louco73 Posted February 16, 2007 Posted February 16, 2007 Hi All, I need to move away from wireless which is sooooo slow when transferring large files. Rather than putting cables all over the place I think using the power lines makes more sense. What are you using? What is the performance like? Ok for HD? Where to get it from and how much?
Doggie Howser Posted February 16, 2007 Posted February 16, 2007 I just upgraded from the 85Mbps pair to the 200Mbps pair for my HD streaming. I think performance depends on the device. Using the HD MediaBox, still cannot stream WMV HD very well. But this is the case with even a wired connection. But I notice less lag when starting/rewind/ffwd with the 200Mbps lines now. Throughput is about 50-63% of max for my setup (1 unit in my switch room) and 1 unit in the AV rack. Much better than my wireless G bridge I was using in the same rack. Now using the 85Mbps for my HD DVD. Might drop in a 10/100 switch and share it with my Yamaha Network Receiver amp ;)
louco73 Posted February 16, 2007 Author Posted February 16, 2007 Doggie, What is the brand you are using? Where did you buy it from and how much? I read some reviews on The Register site and your % of max seems about the same as their measurements. In any case, as you say, it will be much better than wireless.
Quest88 Posted February 16, 2007 Posted February 16, 2007 i'm using the aztech power plug, 85mbps version. bought from funan (but i think SLS is cheaper) similarly only got about 60mbps now, which is about 70% throughput. in another room i managed to get 70+mbps though. good enough for streaming, but transfer speed is still slow.
Doggie Howser Posted February 16, 2007 Posted February 16, 2007 Doggie, What is the brand you are using? Where did you buy it from and how much? I read some reviews on The Register site and your % of max seems about the same as their measurements. In any case, as you say, it will be much better than wireless. Can't recall how much I paid for the 85Mbps pair. Got them in SLS from Fuwell a while back. Posted my review somewhere in here then. The 200Mbps is abt 240?+ from Challenger. All are Aztech brands.
louco73 Posted February 16, 2007 Author Posted February 16, 2007 Can't recall how much I paid for the 85Mbps pair. Got them in SLS from Fuwell a while back. Posted my review somewhere in here then. The 200Mbps is abt 240?+ from Challenger. All are Aztech brands. Excellent, I feel a need to go to Funan for lunch ;).
htfreak Posted February 16, 2007 Posted February 16, 2007 I noticed a few days back in SLS that Netgear has also released a new 85mbps powerline box but their's have one unique feature in that it incorporates a 4 port ethernet switch at the same time. Hence, you can just simply plug one into your home AV equipment rack and have all your equipment connected at the same time without investing in a seperate mini hub. Pricing for one unit is about $135 if I did not hear that guy wrongly.
louco73 Posted February 16, 2007 Author Posted February 16, 2007 Yeah, I saw the Netgear one, but you still need two units, so you are going to be paying $200 for 85 Mbs. Good solution with the ports though. I got the Aztech 200 Mbs package that comes with two units for $258 from PK Computer. Seemed to be the cheapest place. I'll see how it goes tonight.
simic Posted February 16, 2007 Posted February 16, 2007 For the price of a pair of these, u can hire some one to lay proper cat5 cables thru your house.
Quest88 Posted February 16, 2007 Posted February 16, 2007 lol louco, you were at funan during lunch time? i was there too. i too, bought my power plugs from PK computer.
louco73 Posted February 16, 2007 Author Posted February 16, 2007 For the price of a pair of these, u can hire some one to lay proper cat5 cables thru your house. Not if you are renting ;)
louco73 Posted February 16, 2007 Author Posted February 16, 2007 lol louco, you were at funan during lunch time? i was there too. i too, bought my power plugs from PK computer. lol, should have called me! It's a bit of a mess at the moment, isn't it? Harvey Norman going into the basement, so the food court is now on level 5. Only one set of escalators working so you have to walk all over the place to get anywhere. Pain in the %.
Quest88 Posted February 16, 2007 Posted February 16, 2007 that's right. a real pain. i think there's cold storage now at the basement too actually. what i actually miss is the andersen's store at the escalator. :)
htfreak Posted February 16, 2007 Posted February 16, 2007 Actually Cold Storage has been there for a long long time liao.
simic Posted February 16, 2007 Posted February 16, 2007 Not if you are renting ;) oops ;) too self centered of me. then u really bo pian. however based on the reviews that i have read so far abt powerline, nothing really beats good ole cat5 cable. i really regretted not laying cat5 cable when i did my reno.
sonofdbn Posted February 17, 2007 Posted February 17, 2007 I bought the Aztech 200 Mbps version and found the performance was not what I had expected. IIRC, I managed to get at most around 35-45 Mbps (measured using the utility provided), and sometimes couldn't connect at all. I used Gigabit LAN adapters and a Gigabit switch, so the network hardware shouldn't have been a limitation. But in fairness I haven't tested comprehensively. My observation is that going from one extension cord to another is the most problematic, and it probably depends on how "noisy" the other equipment on the power line is. Using a "standalone" wall plug seems to be the best, but those are at a premium in my place. In the end I ended up putting in some DIY trunking. BTW, I do recommend making an immediate backup of the Aztech CD - it warped within a few months - the first time it's happened to ANY CD I have. Fortunately I had a backup image.
louco73 Posted February 17, 2007 Author Posted February 17, 2007 Well all I had time to do last night was plug it in and see if it worked. The manual states the steps as: Plan your network Remove/Disable Conflicts Connect the Device Use the Homeplug utility You can now used the device. I started to doze off around remove disable conflicts. I figured since the devices are supposed to recognize each other and configure themselves automatically that I would just plug them in. I put one in my home office connected to my wireless router. Then I connected the other to a power socket next to my HTPC in the living area. The distance is about as far apart as I can get in my condo. I'd say about 20m as a guess. I didn't need to run the utility, it was simply plug'n'play. The first unit obviously configured itself from the router and the 2nd picked up the 1st across the power line. My HTPC picked up an IP from the router and all was good. I started a quick copy of a file and it's much faster than the wireless. I'll do some more testing later today and post the comparison results between: Copying to and from using a wireless connection Copying to and from using a powerline connection Copying to and from using a local LAN connection (100Mbps) Not the cheapest solution, but so far it looks like it's solved my problem. More to come soon.
Quest88 Posted February 17, 2007 Posted February 17, 2007 You only need the utility if you want to track the performance, or if you want to set a password on your network. :)
louco73 Posted February 17, 2007 Author Posted February 17, 2007 I took a file that is 365,068,078 bytes and copied it from my main PC which is connected directly to my router to another PC also connected directly to my router and to my HTPC via the powerline connection and wireless. Here are the results: 0:37 LAN ~ 79 Mbps 1:24 powerline ~ 35 Mbps 4:02 wireless ~ 12 Mbps My wireless router is only 100 Mbps compliant so if you can get Gigabit Ethernet it would make the powerline solution look slow. However, as you can see it gives quite a good speed increase over my wireless connection. Note: All tests were run at least twice. The wireless tests showed 3 different numbers with 4:02 being the average. The LAN and powerline were the same in each of the two test runs.
Madsumm Posted February 21, 2007 Posted February 21, 2007 Juz some note. Most rated network devices should work around 75% claimed rate. If its 100mbps. its around 70-80mbps max. Due to overheads and frame headers..etc.
louco73 Posted February 21, 2007 Author Posted February 21, 2007 Juz some note. Most rated network devices should work around 75% claimed rate. If its 100mbps. its around 70-80mbps max. Due to overheads and frame headers..etc. Yeah, I guess I should have mentioned that. Thanks for bringing it up. I was quite impressed when the LAN number came out so high.
khewa Posted February 21, 2007 Posted February 21, 2007 given that Powerline transmissions only gives you around 35 mps, maybe we should invest in the 802.11N products. anyone has done any tests on the throughputs of 802.11N draft 2 products ?
Doggie Howser Posted February 22, 2007 Posted February 22, 2007 given that Powerline transmissions only gives you around 35 mps, maybe we should invest in the 802.11N products. anyone has done any tests on the throughputs of 802.11N draft 2 products ? I am not entirely convinced 802.11n will be significantly better if you are already having signal strength issues with 11g. Admittedly, my MIMO based router does give me better coverage (and 11n is based on that), but it isn't perfect and in my case, I find that it isn't just the bandwidth but the lag/delay. The PowerLine devices' main benefit is that it gives you significantly better strength where yr wireless connections can't. I am using both, happily :)
louco73 Posted February 22, 2007 Author Posted February 22, 2007 given that Powerline transmissions only gives you around 35 mps, maybe we should invest in the 802.11N products. anyone has done any tests on the throughputs of 802.11N draft 2 products ? I think that other people would probably get more than 35 Mbps. My connections are as far apart as possible in my place. If I connected them closer I'm sure the bandwidth results would be higher. What I was trying to show is that there is a significant improvement over wireless for those with restrictions on laying cables. Perhaps others could post their results? It doesn't take long, just grab a big file (over 200MB), copy it between two machines and time how long it takes. Repeat twice or thrice just to make sure it's consistent (disk activity and caching impact). Get your calculator out and work out the result. bandwith (Mbps) = ( ( size of file in bytes * 8 ) / number of seconds ) / 1,000,000
sonofdbn Posted February 22, 2007 Posted February 22, 2007 Get your calculator out and work out the result. bandwith (Mbps) = ( ( size of file in bytes * 8 ) / number of seconds ) / 1,000,000 We've just transferred a file from one COMPUTER to another COMPUTER and we still have to use a calculator to do the arithmetic? ;)
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