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Best Powerline Adapter?

post #1 of 48
8/23/11 at 10:15pm
Thread Starter 
hey guys looking to buy Powerline Adapter....I have my modem and router in my bedroom and have my Home Theater, PC and xbox 360 in another room all connected wireless, thought it can help with the connections....thinking about the Netgear XAVB5004 been reading pretty good reviews on that unless there is something better out there?

thanks
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post #2 of 48
8/24/11 at 4:34am
If you have Coax cable already installed, this is a much better option....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833122243
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post #3 of 48
8/24/11 at 5:32am
I have the Netgear AV500 kit and it works very well. Able to stream 1080p BD rips. D-link's AV500 is another option, but reviews give the edge to Netgear.
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post #4 of 48
8/24/11 at 6:08am
Thread Starter 
I've read that the NetComm NP204 is pretty good....anybody use netcomm before?
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post #5 of 48
8/24/11 at 7:16am
Definitely go with a 500mbps device if you need Blu-Ray.

Only buy a device that you can easily return. Powerline devices are very situational. Never use a surge protector with them.
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post #6 of 48
8/24/11 at 7:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brajesh View Post

I have the Netgear AV500 kit and it works very well. Able to stream 1080p BD rips..


Yup, that's what I'm running to my dune, no problems at all with even high bitrate Bluray stuff.
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post #7 of 48
8/24/11 at 8:53am
I picked this up for my daughter who rents a home built in the 1930's. Some of the outlets in the house are 2 prong and some are 3 prong. So be aware that this is the 3 prong version that allows you to plug in other devices into the back so you don't lose use of the wall socket. She uses it to stream Netflix and BD's (from her computer upstairs to her HDTV downstairs) and so far it's worked great.

http://www.buy.com/prod/netgear-xavb...221896562.html
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post #8 of 48
8/24/11 at 10:23am
for you guys streaming full bluray rips, do you know if the circuits in your house are AFCI circuits? Either the wiring in my house is complete crap or I need a new router because I have the Netgear XAVB5004 but I only get a maximum of around 24Mbps. I'm thinking since my computer and router are located in one of the bedrooms I use as my office which have the AFCI circuits if that is what is screwing up my transmission rates. I really wish I could stream high bitrate stuff but unless my router is the culprit, I think the AFCI circuits are going to limit what I can stream.
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post #9 of 48
8/24/11 at 11:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe 6 Pack View Post

for you guys streaming full bluray rips, do you know if the circuits in your house are AFCI circuits? Either the wiring in my house is complete crap or I need a new router because I have the Netgear XAVB5004 but I only get a maximum of around 24Mbps. I'm thinking since my computer and router are located in one of the bedrooms I use as my office which have the AFCI circuits if that is what is screwing up my transmission rates. I really wish I could stream high bitrate stuff but unless my router is the culprit, I think the AFCI circuits are going to limit what I can stream.

I don't think mine are AFCI.... I get around 75-80 Mbps, which is plenty fast for any 1080P stuff (the maximum BR spec is 54Mbps)...and about 2-3 times as fast as most wireless-n solutions deliver for sustained transfer rates.

Have you tried any other outlets though? I did have to move the upstairs unit to a different wall socket (in another bedroom- but not a big deal as it was on the other side of the same wall, so a very short ethernet run from router to outlet worked either way)... the first outlet I tried upstairs only ever got the amber light (mid-grade signal speed lightl) rather than the green (good signal speed light).
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post #10 of 48
8/24/11 at 3:58pm
I tried every outlet in that room. Only one got the amber light, all of the others including the one I am using now get the green light. However, since my house was built after 2005, all bedrooms have to have AFCI outlets and unfortunately there are no other outlets besides the ones in the bedrooms and the one in the bathroom which is even worse as it is a GFCI outlet.

Oh well, I might just buy and enclosure and 4 2TB harddrives and attach it to the Boxee Box by USB. I just hope the Boxee Box can recognize the 4 separate harddrives. I would prefer to get 3TB drives but since the box doesn't currently support it, I doubt I will take that risk.
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post #11 of 48
8/24/11 at 4:17pm
You can try JBOD (just a bunch of disks) mode on the enclosure, or consider getting a WHS or NAS.
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post #12 of 48
8/24/11 at 5:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe 6 Pack View Post

for you guys streaming full bluray rips, do you know if the circuits in your house are AFCI circuits? Either the wiring in my house is complete crap or I need a new router because I have the Netgear XAVB5004 but I only get a maximum of around 24Mbps. I'm thinking since my computer and router are located in one of the bedrooms I use as my office which have the AFCI circuits if that is what is screwing up my transmission rates. I really wish I could stream high bitrate stuff but unless my router is the culprit, I think the AFCI circuits are going to limit what I can stream.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwa...-speed?start=1

Quote:
Fortunately, I found out from an Atheros contact (formerly from Intellon, which was acquired by Atheros) that all AFCI breakers are not the same. Here's what he said:

AFCI circuit breakers can harm HomePlug signals depending on the design of the breaker. If the design has an inductor in front of the power supply bridge, there is little if any impact on HomePlug signals.

Square D and Eaton AFCIs have this arrangement and are very HomePlug-friendly; it is fortunate that these brands have a large market share. Some other manufacturers (such as Siemens) have a capacitor in front and this is detrimental to HomePlug signals.

You can include Murray AFCIs, which are in my home, in the "bad AFCI" list, too. I priced Square D replacements at around $50 each, so I haven't yet swapped out the Murrays! But all of my HomePlug test locations are no longer behind any AFCI outlets.
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post #13 of 48
8/24/11 at 6:29pm
Yeah, I read that when I was looking into why my transfer rates were so bad. I might have to just change one of the outlets to a non-AFCI outlet and see if that improves things.
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post #14 of 48
8/25/11 at 7:54am
Mine was built more recently than 2005 as well and I don't have the issue... so perhaps mine was built with the inductor-in-front design?

Probably be a lot cheaper to change the breaker on the outlet than to buy an external storage array though so I'd give that a shot first.
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post #15 of 48
8/25/11 at 10:16am
What would I need to buy to change the breaker? Do I just need to buy a new outlet with the inductor in front design and switch out my old one or is it something more involved?

After doing some research and checking my box in my garage, I see that there are two AFCI breakers for the bedrooms. So all I have to do is change the breaker tied to the bedroom I use as an office with one of those Eaton breakers and hopefully it will improve things.
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post #16 of 48
8/29/11 at 11:03am
So it looks like my breaker box is a Siemens box and according to the guy at Home Depot, I have to use the same brand breaker. Does anyone know if Siemens makes an inductor in front design breaker that I can use instead of the current one I have that is the culprit for my poor transmission rates?
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post #17 of 48
8/31/11 at 10:16am
Ok, so I finally gave up on trying to stream using powerline adapters. I had an old PC lying around that I moved downstairs and connected my external hard drives, router, and DSL modem directly to it. I then just ran an ethernet cable to an old switch I had and connected everything that way. I had to redo my shares on my Boxee Box but I can now stream the 43Mbit birds test all the way with no buffering where before I could barely make it through the 25Mbit one. I'm going to download some higher ones and see what the limit is. Either way, I should now be able to stream full Bluray rips.
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post #18 of 48
8/31/11 at 11:09am
Wow! Good info, sorry about all your issues. I've been using powerline routers for 5 yrs now, and never had a problem. My first set was Linksys PL200, and then I upgraded to the newer Western Digital Set, both 200mbps boxes. My house was built in 1996, so the wiring is pretty new. I curently get 90mbps on the remote WD box. Om my older Linksys set I get around 75-80 mbps. I stream 1080p stuff all the time.

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digita...4813880&sr=8-1
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post #19 of 48
8/31/11 at 1:37pm
Lucky bastard. My house was built in 2005 and I guess because of the room I used to use to store my media being behind the bad kind of AFCI breakers, I got crap performance. I had some Trendnet 200MBps adapters that were useful only for 720P stuff and when I upgraded to the Netgear 500MBps ones, I could stream some light 1080P stuff but had no hopes of doing full Bluray rips. Best of luck to anyone trying these and hopefully the information on the types of breakers and things like that will make choosing the best location to set up the adapters a little easier.
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post #20 of 48
9/7/11 at 3:30am
Thread Starter 
I went for WD livewire.....its the best!!! I can stream with no problems!
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post #21 of 48
9/7/11 at 3:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by flatlinerz View Post

I went for WD livewire.....its the best!!! I can stream with no problems!

Yep, totally. I first saw them on CNET, and they said they were the fastest set they ever tested, so I said those are for me.
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post #22 of 48
9/7/11 at 5:38pm
Here is a recent article on Powerline networking that should be helpful in making a decision

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4695/h...evices-working
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post #23 of 48
9/9/11 at 8:17pm
I've been really curious about powerline networking, but have never had my hands on them.

I'm wondering about two issues:

How do you contain the signal so it stays within your house and does not drip out into other houses on the same side of the transformer as yours?

I presume the signal changes the shape of the sine wave... like X10 does. Is this so? If so, does it impact motors on the same circuit or interfere with X10?
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post #24 of 48
9/11/11 at 1:31pm
We recently moved and I have not yet pulled out my Netgear powerline adapters but they worked spectacularly well in our old house which was built in 1934 and had a patchwork electrical system. I had to test a few outlets to find which ones offered the best speed but once set up they were rock solid and far superior to wireless.

They employ an encryption scheme so you're network is secure whether you are separated from your neighbor by a transformer or not.
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post #25 of 48
9/15/11 at 12:17am
I have the Western Digital livewire setup and it works great. I was wondering if it is possible to get another livewire box so that I can put it in a different portion of the home? In other words, can you have more than just 2 livewire boxes or can they be expanded to 3?
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post #26 of 48
9/15/11 at 4:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lbear View Post

I have the Western Digital livewire setup and it works great. I was wondering if it is possible to get another livewire box so that I can put it in a different portion of the home? In other words, can you have more than just 2 livewire boxes or can they be expanded to 3?

Yes you can. In fact, you can add any HomePlug Alliance AV Certified device although I presume you'll get the best reliability and performance from a Livewire box.
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post #27 of 48
9/15/11 at 6:27am
^^
You can even mix and match. I have 2 x Netgear AV500 PLA's and 2 x Netgear AV200 PLA's in my house. One of the AV500's is connected to the main network switch with the Internet router. The other three are connected to devices or small switches that serve a small cluster of devices. Everybody plays together nicely.
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post #28 of 48
9/16/11 at 10:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ironlight View Post

Yes you can. In fact, you can add any HomePlug Alliance AV Certified device although I presume you'll get the best reliability and performance from a Livewire box.

Too bad they don't sell single boxes. One has to buy 2 Livewire boxes, and they run around $90. I have no use for the extra box.
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post #29 of 48
9/22/11 at 6:33am
I'm ready to purchase the Netgear Powerline AV 500 without the pass-through power outlet (XAVB5001). I don't need the pass-through outlet, as long as I can still plug in a three-pronged extension cord in the adjacent (top) outlet.

Can someone confirm that this is (or is not) possible? (My guess is that it shouldn't be a problem, but I haven't seen a picture of the adapter actually plugged in, and I read a review of another adapter that interferes with the adjacent outlet.)

Thanks!
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post #30 of 48
9/22/11 at 6:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by carter698 View Post

I'm ready to purchase the Netgear Powerline AV 500 without the pass-through power outlet (XAVB5001). I don't need the pass-through outlet, as long as I can still plug in a three-pronged extension cord in the adjacent (top) outlet.

Can someone confirm that this is (or is not) possible?

Yes, it is fine. It doesn't block the other plug of a 2-plug socket. I have a straight-in plug from a power strip plugged into the second socket where all my PLA's are located. Now, an angle plug may be a different story.
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