WikiWirral Share a Little Learn a Lot about your Wirral
Forum Statistics
Forums65
Topics76,347
Posts1,033,259
Members14,550
Most Online16,551
Feb 2nd, 2024
Who's Online Now
9 members (3 invisible), 10,089 guests, and 527 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Top Posters
sunnyside 45,164
MattLFC 22,315
Mark 21,269
granny 17,788
_Ste_ 16,345
Newest Members
JohnC, Luke2307, jharwood, TamTam, mrbigglesworth
14,550 Registered Users
New General Forums
Do we need Trident?
by derekdwc - 20th Jan 2016 1:11pm
New Wirral History
Tall Brick Chimneys
by diggingdeeper - 16th Mar 2024 11:56am
D.I.Y. / Building Shop
by mharford91 - 3rd Mar 2024 8:53pm
Looking for Joneses
by Markjon88 - 11th Apr 2019 7:06am
1970's Murder in Central Park, Wallasey
by cutespam - 4th Aug 2018 10:28am
Oleo Works
by Ducko - 14th May 2008 3:09pm
Top Posters(30 Days)
granny 15
casper 14
bri445 4
Topic Replies
This is Elvis
by GingerTom - 17th Mar 2024 2:37pm
Tall Brick Chimneys
by diggingdeeper - 16th Mar 2024 12:20pm
Gaza
by granny - 15th Mar 2024 10:13pm
Get your Money Tree ready
by StellaSimmons - 11th Mar 2024 11:50am
D.I.Y. / Building Shop
by bri445 - 4th Mar 2024 5:54pm
Xbox
by TudorBlue - 3rd Mar 2024 8:48pm
Restaurant/pub with outdoor seating - Bromborough
by Abakumss - 2nd Mar 2024 3:52pm
Oleo Works
by diggingdeeper - 1st Mar 2024 11:51pm
Wiper mechanism needed
by Gibbo - 28th Feb 2024 12:29pm
March
M T W T F S S
1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Top Likes Received (30 Days)
casper 1
Top Likes Received
bert1 14
Mark 4
granny 3
casper 3
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 254
Addict
OP Offline
Addict
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 254
I've never had good WiFi signal on my PC and Xbox and want to use CAT5 cable to the router.
Avoiding places like PC World, I'm looking at about 20+ metres of cabling - does anyone know of a place that sells it?

Or I'll probably just extend the phone cable and use shorter length CAT cable. smile

Google Ads
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 21,269
Likes: 4
Wiki Master
Online Happy
Wiki Master
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 21,269
Likes: 4
You may find shorter lengths on ebay a lot cheaper than pc world.

You may want to also consider powerline adapters ?
These you plug into the wall and make a network connection over the your electrical earth cable.

So you can have one plugged into the location of your router, and one where you have your pc / xbox.

Then it's only two short patch leads of cat5 to connect things up.

Ive been using powerline adapters for years and they are reliable and easy to setup and use.

Argos have the ones ive been using .

Click Me

Have a look as there are wifi ones and others.

Hope that helps.

Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 14,334
Likes: 18
Wiki Master
Offline
Wiki Master
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 14,334
Likes: 18
I'll second TP-link powerline adapters as I also have used them extensively for a number of years, about once a year or two I have to power some of them down and up again because of a very very rare lock up.

For CAT5 I'd probably go to Bigabyte next to Iceland in Grange Road, Birkenhead.


We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn

https://ddue.uk
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 2,282
Likes: 3
Forum Master
Offline
Forum Master
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 2,282
Likes: 3
Another vote here for TP Link powerline adapters. The AV600 is brilliant.

Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 319
Old Hand
Offline
Old Hand
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 319
I've just made the change from Powerline to ethernet cable. I liked Powerline because it is simple
and avoids wires etc. but I found that it would drop the connection about three times a day. I got
fed up with this in the end and last week I swopped over to ethernet cable. I've run it from the
router downstairs, through a wall, upstairs and into bedroom where computer sits. There is
about 5m spare reeled up along the run.

Worked well with no drop outs since and as a bonus my download speed increased from 45 to 55 Meg
after a few days use. I assume the dropouts were contributing to Sky limiting my speed.

I bought 20metres of white Cat 5e with end plugs from Cable Monkey via their website.

Thus:- Cat5e UTP RJ45 Booted Patch Lead - Colour : White, Length : 20m, Boot Type : PVC with Short Boot
costing £9.12 incl VAT and postage. It arrived in about 4-5 days.

Hope this helps.

Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 319
Old Hand
Offline
Old Hand
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 319
Originally Posted by Wally1
I've just made the change from Powerline to ethernet cable. I liked Powerline because it is simple
and avoids wires etc. but I found that it would drop the connection about three times a day. I got
fed up with this in the end and last week I swopped over to ethernet cable. I've run it from the
router downstairs, through a wall, upstairs and into bedroom where computer sits. There is
about 5m spare reeled up along the run.

Worked well with no drop outs since and as a bonus my download speed increased from 45 to 55 Meg
after a few days use. I assume the dropouts were contributing to Sky limiting my speed.

I bought 20metres of white Cat 5e with end plugs from Cable Monkey via their website.

Thus:- Cat5e UTP RJ45 Booted Patch Lead - Colour : White, Length : 20m, Boot Type : PVC with Short Boot
costing £9.12 incl VAT and postage. It arrived in about 4-5 days.

Hope this helps.


Just to add---- The cable is labeled "Copper Cu does not contain Aluminium"

Joined: May 2011
Posts: 1,315
Forum Addict
Offline
Forum Addict
Joined: May 2011
Posts: 1,315
Power line adapters are great for getting a connection around the house, but not for gaming. Latency and ping will go through the roof. Great for printers or TVs etc.

You can’t get any better than an actual Ethernet connection..... BUT, if you are looking to get a better Wi-Fi signal throughout the house and don’t want to run a cable everywhere then this is what I suggest.

1) download Wi-Fi sweet spots app on your phone, better the phone better the results. Using this you will be able to see different speeds throughout your house.. this is not internet speeds but speeds to your router.

2) replace your router with a better one! My virgin super hub does not reach my back room or 2 of the bedrooms. My ASUS ac68u reaches every room.

3) based on the results in step one move your router to a more central location if possible!

Lastly if you decide to do cabling, consider making your own. It’s cheap, easy and you get perfect lengths every time

Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 14,334
Likes: 18
Wiki Master
Offline
Wiki Master
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 14,334
Likes: 18
Originally Posted by TheComputerLab
Power line adapters are great for getting a connection around the house, but not for gaming. Latency and ping will go through the roof. Great for printers or TVs etc


3ms to 8ms over my powerline adapters


We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn

https://ddue.uk
Joined: May 2011
Posts: 1,315
Forum Addict
Offline
Forum Addict
Joined: May 2011
Posts: 1,315
Originally Posted by diggingdeeper
Originally Posted by TheComputerLab
Power line adapters are great for getting a connection around the house, but not for gaming. Latency and ping will go through the roof. Great for printers or TVs etc


3ms to 8ms over my powerline adapters


Can you tell me what test you are doing to see that result?

Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 14,334
Likes: 18
Wiki Master
Offline
Wiki Master
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 14,334
Likes: 18
Ping and tracert, goes from my desktop, through a router, into one powerline, out another and into the remote router which is what I pinged.

The powerlines aren't even on the same ring main and both are off spurs..

Powerline and wifi are almost identical (OFDM), the only difference is one is connected by wire and one by RF, generally the wired one should be better.


We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn

https://ddue.uk
Joined: May 2011
Posts: 1,315
Forum Addict
Offline
Forum Addict
Joined: May 2011
Posts: 1,315
Ah ok that makes sense. So pinging a device on your LAN. On a wire or Wi-Fi this is usually 1ms so you are seeing latency giving you 3-8ms.

If you join a game server where you are looking at a ping of 20-40ms that’s acceptable. Through a power line this would go up to about double and your total bandwidth would reduce. Basically there is noise on electrical lines.

Op says this is for XBOX. I wouldn’t recommend power lines for these reasons.

Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 14,334
Likes: 18
Wiki Master
Offline
Wiki Master
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 14,334
Likes: 18
Originally Posted by TheComputerLab
Basically there is noise on electrical lines.


There's loads of noise and collisions on wifi as well (especially at 2.4GHz), my powerlines are considerably faster than my wifi so any resends of faulty packets should happen faster.

One annoying feature I have with my powerlines is they will not route (because they don't have an IP address), there are two of them that are at the extremes of range with each other, instead of routing through the intermediate router that both are fast with, they go direct to each other so end up with about 20ms ping instead of around 10ms if they routed intelligently through the intermediate router.

It would probably help if used separate sub-nets and bridge at the most central router, currently I just use IP separation on the same sub-net and a small amount of static IPs. But I'm lazy and basically everything works so its a long way down the to-do list. Sometimes there are as many as 15 devices using the network using two internet gateways, taking it down to sort things out could bring a lot of earache.


We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn

https://ddue.uk
Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 85
Member
Offline
Member
Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 85
I have Virgin Media Router 3; very powerful. But the pc is a lot faster when plugged in with an RJ45 cable from router to pc. I also have a tablet and laptop which use wireless and are also quite fast. My mobile, when at home has zero delay. I appreciate this is an ancient thread, but thought about an update as todays VM routers knock the opposition into touch. I am on 400MBps and over. #Dont believe the opposition, the Govt ruled that any claims to beat VM are lies and companies are not allowed to 'brag' .

Last edited by red_devil; 9th Nov 2019 12:29am.

Moderated by  Mark 

Link Copied to Clipboard
Random Wirral Images

Click to View Topic.
Newest Topics
Tall Brick Chimneys
by diggingdeeper - 16th Mar 2024 11:56am
D.I.Y. / Building Shop
by mharford91 - 3rd Mar 2024 8:53pm
Xbox
by TudorBlue - 3rd Mar 2024 8:48pm
Possible Cause of Dementia
by diggingdeeper - 22nd Feb 2024 2:08am
Wiper mechanism needed
by Peter0787 - 20th Feb 2024 4:07pm
For Sale & Free
This is Elvis
by GingerTom - 17th Mar 2024 2:37pm
Member Spotlight
TheComputerLab
TheComputerLab
Wallasey
Posts: 1,315
Joined: May 2011
Today's Birthdays
There are no members with birthdays on this day.
New Wirral Info
Get your Money Tree ready
by keef666 - 22nd Mar 2023 12:27pm
Restaurant/pub with outdoor seating - Bromborough
by CarterUSM - 7th Aug 2020 7:59pm
Floral pavilion promo code?
by TheComputerLab - 31st Dec 2018 2:11pm
News : New Topics
Gaza
by diggingdeeper - 29th Oct 2023 9:28am
New Enthusiast Forums
Xbox
by TudorBlue - 3rd Mar 2024 8:48pm
Possible Cause of Dementia
by diggingdeeper - 22nd Feb 2024 2:08am
Wiper mechanism needed
by Peter0787 - 20th Feb 2024 4:07pm
Popular Topics(Views)
5,067,096 WIKI WALK CHAT
4,011,053 Spotted!
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5