HomePlug FAQ *Part 2*

I think I just added one wifi plug to an existing set up. Just try amazon, they were very helpful when I had to return one that didn't seem to communicate with the others, even though it was likely my error.
 
Hoping someone can help and make some suggestions.

I currently have these Homeplugs but I think they are the older version so I can't upgrade the FW.
They are fine but sometimes I can get dropouts and they need unplugging to get the connection again. This is rare though but annoying when I am in the middle of a MP game on either PS4 or Xbox One.

TP-LINK PA411KIT AV500 500 Mbps Powerline Adapter Starter Kit- Twin Pack: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Also I seem to only get max maybe 90mb download when I have 150mb, now I know this is down to the Network and plugs and wiring so may not get better than that.

So I have been looking at upgrading my plugs to some that may include wifi extender or more ethernet ports.

Would like to get TP-Link ones so I can use my existing plugs if needed.

So does anyone have any suggestions on new ones, would it be worth getting some that are 1000mb ?

Have been looking at these 2 sets

TP-LINK TL-WPA4220KIT AV500 Powerline 300M Wi-Fi Extender/Wi-Fi Booster/Hotspot with Two Ethernet Ports, Starter Kit/Twin Pack (Easy Configuration, Wi-Fi Clone for Smartphone/Tablets/Laptop): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

TP-LINK TL-WPA4220KIT AV500 Powerline 300M Wi-Fi Extender/Wi-Fi Booster/Hotspot with Two Ethernet Ports, Starter Kit/Twin Pack (Easy Configuration, Wi-Fi Clone for Smartphone/Tablets/Laptop): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Don't really need a pass through but extra connections would be good so I could plug the consoles in direct instead of a Gigabit switch. And also would the Wifi Extender work with 5ghz or just 2.4ghz ?

Or worth getting something like this ?

TP-LINK TL-PA8030P KIT AV1200 3-Port Gigabit Passthrough Powerline Adapter Starter Kit (1200 Mbps, Multiple HD Streams and No Configuration Required) - 2 Units Pack: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Just wanting to get a faster more stable connection on my Consoles and PC and extending the Wifi may resolve this or using a better Homeplug.

Thanks for any suggestions.
 
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Well, those TL-PA411 homeplugs only have Fast Ethernet ports, so you won't ever exceed 100Mbps anyway. Same goes with the 4220Kit too. I did mention this in my early reviews of homeplugs, it wasn't until the last couple of year's releases that Gigabit ports were fitted.

It doesn't matter the make of the adaptors. They are homeplug compliant and will work with other makes. I've used TP-LINK, Devolo and Netgear all in the same network without issues. Just remember the network will only be as fast as the slowest adaptor.
 
I have from time to time tried various versions of "Ethernet over mains" adapters. I have found none live up to their advertising and have caused interference with other devices, such as cordless phones, baby alarms etc. Before I switched to VDSL/2, they actually seemed to slow down my ADSL speeds, even when I am directly connected to the modem, possibly through interference being transmitted via the ring main. I now have a series of the latest Apple Airport Express 802.11N wireless boosters round the house and get very satisfactory reception throughout a large and rambling old house with thick walls and can stream HD TV via Sky On Demand box. I use a Time Capsule base station connected to my Draytek VDSL modem.
 
Well, those TL-PA411 homeplugs only have Fast Ethernet ports, so you won't ever exceed 100Mbps anyway. Same goes with the 4220Kit too. I did mention this in my early reviews of homeplugs, it wasn't until the last couple of year's releases that Gigabit ports were fitted.

It doesn't matter the make of the adaptors. They are homeplug compliant and will work with other makes. I've used TP-LINK, Devolo and Netgear all in the same network without issues. Just remember the network will only be as fast as the slowest adaptor.

I am guessing the AV1200 is my only option then?

When you say as fast as the slowest adaptor. So if I was to get the AV1200 and connect 1 to router and other for my Consoles. Then use an existing one for my laptop all would just max out at say 90mb or would it just be the laptop that would max out at that ?

With the 3 connection on the AV1200 that would replace the need for my Gigabit Switch also.
 
I am guessing the AV1200 is my only option then?

When you say as fast as the slowest adaptor. So if I was to get the AV1200 and connect 1 to router and other for my Consoles. Then use an existing one for my laptop all would just max out at say 90mb or would it just be the laptop that would max out at that ?

With the 3 connection on the AV1200 that would replace the need for my Gigabit Switch also.
I have a similar dilemma at the mo. I have multiple 200mps powerlines around the house and want to add some more and was wondering if I can use 500. from what @Greg Hook said above I can add these and they will work, but limited to the speed of the slower powerlines (please correct me if that is wrong).

That is OK as I can then upgrade all of them in slower time and spread the costs.

Anyway @King Tones - I would definitely go for powerlines with multiple ports TBH. Even if you don't need them they may come in handy. I have 2 that have 3 ports and they have become so useful and as I upgrade the speeds I will only get multiple port ones going forward,
 
Hi chaps

I've set up a few solwise homeplugs around the house, some with wifi aswell. Each has quite an elaborate name like pevw41079c9 etc. Has anyone figured out how to change these names? Just want to make it "bedroom" 'living room" etc

I've spent time in the past on this but never got anywhere and solwise customer service were fairly hopeless aswell.

Any ideas? Thanks
 
I have a similar dilemma at the mo. I have multiple 200mps powerlines around the house and want to add some more and was wondering if I can use 500. from what @Greg Hook said above I can add these and they will work, but limited to the speed of the slower powerlines (please correct me if that is wrong).

That is OK as I can then upgrade all of them in slower time and spread the costs.

Anyway @King Tones - I would definitely go for powerlines with multiple ports TBH. Even if you don't need them they may come in handy. I have 2 that have 3 ports and they have become so useful and as I upgrade the speeds I will only get multiple port ones going forward,

I went for the AV1200 in the end and glad I did.

Giving me my full download speed now in my games room and have been able to get rid of the Ethernet Switch I had setup.

Working really well now.
 
I am moving in two weeks and my current house is fully wired with CAT5 to my home office, spare bedroom and the lounge.

New house won't have this and whilst I prepare to put CAT6 in (I need to plan exactly how to do this, as I want most of the house wired up) I think I'll need some homeplugs.

My office has 4 NAS devices and my PC. Would I need two lots of these?

TP-LINK TL-PA7020P KIT AV1000 2 Port Gigabit Pass-Through Powerline Adapter Starter Kit - Pack of 2: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Thanks.
 
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Acutally reading Kingtones post, I may as well buy the AV1200.

Do I just plug one in at the point where the fibre router is and plug an ethernet cable into a network socket?

Then at the other end, I can plug my PC, and NAS boxes in?

Reading through this thread, I can't plug a switch into one of the ports is that still correct?
 
Acutally reading Kingtones post, I may as well buy the AV1200.

Do I just plug one in at the point where the fibre router is and plug an ethernet cable into a network socket?

Then at the other end, I can plug my PC, and NAS boxes in?

Reading through this thread, I can't plug a switch into one of the ports is that still correct?

Yeah really simple to setup. You can still plug in an Ethernet switch, I used one with my old Homeplugs as they just had 1 port. I decided to get rid of it with these plugs though as it has 3 ports which I can connect my Xbox, PS4 and laptop to.
 
Yeah really simple to setup. You can still plug in an Ethernet switch, I used one with my old Homeplugs as they just had 1 port. I decided to get rid of it with these plugs though as it has 3 ports which I can connect my Xbox, PS4 and laptop to.

3 won't be sufficient for me.

My home office has 4 NAS devices, Xbox 360, Xbox 1, Smart TV, Rasp Pi (Kodi and Retro games) and a PC.

So I would want to connect a gigbit switch to one of the ports on the homeplug and then

Eventually, I want to use CAT6 sockets. My home office at my new place is a garage conversion, so I will put new plasterboard walls in. This will allow me to run cabling and power wherever I need.

I need to look at HDMI options too I think. It would be nice to have a tidy HDMI solution for consoles and Pi. Even may connect my PC to the TV
 
Why waste money on something you will throw away in a few weeks? Just run some temperary CAT6 cabling round the walls etc until you do it properly.
 
Why waste money on something you will throw away in a few weeks? Just run some temperary CAT6 cabling round the walls etc until you do it properly.

I have something called a wife ;) She will moan like crazy if I do that.

Could be an option though, she just agreed to it. Just need to get a cable to two made up.
 
Over a year since anybody commented hope people still look here. I get a bit confused by the Mbyte and mega bit thing. Using a speedtest I am told my internet speed is at maximum 4mbps but I think they mean 4mbytes per second. Knowing this am I correct in thinking getting the latest high speed homeplugs would be a waste of money as I would never utilise their speeds?
 
Over a year since anybody commented hope people still look here. I get a bit confused by the Mbyte and mega bit thing. Using a speedtest I am told my internet speed is at maximum 4mbps but I think they mean 4mbytes per second. Knowing this am I correct in thinking getting the latest high speed homeplugs would be a waste of money as I would never utilise their speeds?
Faster offers more bandwidth for your home network devices such as moving data to or from NAS drives. However, gigabit ports are required to maximise throu put and obviously the effects of your house wiring. Beyond your house you are limited to your internet speed.
 
Over a year since anybody commented hope people still look here. I get a bit confused by the Mbyte and mega bit thing. Using a speedtest I am told my internet speed is at maximum 4mbps but I think they mean 4mbytes per second. Knowing this am I correct in thinking getting the latest high speed homeplugs would be a waste of money as I would never utilise their speeds?

If you are using one of the popular Internet "Speed Test" sites, then it's unlikely they will be using mbytes.

The link rate (speed) of data networking technology is usually cited in bits not bytes, not least because it is a measure of time and not quantity.

"Speedtest" doesn't actually measure the "speed" (rate) of anything, it performs some measured data transfers over an arbitrarily chosen time period, then computes a statistical average, (like the trip computer in a car,) but it is also expressed in bits not bytes. So 4mbps from Speedtest is 4 megabits per second, not bytes.

It's important to understand the the journey between the Speedtest web servers and your client device "hops" across many distinct network links and each has it's own characteristics and performance (and varying traffic levels.) Speedtest measures the entire journey end-to-end complete with all the accumulated vices of each hop in the pathway. On some particular day, at some particular time.

It used to be the case that the slowest hop between source and sink would be one's local Internet link, but as "super fast" broadband rolling out, that is not always the case. Also, we cannot assume that everything "upstream" of our ISP link is of infinite capacity - there's plenty of constraints there too.

Whether faster HomePlugs are worthwhile depends on use case. If the HP's are the slowest link in a pathway (whether it be to speedtest, local traffic or anywhere else) then it may be worth trying faster ones (if your mains is up to it.) If the HP's aren't the bottleneck, then it would make no difference. It needs to be assessed holistically.

A faster set of HP's won't magically "fix" a slow Internet link in the same way that raising the speed limit of a road in Glasgow does nothing to address the speed of traffic on a congested road in London. If London is where the bottleneck is, that's where you need to address the problem if you want to get to Glasgow quicker and your journey starts in London.

Of course, "speeding up" the slowest hop in the pathway is a movable feast. As soon as one fixes slow link A then it simply shifts the honour of being "slowest link in the pathway" to another hop - which may or may not be a "problem."
 
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Hi
This is a huge thread, sorry if this had come up before, search didn't work.
I've had two tp link home plugs for 4-5 years. Recently our hub has been dropping out on wifi and wired 10-20 times a day. By have checked line several times and sent us two hubs in a month. No better. I've tried narrowing it down and as soon as the home plugs are turned off the network is fine. Can home plugs cause these problems? It's causing havoc with online gaming and sky q. It's a no go to hard wire the room and wifi is very inconsistent there. The home plugs seem to work fine as they drop out with the router but it looks to me they are causing it.
If I need to buy new can anyone recommend a good set. I only need 2. Thanks
 
Sounds rather like the symptoms you would experience if you've created a "loop" in the network topology somewhere. (This isn't a HomePlugs problem per se, it happens in any packet switching infrastructure that is "looped.")

Just to rule that out, when it crashes out, if you look at the "activity" LED's on the various bit's of kit, are they showing busy..? In a looped network, you would see the capacity completely "filled up" with endlessly circling broadcast traffic, (preventing anything else getting a chance,) so the activity lamps (all of them) would be going bezerk.

Other test to try when in crashed state - connect to your router using an ethernet cabled device and try pinging some stuff to see what works. Ping the router, ping something on the Internet, ping something associated with the router Wi-Fi, ping something "the other side" of your homeplugs and ping all your homeplugs (if they have IP addresses) and see what works and what doesn't.
 
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Sounds rather like the symptoms you would experience if you've created a "loop" in the network topology somewhere. (This isn't a HomePlugs problem per se, it happens in any packet switching infrastructure that is "looped.")

Just to rule that out, when it crashes out, if you look at the "activity" LED's on the various bit's of kit, are they showing busy..? In a looped network, you would see the capacity completely "filled up" with endlessly circling broadcast traffic, (preventing anything else getting a chance,) so the activity lamps (all of them) would be going bezerk.

Other test to try when in crashed state - connect to your router using an ethernet cabled device and try pinging some stuff to see what works. Ping the router, ping something on the Internet, ping something associated with the router Wi-Fi, ping something "the other side" of your homeplugs and ping all your homeplugs (if they have IP addresses) and see what works and what doesn't.

Thanks
If this loop is the case what's steps can be taken to stop this?
 
The simple answer is, find the loop and break it somewhere.

However, having raised the spectre of this as a potential problem, it's worth saying that it is unlikely to be something that's happening - generally if you have a looped LAN topology, it would crash within minutes.

At the moment, there's little evidence of what the problem is, so we need to perform some of the diagnostics I've suggested to try and analyse what's happening.
 
@Pawson6844 Some of the newer/faster homeplugs can cause problems with VDSL broadband as they operate on the same frequencies, the interference can end up causing hundreds of crc errors which results in your broadband dropping. You say the network problems disappear once you have turned them off?
If the homeplug is plugged in close to the telephone socket, you could try moving it a bit further away if any other power sockets are available. I'd be interested to know whether that alleviates the problem.
 

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