Direct to modem gets me 100Mbps down, with router it is 60

[tornadog]

So my setup is kinda wierd. I have an entertainment closet where all my electronics stuff is. There is a coaxial cable outlet which is not working. So I have to use the one in my bedroom to connect my cable modem SB6183.

I didnt want to draw a cable from bedroom to the living room. So I bought a netgear powerlink adapter kit. Connected one end to the modem and the other end to the Asus RT-AC55U router. Then from the router to my PC.

My download speed is almost halved with this setup, I get full upload speed though. If I run a long cable from my bedroom modem straight to my pc, I get the full 100+ Mbps speeds

Can someone suggest an alternate setup so I can get full speeds? I just cannot wrap my head around a good solution, so maybe another pair of eyes will help.

 

[thesmokingman]

So my setup is kinda wierd. I have an entertainment closet where all my electronics stuff is. There is a coaxial cable outlet which is not working. So I have to use the one in my bedroom to connect my cable modem SB6183.

I didnt want to draw a cable from bedroom to the living room. So I bought a netgear powerlink adapter kit. Connected one end to the modem and the other end to the Asus RT-AC55U router. Then from the router to my PC.

My download speed is almost halved with this setup, I get full upload speed though. If I run a long cable from my bedroom modem straight to my pc, I get the full 100+ Mbps speeds

Can someone suggest an alternate setup so I can get full speeds? I just cannot wrap my head around a good solution, so maybe another pair of eyes will help.

Icksnay the powerline otherwise, not sure their is a way around it if you won't drop a cable.

 

[razel]

If that coax was there when the house was built, find out where it goes. If your house is newer and has coax in several rooms, there is a splitter somewhere otherwise it's probably going through the attic to the roof either way. By the way, with cable Internet speeds as high as there are these days, you will definitely need to run a new coax line which means you might as well get comfortable, man it up, head to the attic and drop your own network cables. You'll want to anyways if you plan on living there.

It's not difficult. You just need a drill and serveral hours, but hours well worth it. I'm glad I did in 3 of my family member's homes. Technically 2 of the homes we ran the LAN cable underneath the house in the crawl space and the other home in the attic. I found the crawl space easier, there was already some type of existing hole or opening I can use and the floor is closer to where we wanted the wires instead of fishing it down the wall hoping not to hit a horizontal stud or fiberfill and try again.

 

[thesmokingman]

It's not difficult. You just need a drill and serveral hours, but hours well worth it.

Yeap, it's not terribly difficult, just time consuming and a bit of hard work. Get an auger and a fish at home depot, a box of line, a crimper, connectors and you are set. I've wired every home we bought. I ran two three drops of cat6, 1 coxial to every room. In the main room I ran two drops of coxial, gives ya the flexibility to run the modem next to the tv. Keeping your router and modem out of the attic also keeps them alive longer.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

That powerline adapter is most likely max 100mbps, and in practice is usually about half that. Don't be fooled by the 500mbps marketing, that is only if you have 5 adapters in use. There are, of course, more expensive models that tout Gigabit speeds, of which you will likely get half that speed in practice.

 

[KingFatty]

maybe the powerline is traversing a difficult/convoluted electrical path between different circuits, if you have multiple circuit boxes or some weird electrical setup that isolates one part of the house from the other. maybe you can try different wall outlets just to see if it improves.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

SmallNetBuilder has performed tests on Powerline adapters, and even they see actual throughput far below the theoretical maximum in real-world tests. From the Netgear Powerline Nano 500 review we get the following setup:

Here are descriptions of the three test locations:

• Location A: The two adapters under test are plugged into the same wall outlet or two outlets in the same outlet strip.
• Location C: One adapter in Location A outlet. Second adapter in living room, one floor up and middle of home
• Location E: One adapter in Location A outlet. Outlet in kitchen, one floor up and opposite end of home

Note that Location A will never occur outside of lab testing. Now check the charts:

None of them come close to 100mbps. This doesn't mean they are complete garbage, as they can perform better than wireless routers in the same situation for much less overall cost, but they are simply not as good as straight Cat5/e/6 connections. Complete powerline charts are here including Gigabit kits which also fall far short of theoretical maximum speeds.

 

[Tweak155]

Run some CAT5e (cost effective) or CAT6. I've done this in the last 3 homes I've owned and it has been worth it for me since I use my computers all the time.