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Powerline Ethernet, inconsistent performance
I've had a powerline ethernet setup for several years at my home. I
usually find their performance more consistent than Wi-Fi, especially when streaming video. But right now I'm not experiencing usual conditions. I'm currently using 3 adapters distributed throughout my home. Current iteration uses all adapters based on the Powerline HD 200Mbps standard. Usually I'd be getting over 100Mbps on all adapters, occasionally dropping down to 50Mbps in the worst cases. Nowadays I'm seeing it drop down to 5Mbps even. I haven't added too many new electrical appliances my home, as far as I can tell, but the quality of the electrical lines seems to have gotten noisier for no apparent reason. What can be done to improve the situation? The house is 30 years old. Yousuf Khan |
#2
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Powerline Ethernet, inconsistent performance
In article , Same Guy wrote:
Sun, 30 Sep 2012 12:48:22 -0400: written by Yousuf Khan : I've had a powerline ethernet setup for several years at my home. I usually find their performance more consistent than Wi-Fi, especially when streaming video. But right now I'm not experiencing usual conditions. I'm currently using 3 adapters distributed throughout my home. Current iteration uses all adapters based on the Powerline HD 200Mbps standard. Usually I'd be getting over 100Mbps on all adapters, occasionally dropping down to 50Mbps in the worst cases. Nowadays I'm seeing it drop down to 5Mbps even. I haven't added too many new electrical appliances my home, as far as I can tell, but the quality of the electrical lines seems to have gotten noisier for no apparent reason. What can be done to improve the situation? The house is 30 years old. Check to see what lights are on when the BW drops. I had an issue where halogen lights in the bathroom would render the Homepug network unusable, so I moved the adapter to a plug in the hallway (which is on another circuit breaker) then ran CAT cable to the laptop and now have no problems. Another option, bring the adapter and the device that will connect to that adapter to the same room as the adapter nearest the modem/router and then have them find each other. Once you have that working as desired, then move them back to the desired location. I have no idea why, but this worked for me when I added a new laptop and it wouldn't connect to the Homeplug network. I only have 2 adapters on my network, so there may be a dynamic with the 3rd adapter, or the device connected to it, that I am not considering. Hopefully this will help and good luck. I have seen laser printers when active, bring a powerline network to its knees. |
#3
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Powerline Ethernet, inconsistent performance
On Sep 30, 12:48 pm, Yousuf Khan wrote:
I've had a powerline ethernet setup for several years at my home. I usually find their performance more consistent than Wi-Fi, especially when streaming video. But right now I'm not experiencing usual conditions. I'm currently using 3 adapters distributed throughout my home. Current iteration uses all adapters based on the Powerline HD 200Mbps standard. Usually I'd be getting over 100Mbps on all adapters, occasionally dropping down to 50Mbps in the worst cases. Nowadays I'm seeing it drop down to 5Mbps even. I haven't added too many new electrical appliances my home, as far as I can tell, but the quality of the electrical lines seems to have gotten noisier for no apparent reason. What can be done to improve the situation? The house is 30 years old. So's mine, 10 older. I've heard is the Romex electrical conduit from that period is better, perhaps heavier for better efficiency. Ground faults and fuses are the most apparent changes in code, although I'm more into "as is," no bank inspections, and money on the barrel when it comes to sales. Not that I'm scared of electricity, but when I'm in a hardware and ask a question about electrical replacement parts, I can usually understand bull**** is when someone's trying to feed it me. If it were me, I'd want to know what exactly might noise be -- intermittent motor usages, the washer or dryer, my w/heater I wired to run 30minutes twice a day from a timer box;- semi-intermittent, the AC unit and refrigerator, lights and entertainment gear. Obvious timing correlations upon a premise of inducement of noise into the wirings within. Then there's w/out. I once got so ****ed at the TELCO, I told them I'd set the goddamn modem up on a card table, in the back yard, from dangling wires from the telephone pole. They wanted me first to pay monthly money for an added service contract, "just in case" there was a home issue apart from their responsibilities leading to the junction box outside. Nevermind (that it gets worse). Next. How do you measure signal strength and from what level of ambient floor- level noise, or run-length carrier drops to know if location will affect performance. When I called in for another internet subscription option, ditched the TELCO for a cell phone, they brought along a laptop, which I'd presume measured such ratios for acceptable quality. Not that I'd try on him such measures, I'm making up, those guys are always subcontractors, these days, and it's hot and dirty work without much slack. I usually keep quiet until I see it functioning. And, by then, all they're interested in is hauling ass. |
#4
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Powerline Ethernet, inconsistent performance
NOTE: I omitted the comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips newsgroup originally
in the OP's post from my reply. By name, it doesn't seem a related newsgroup (and I don't visit that newsgroup to know that it is related). "Yousuf Khan" wrote: I've had a powerline ethernet setup for several years at my home. I usually find their performance more consistent than Wi-Fi, especially when streaming video. But right now I'm not experiencing usual conditions. I'm currently using 3 adapters distributed throughout my home. Current iteration uses all adapters based on the Powerline HD 200Mbps standard. Usually I'd be getting over 100Mbps on all adapters, occasionally dropping down to 50Mbps in the worst cases. Nowadays I'm seeing it drop down to 5Mbps even. I haven't added too many new electrical appliances my home, as far as I can tell, but the quality of the electrical lines seems to have gotten noisier for no apparent reason. What can be done to improve the situation? The house is 30 years old. http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwa...-network-speed Section 3 /(You might be able to read this article. I block Facebook crap so their frame blocks out content in the article.)/ http://www.connectedhome.infopint.co...line-ethernet/ See text following "In order to achieve excellent, stable home networking performance". http://support.plasternetworks.com/w...rline-isolator "Effects of Noise and Attenuation on the Powerline" Powerline sends an RF signal over your power lines. Anything else that injects RF into those same lines can affect your Powerline network. Maybe your refridgerator compressor kicked in when you noticed the network degradation. Maybe you got a new electronic gadget and left its wall wart plugged in all the time. Maybe you added another computer (see below on PSU capacitors). That doesn't mean just RF sources you add but from around your residence, too. Something I never investigated before (because I use wired Cat5 instead of rely on Powerline or wifi in my home) is whether there could be a problem with creating a signal path whose sum of individual wiring paths were longer than 100 meters. Ethernet and its CSMA/CD scheme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier...on_detec tion) assume a maximum delay in end-to-end propagation, to avoid excessive reflection, and limit attenuation. With all of your home wiring getting used as a single segment in the network, all of the power cords also getting used as wiring stubs off your power circuit, and all wiring inside appliances added, too, it could be your single segment network is too long. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabit_Ethernet#Varieties, I'll assume Powerline doesn't equate to twinaxial or fiber transmission, so your single path network could exceed 100 meters (328 feet). It seems likely that all the wiring in your house (A/C lines, power cords, extension cables, wiring inside appliance and electronic gear) could easily exceed that length. From the plasternetworks article, I found it interesting that just adding another computer in your home (by plugging it in) could cause a problem due to the capacitors inside the PSU. You could try using a UPS but I doubt it would help unless it's the expensive and heavy kind that incorporates an isolation transformer (but then that adds more wiring to your Powerline network which comes back to maybe the Ethernet transmission distance becomes too long). |
#5
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Powerline Ethernet, inconsistent performance
On 9/30/2012 11:48 AM, Yousuf Khan wrote:
snip I haven't added too many new electrical appliances my home, as far as I can tell, but the quality of the electrical lines seems to have gotten noisier for no apparent reason. What can be done to improve the situation? The house is 30 years old. Yousuf Khan Don't forget that electrical noise will propagate from all homes attached to the same power line transformer, as in up on a power pole or in a ground based cabinet. You might not have added any new electronic equipment but who knows what the neighbors have added. I once lived in a place where the neighbors water heater thermostat was arching so badly that it would jam the internet AND the cable TV feed at our place when it was active. It took a while to track down due to it being intermittent but fortunately the interference was so bad that a portable AM radio could be used to track down the source. |
#6
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Powerline Ethernet, inconsistent performance
VanguardLH wrote:
From the plasternetworks article, I found it interesting that just adding another computer in your home (by plugging it in) could cause a problem due to the capacitors inside the PSU. You could try using a UPS but I doubt it would help unless it's the expensive and heavy kind that incorporates an isolation transformer (but then that adds more wiring to your Powerline network which comes back to maybe the Ethernet transmission distance becomes too long). I've had problems like that here, but the ATX power supply in question was actually defective. It was injecting a tremendous amount of noise into the wall. So much in fact, it was causing my ADSL model/router to reboot constantly. The "warning" I was seeing (so I had some clue what was coming), was when the affected ATX supply was plugged in, I got a herringbone pattern on my old analog TV set. So I knew a year or more before that, that there was something funny about that supply. But it just got worse with time, and eventually it was taking out the ADSL. I examined the design, and it did have full filtering on the primary side. So it was making that level of noise, and managing to push it through the filter network as well. My current ADSL modem, is no-where near as stable as the old one. The old one would have kept running, even if there was a meltdown happening around it. The new one (as the rental one had to go back to the old ISP), a feather could tip that one over. Even things like CCFL bulbs, you never know what crappy circuits (so called "ballast") are hiding in the base. I've had three of those fail, and make a "capacitor" stink when they fried. Very few lighting solutions now, are "simple" inside. Only the traditional incandescent light bulbs can be trusted. Paul |
#7
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Powerline Ethernet, inconsistent performance
On Sep 30, 3:38 pm, GlowingBlueMist
wrote: On 9/30/2012 11:48 AM, Yousuf Khan wrote: snip I haven't added too many new electrical appliances my home, as far as I can tell, but the quality of the electrical lines seems to have gotten noisier for no apparent reason. What can be done to improve the situation? The house is 30 years old. Yousuf Khan Don't forget that electrical noise will propagate from all homes attached to the same power line transformer, as in up on a power pole or in a ground based cabinet. You might not have added any new electronic equipment but who knows what the neighbors have added. I once lived in a place where the neighbors water heater thermostat was arching so badly that it would jam the internet AND the cable TV feed at our place when it was active. It took a while to track down due to it being intermittent but fortunately the interference was so bad that a portable AM radio could be used to track down the source. Sounds like my *wondrous* $60/US Hong Kong shortwave unit;- really is, stacks up against a Grundig or any of the tradition names selling for three times more. Tuning to any band, other than FM, however, and what I get to hear sounds exactly like Jodie Foster in the blockbuster _CONTACT_, when it was her destiny to tune into alien life forms broadcasting 3D imagery on her astrological oscilloscope. |
#8
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Powerline Ethernet, inconsistent performance
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Yousuf Khan wrote in part:
I've had a powerline ethernet setup for several years at my home. I usually find their performance more consistent than Wi-Fi, especially when streaming video. But right now I'm not experiencing usual conditions. I'm currently using 3 adapters distributed throughout my home. Current iteration uses all adapters based on the Powerline HD 200Mbps standard. Usually I'd be getting over 100Mbps on all adapters, occasionally dropping down to 50Mbps in the worst cases. Nowadays I'm seeing it drop down to 5Mbps even. I haven't added too many new electrical appliances my home, as far as I can tell, but the quality of the electrical lines seems to have gotten noisier for no apparent reason. What can be done to improve the situation? The house is 30 years old. Some things to try: 1) Check your house/panel ground. They can "weather" and need tightening/clean-up. Bad grounds are bad news. 2) Make sure all devices are on the same 110V rectification. Most N.American houses are served from center-ground transformers with two hot lines, +110V and -110V 180' out-of-phase which can be used by high-draw appliances (stoves, driers, AC) to make 220VAC. Approximately half the 110V circuits are on one rectification, the other half on the other (usually alternating breakers). If you plug a device into the other hot, it can only get signal by crosstalk and bleed-through 220 draws. You're lucky to get poor signal. 3) Several houses usually are on the same transformer. [New] Noisemakers in those houses can affect your signal (as posted side-thread). You could try to use your other hot, or it may be possible to install filter caps near your service entrance. -- Robert |
#9
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Powerline Ethernet, inconsistent performance
On Sep 30, 4:23 pm, Paul wrote:
My current ADSL modem, is no-where near as stable as the old one. The old one would have kept running, even if there was a meltdown happening around it. I've *two* high speed DSL, ActionTEC GT701D models in great shape. One's still factory shrink-wrapped in the original box, I liked the first so much. But, they do have a reputation for connecting into virtually anything known, do it all by default automatically, too, hardly ever have a need to override that to get into setting configurations, and never get even a hint hot because they're "green" -- the perfect modem (real popular in China, too) -- until, of course, the TELCO raises basic unlimited local rates by a 300%, and the line gets pulled. Very common these days in USofA. And that just doubly sucks. You with crappy modems and me with great modems I can't use. (I've been through the rentals/loaners, reason why I bought these.-( |
#10
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Powerline Ethernet, inconsistent performance
You might map your cabling and insure that the boxes are on the shortest runs of cable. Generally the feeds to a room are split among several circuits so everything doesn't go dark if one get overloaded and trips. You would also want them on the same side of the line. Switching power supplies and fluorescent lamps create havoc on power lines. |
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