Home News Forum Articles
  Welcome back Join CF
You are here You are here: Home | Forum | Will a "better" homeplug help me?

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most of the discussions, articles and other free features. By joining our Virgin Media community you will have full access to all discussions, be able to view and post threads, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload your own images/photos, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please join our community today.


Welcome to Cable Forum
Go Back   Cable Forum > Computers & IT > Networking

Will a "better" homeplug help me?
Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 12-04-2010, 18:02   #1
bilbo64
Inactive
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 5
bilbo64 is an unknown quantity at this point
Will a "better" homeplug help me?

Hi,

We switched to Virgin 50meg last week and since then my media centre extender either won't connect at all, or doesn't stay connected long enough to be of any use.

Also, my p2p program (utorrent) kills off my internet connection when it gets up to a certain d/l rate. None of this ever happened with the lower speed service we had from Sky.

My dlink dir615 router is next to the modem downstairs at the front of the house. It is connected to the DMA2200 media centre extender via ethernet cable. A devolo high speed 85mbps homeplug runs from the router to the mains and another one feeds my main pc, which is upstairs at the back of the house (where else!). The router also serves my wife's laptop wirelessly, and another homeplug serves my sons xbox upstairs. All this was fine before Virgin.



I spoke to tech support today, and I think we narrowed down the problem to the homeplugs themselves - that they can't cope with the higher bandwidth - but after I hung up and thought about it for a while I'm not so sure. The homeplugs are 85mbps - surely they can cope with the 50meg broadband? Would 200mbps homeplugs do the job?

I hope someone can help! I'm reluctant to buy more homeplugs if that's not really where the problem is, particularly as I've just bought a new router thinking that that was the problem!
bilbo64 is offline   Reply With Quote
Advertisement
Old 12-04-2010, 18:07   #2
danielf
cf.mega poser
 
danielf's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 16,687
danielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden aura
danielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden aura
Re: Will a "better" homeplug help me?

I'm not sure about the disconnecting, but 85mbps homeplugs are not sufficient for 50 mbps Broadband. The overheads of the homeplug protocol are quite high, and I get a maximum throughput of about 20 meg out of my 85mbps homeplugs. 15 meg is more realistic. Faster homeplugs might help, but I'm not sure what the realistic throughput for the 200mbps one is.
__________________
Remember kids: We are blessed with a listening, caring government.
danielf is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-04-2010, 18:25   #3
bilbo64
Inactive
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 5
bilbo64 is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: Will a "better" homeplug help me?

Nearly 12,000 posts!?! wow!

Earlier today I discovered that when utorrent crashes my internet, instead of running downstairs to restart the router I could just unplug the homeplug and plug it in again and it would be back up in seconds (certainly saves my legs!). That suggested that the problem was the homeplug, and then tech support also said that so I gues that's what the problem is, so I'm halfway to solving it. Thanks for confirming my suspicions about the 85mbps homeplugs.

200mbps is the biggest type of homeplug, right? A quick google has revealed that the throughput on the zyxel 200mbps system is about 100mbps - would that be enough?
bilbo64 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-04-2010, 18:37   #4
danielf
cf.mega poser
 
danielf's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 16,687
danielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden aura
danielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden aura
Re: Will a "better" homeplug help me?

If the throughput on the 200mbps one is indeed 100 mbps, then I would imagine they should work. Then again, I don't use Torrents and don't have 50mb, so I may not be the best person to answer that question.

Nearly 12,000 posts, and all of them quality
__________________
Remember kids: We are blessed with a listening, caring government.
danielf is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-04-2010, 19:05   #5
bilbo64
Inactive
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 5
bilbo64 is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: Will a "better" homeplug help me?

I just found some fairly cheap ones on Amazon and a lot of the reviews place the throughput at 100, 130 even up to 175mbps so it looks like they'll do the trick.

Thanks for your help! I've been tearing my hair out thinking the router was the problem
bilbo64 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 13-04-2010, 08:22   #6
Lord Nikon
Inactive
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: NW UK
Posts: 3,546
Lord Nikon has a bronze arrayLord Nikon has a bronze arrayLord Nikon has a bronze array
Lord Nikon has a bronze arrayLord Nikon has a bronze arrayLord Nikon has a bronze arrayLord Nikon has a bronze arrayLord Nikon has a bronze arrayLord Nikon has a bronze arrayLord Nikon has a bronze arrayLord Nikon has a bronze arrayLord Nikon has a bronze arrayLord Nikon has a bronze arrayLord Nikon has a bronze array
Re: Will a "better" homeplug help me?

try limiting the utorrent upstream as it's normally upstream not downstream saturation that causes the problems.
Lord Nikon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 13-04-2010, 13:32   #7
bilbo64
Inactive
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 5
bilbo64 is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: Will a "better" homeplug help me?

Thanks for the tip. I tried doing that this morning and it doesn't seem to have lost connection since. (yay!)

So now I'm torn between 2 replacement homeplug products. The cheap one on Amazon has no brand name, just "max value" and costs £68.00, or there's the devolo option which is another £25 and is the brand I've been using happily for years.

I think I may have just answered my own question...
bilbo64 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 17-04-2010, 13:56   #8
bilbo64
Inactive
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 5
bilbo64 is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: Will a "better" homeplug help me?

Just a little update...

It did indeed work. The 200mbps homeplugs allow everything to work happily, although my son hasn't checked out his xbox yet, and that is still connected via an older 85mbps homeplug. But if he's not interested then neither am I!
bilbo64 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 17-04-2010, 14:01   #9
danielf
cf.mega poser
 
danielf's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 16,687
danielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden aura
danielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden auradanielf has a golden aura
Re: Will a "better" homeplug help me?

Good to hear Did you go for the Devolos or the unbranded ones?

Also: what throughput are you getting when moving large files over your network?
__________________
Remember kids: We are blessed with a listening, caring government.
danielf is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 14:21.


Server: osmium.zmnt.uk
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.