my own experience it works just fine for gaming. i never lagged in diablo3
You go up the wall and through the floor. Not very hard to do.
As far as I know, it works just as good as directly into your router, because it's technically still directly into your router.
I looked at this, and powerline networks are limited to a pathetic bandwidth. They are also at great risk for lost packets (BAD in games) and a very high latency. You'd be better off buying N wireless adapters for all your stuff than you would be to use powerline networks, just bite the bullet and put an ethernet jack in the wall and a 5-10 port switch. It may seem like more work but it will be worth it
Thanks for the help guys. In the end, I got a powerline networking adapter, and I'm able to get over 100mbps with very low latency and no issues, from one end of my house to the other. For those of you one the fence about it, I would go for it. Just run good cables (Cat 5 or higher) and a good adapter (I have a Tenda 200mbps kit, which costs about $25 at microcenter).
Thanks for the help guys. In the end, I got a powerline networking adapter, and I'm able to get over 100mbps with very low latency and no issues, from one end of my house to the other. For those of you one the fence about it, I would go for it. Just run good cables (Cat 5 or higher) and a good adapter (I have a Tenda 200mbps kit, which costs about $25 at microcenter).