Power line ethernet

Felix DiCestria

Felix DiCestria
Over the last couple of days I've had frequent Mauve Adders and other coloured snakes so made the decision to switch from WiFi to power line ethernet. Just connected it up, on the surface everything seems fine.
Try to load ED, first impression; good grief this is glacial. Took ages to load and then connect to Frontier.
Looking on Galmap no system states are appearing, the entire Bubble is grey.
No rescue ship icons are appearing, even if I centre on Tarach Tor.
Anyone familiar with why this might be happening?
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
Not without a lot more information. If you suspect your connection speed/quality, first step would be to run a tracert and a speedtest.
Tracert: open a command window, then type "tracert www.heise.de" (for example, www.heise.de is the web server of one of the major European IT publishers, they can stand the traffic :) and have all necessary ports open). That'll get you a list of "hops" between the stations on that route, the interesting part for you are the first few until that trace hits your ISP's server. Oh, and don't panic if you see a row of astrisks - in my case, that's the cable modem. If you get more lines after that, everything'll be fine.
Speedtest: Google it - or check your ISP's website. The result will depend on your location and ISP. That should get you the principal connection speed between your machine and your ISP (ideally, using the tool from your ISP).

IF those indicate a bottleneck between your machine and your ISP, you can start digging around in your local setup. One possibility could be that the endpoints of your powerline connection aren't on the same circuit - which makes that connection rather delicate. But again, that depends on the fine details of your local setup, starting with the exact model of power line adapter (or at least the knowledge about which powerline spec exactly we're talking about) and your living conditions - if you're in a high rise and thirty other people on the same circuit (as seen from the connection point in the basement) are already streaming (or trying to) HD video via powerline, things look different from a single house with nobody else around in a ten mile radius.

Edit: and before you start, I'd check the relevant error reports for your region and ISP. It might just be a coincidence, especially if there's a thunderstorm in the area.
 
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Ultra Fluffy

Ultra Fluffy
  • Poor quality cables
  • Bad connections
  • Power over ethernet causing interference on data wires.
  • Poor configuration, e.g. clashes in IP addresses.
  • Cables too close to power cables and electrical equipment
  • Slow hub/switch
  • etc etc
 

Helmut Grokenberger

Helmut Grokenberger
Powerline adapters need as few connectors between them as possible. They should be plugged directly into wall sockets. If you have plugged one of them or even both into power strips or extension cords, that will drastically reduce signal quality and speed. Going through sub-distributions and fuseboxes when you have to bridge floors can be bad too. Old wiring can also be a problem, or having to cross through power meters.

In my appartment in a 120 year old house with wiring from the stone age I found powerline to be very unreliable and basically unusable. It happens. Wifi as such isn't terrible. My central networking in my study is connected to my router through a wifi bridge with no issues, speed is great and I usually have excellent instancing in ED. Maybe don't use cheap weak usb wifi adapters in your computer, instead use quality wifi extenders. My router and repeaters are made by AVM, other manufacturers are available :).
 

Felix DiCestria

Felix DiCestria
For myself the house is just over 40 years old, pretty sure the sockets are on a single circuit.
The fact there's only a single socket in the room with the computer means everything has to go through a power strip, so that is most likely culprit.
Not sure why it's particularly got it in for system states or rescue ship icons.
 

Northpin

Northpin
Felix DiCestria said:
Over the last couple of days I've had frequent Mauve Adders and other coloured snakes so made the decision to switch from WiFi to power line ethernet. Just connected it up, on the surface everything seems fine.
Try to load ED, first impression; good grief this is glacial. Took ages to load and then connect to Frontier.
Looking on Galmap no system states are appearing, the entire Bubble is grey.
No rescue ship icons are appearing, even if I centre on Tarach Tor.
Anyone familiar with why this might be happening?
Click to expand...


While wifi can be put to blame in case of low signal or heavy congestion, a good low latency wifi will work as good as cable (standard ethernet)
(I run an Asus RT-AX86U, in the same room with my laptop and i have full gigabit over wireless with lowlatency)

Power line ethernet requires good cabling and even then it can subject you to various issues due to interferences from the appliances connected to the powerline (AC, washing machine, coffee grinders, refrigerators and even cheap Chinese phone power chargers)

IMO power line ethernet should be the last resort, and even so i wouldn't game on that network, it may be ok-ish for browsing or watching some FHD Netflix, but gaming? Meh.
 

Spaceman-FXL5

S
Northpin said:
IMO power line ethernet should be the last resort, and even so i wouldn't game on that network, it may be ok-ish for browsing or watching some FHD Netflix, but gaming? Meh.
Click to expand...
As per this ☝️ , it def should be a last resort.
I am in same room as router with no probs on WiFi but still use Ethernet as it doesn't share bandwidth, but my son in his bedroom got a long 30M Ethernet cable for gaming and has no stutter AT ALL - he tried WiFi but it was not up to it.

Why not try a long Ethernet cable and a packet or 2 of cable tacks to tack it to the walls and up the stairs, etc - Ethernet cable works fine for over 100M! (>150M may be a problem IIRC).
 

Morbad

Morbad
Power line ethernet reacts poorly to power filtering...which should not be surprising as they work essentially by injecting noise into the AC line. If you've got surge supression/line filters that actually work, powerline ethernet usually won't.

Often you can get around this by deliberately not connected the power line ethernet adapters to any surge protectors, but if your whole home is protected, with isolated circuts, that can still be a problem.

Anyway, wifi is entirely acceptable for gaming at this point, if you adapters, AP, and router are all up to it. Environmental obstructions matter too...had to switch to the 2.4G band on one of my systems because the cast iron tub breaking LOS with the AP was totaly opaque to the 5 and 6GHz bands.
 

Spaceman-FXL5

S
Spaceman-FXL5 said:
Ethernet cable works fine for over 100M! (>150M may be a problem IIRC).
Click to expand...
I think this is the important bit - if you can get your better half to accept it of course - it is unsightly, but 500% better than Wifi - or do a better job than me and hide cable under carpets or along beading and around door frames, etc, etc, like a pro electrician would.

Why not try a long Ethernet cable (£10-£20?) loose and see the difference - you will :cool: - and then hide it?
 

the100thmonkey

the100thmonkey
Spaceman-FXL5 said:
I think this is the important bit - if you can get your better half to accept it of course - it is unsightly, but 500% better than Wifi - or do a better job than me and hide cable under carpets or along beading and around door frames, etc, etc, like a pro electrician would.

Why not try a long Ethernet cable (£10-£20?) loose and see the difference - you will :cool: - and then hide it?
Click to expand...
That's what I've done - all desktops in the house are wired over gigabit ethernet. I've "hidden" all the cables with H-clips.
That way, when my kids complain about lag, I kow it's either time to cold reset the router and modem, or Virgin are having a hiccup. Frankly, it's usually the latter.
 

Morbad

Morbad
If you can run cable without much hassle, do so.

That said, I use wifi on eight of my systems, including the two I game on most often. Packet loss is zero. Latency is about a millisecond higher than gigabit ethernet. Bandwidth is sufficient to saturate my (500/20) cable connection. And this with the router in a basement below the systems connecting to it, in an old construction with a lot of metal in the walls and floors, plus signal reflections from aluminum siding.

Set your access points up correctly, choose the right bands for the range and obstructions, and aim your antennae well...wifi shouldn't be a problem, unless you live in a steel house, are far from the closest you can place an AP, or have a ton of neighbors also on wifi.
 

Saltyseadog

Saltyseadog
Well I live in a 50+yr old house, run 2 x desktop PC's and a smart TV all connected via ethernet cat 6a cables and play Elite Dangerous on a 48" 4K tv without any problems. I have two flat ca 10mtr long cat 6a cables running to the downstairs PC plus the main TV and two short ca 6' long round cat 6a cables from the modem to the router and from the router to my 7yrs old desktop PC's network adapter. My monitor and tv are connected via the dvi and hdmi connections on the GTX1080 graphics card. I run a 2.1 stereo system + a blu ray player and various other bits and pieces all through two 6 gang extension leads, one from each wall socket in this room I call my office. One of the posts above mentions cat 5e cables and this is a weak point for sure. If you need long cables as in my downstairs TV and PC that is a necessary compromise when any electrically knowledegable person knows that the shorter the cable the better the signal. I think the OP should check that his ethernet cables are at least cat 6?.
 

Morbad

Morbad
Cat5e should be good for gigabit or 2.5G ethernet to 100m without trouble. Cable certfied for a higher standard wouldn't be a bad idea, if the price isn't much more, but if the cable actually meets Cat5e spec it will be fine.
 
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