Question Networking Question (UK)

[SamSmart1]

Hi I'm a bit of a newbie when it comes to networking and my knowledge is limited. I'll try my best to explain this problem below.

I mainly use my internet for gaming and don't have great download/upload speeds but I don't think lower speeds are my problem as my it's more of a ping/net jitter issue. I also don't get high ping however I have a consistent net jitter that only lasts a split second but happens at random times, this applies for PC gaming and also console gaming.

I can't route my ethernet direct from my router to my pc or console so I use these netgear powerline extender things I'll link the closest thing currently on amazon to what i use.

These are roughly 7/8 years old and haven't had an issue up until there was a power cut in my area. Is it possible that these are now a touch a outdated and may be the reason for the appearance of these net jitters I'm facing?

Prior to this powercut I had no issues at all and would be able game without any problems.

Any tips or info would be great

Thanks

 

[bill001g]

Never saw that particular unit but powerline tech had not really changed in quite a few years. I suspect there is some technical limitation that prevents any faster or better technology.

The units you have are pretty much current. You can get ones with bigger number but anything that has number over 1000 is using very similar data encoding methods. The older av500 or av600 and even older av200 are the ones that might not work as well.

Hard to say when I first read your post I though you were talking about wifi. These spikes and jitter are caused by interference. Unlike wifi powerline /ethernet just drops damaged data wifi tries to correct it so wifi is ever worse.

Interference on the power cables is going to be tough to find. Luckily unlike wifi the source of the interference has to be inside your house. I for example have a old shopvac that kills powerline pretty much no matter where I plug it in. Years ago in one of my rental properties there was a ceiling fan that would interfere but only if you set it to medium speed.
The testing method I found the fan on was to turn off all the circuit breakers except for the ones the power line was on. You then unplug every device except the computer/network gear from the circuits that are still live. You then turn thing on or plug things in until you find it. Generally it is something with a motor, hopefully not your refrigerator. Fixing the problem once you find the offending device can be tricky. What sometimes works it to use a power strip that has surge protection and filtering. These tend to block powerline signals so hopefully they will also block signals that interfere with powerline.


Before you go to huge effort try to hook to the router directly with just a ethernet cable to test. You could run a long ethernet cable over the floor temporarily or move the pc closer to the router. This is mostly to be sure that the problem is not some random internet problem that just coincidentally happened at the same time.

 

[SamSmart1]

Never saw that particular unit but powerline tech had not really changed in quite a few years. I suspect there is some technical limitation that prevents any faster or better technology.

The units you have are pretty much current. You can get ones with bigger number but anything that has number over 1000 is using very similar data encoding methods. The older av500 or av600 and even older av200 are the ones that might not work as well.

Hard to say when I first read your post I though you were talking about wifi. These spikes and jitter are caused by interference. Unlike wifi powerline /ethernet just drops damaged data wifi tries to correct it so wifi is ever worse.

Interference on the power cables is going to be tough to find. Luckily unlike wifi the source of the interference has to be inside your house. I for example have a old shopvac that kills powerline pretty much no matter where I plug it in. Years ago in one of my rental properties there was a ceiling fan that would interfere but only if you set it to medium speed.
The testing method I found the fan on was to turn off all the circuit breakers except for the ones the power line was on. You then unplug every device except the computer/network gear from the circuits that are still live. You then turn thing on or plug things in until you find it. Generally it is something with a motor, hopefully not your refrigerator. Fixing the problem once you find the offending device can be tricky. What sometimes works it to use a power strip that has surge protection and filtering. These tend to block powerline signals so hopefully they will also block signals that interfere with powerline.


Before you go to huge effort try to hook to the router directly with just a ethernet cable to test. You could run a long ethernet cable over the floor temporarily or move the pc closer to the router. This is mostly to be sure that the problem is not some random internet problem that just coincidentally happened at the same time.

Ah thats interesting and infact quite perculiar, my problem is I live with my parents and going around testing everything could take me a hell of a long time, worth it if it's something in room but even then I'm

Never saw that particular unit but powerline tech had not really changed in quite a few years. I suspect there is some technical limitation that prevents any faster or better technology.

The units you have are pretty much current. You can get ones with bigger number but anything that has number over 1000 is using very similar data encoding methods. The older av500 or av600 and even older av200 are the ones that might not work as well.

Hard to say when I first read your post I though you were talking about wifi. These spikes and jitter are caused by interference. Unlike wifi powerline /ethernet just drops damaged data wifi tries to correct it so wifi is ever worse.

Interference on the power cables is going to be tough to find. Luckily unlike wifi the source of the interference has to be inside your house. I for example have a old shopvac that kills powerline pretty much no matter where I plug it in. Years ago in one of my rental properties there was a ceiling fan that would interfere but only if you set it to medium speed.
The testing method I found the fan on was to turn off all the circuit breakers except for the ones the power line was on. You then unplug every device except the computer/network gear from the circuits that are still live. You then turn thing on or plug things in until you find it. Generally it is something with a motor, hopefully not your refrigerator. Fixing the problem once you find the offending device can be tricky. What sometimes works it to use a power strip that has surge protection and filtering. These tend to block powerline signals so hopefully they will also block signals that interfere with powerline.


Before you go to huge effort try to hook to the router directly with just a ethernet cable to test. You could run a long ethernet cable over the floor temporarily or move the pc closer to the router. This is mostly to be sure that the problem is not some random internet problem that just coincidentally happened at the same time.

thats interesting, not sure how feasible that would be in my house as there plenty of stuff that could affect it.

I've ordered replacements of what I currently use to see if maybe they're just old and lost a bit of power.

 

[bill001g]

Are you sure it is the powerline units. The simple test is to leave a constant ping run to 8.8.8.8 and a second window a contant ping to your router IP. If it is the powerline units you will get loss to both. If you get no loss to the router but you get loss to the 8.8.8.8 this means it is more likely some internet issue.

Note is you have coax cables in your room and near the router MoCA will be a much better solution.

 

[SamSmart1]

Are you sure it is the powerline units. The simple test is to leave a constant ping run to 8.8.8.8 and a second window a contant ping to your router IP. If it is the powerline units you will get loss to both. If you get no loss to the router but you get loss to the 8.8.8.8 this means it is more likely some internet issue.

Note is you have coax cables in your room and near the router MoCA will be a much better solution.

I've order new ones to test them, if it fixes the problem, happy days. If not will just return them.

Interesting you mention coax cables, I googled it to see what it was and it looks like what I have plugged into my TV which is just above my monitors, do you think that is having an affect on the internet?

Also not sure what MoCA, sorry my tech knowledge isn't the best lol

 

[bill001g]

Coax cable for years has been used for over the air tv antennas on the roof. A somewhat better kind of coax is used for cable tv even though now days they run internet on these cables and run the tv over IP.

If you have a coax cable in the room you are in and in the room by the router you can most likely use moca. You need to be sure the 2 cables are somehow connected and if they use splitter they are the newer kind that cable internet and moca can use.

Moca is as simple as powerline units. The ethernet cable connects to the moca box, it coverts it to coax sends it to the other moca box which converts it back to ethernet. No real configuration to do.

The ones I used to use were called gocoax. At the time they were the only ones that could run full duplex 1gbit ethernet. They say 2.5g but that assumes 1gbit transmit and 1gbit receive. They also come with 2.5g port but they can't run 2.5g send and receive at the exact same time. Unlike powerline units and wifi these device really can transfer data a 1gbit.

Actiontec is the most well known but they are expensive and I don't know if they sell their version that is based on 2.5g. For some reason they only sold them to commerical installations. Gocoax was the only brand that did have this new technology and they were very inexpensive compared to actiontec. I suspect there are many more brands now days . Gocoax had major supply issue during covid times and lost market share. In theory all these units are ineroperable but since you are a new user anyway you might as well just buy a kit of 2, they are cheaper to buy that way anyway.

 

[SamSmart1]

Coax cable for years has been used for over the air tv antennas on the roof. A somewhat better kind of coax is used for cable tv even though now days they run internet on these cables and run the tv over IP.

If you have a coax cable in the room you are in and in the room by the router you can most likely use moca. You need to be sure the 2 cables are somehow connected and if they use splitter they are the newer kind that cable internet and moca can use.

Moca is as simple as powerline units. The ethernet cable connects to the moca box, it coverts it to coax sends it to the other moca box which converts it back to ethernet. No real configuration to do.

The ones I used to use were called gocoax. At the time they were the only ones that could run full duplex 1gbit ethernet. They say 2.5g but that assumes 1gbit transmit and 1gbit receive. They also come with 2.5g port but they can't run 2.5g send and receive at the exact same time. Unlike powerline units and wifi these device really can transfer data a 1gbit.

Actiontec is the most well known but they are expensive and I don't know if they sell their version that is based on 2.5g. For some reason they only sold them to commerical installations. Gocoax was the only brand that did have this new technology and they were very inexpensive compared to actiontec. I suspect there are many more brands now days . Gocoax had major supply issue during covid times and lost market share. In theory all these units are ineroperable but since you are a new user anyway you might as well just buy a kit of 2, they are cheaper to buy that way anyway.

Ah okay, that's interesting I'll have a look into it. Do you know if this would still be a problem if I say have an electrical interference?

The replacement power units I bought have not entirely fixed the issue but it has significantly improved. I don't get the spikes as frequent or as powerful.

Going to probably leave it as it for now because I live with my parents and going around doing x,y,z will get on their nerves. If it was a household issue scenario may be different but I'm the only one that uses wired internet in my home.

I think you may have said in the previous comment that it's likely an electrical interference, I think you're probably right however I have 3 mains rings, 1 for the upstairs, 1 for the downstairs and 1 for the kitchen, however without testing I wouldn't know what ring it's part and it's likely that my ring is the kitchen ring which obviously has the most high powered electrics used.

 

[bill001g]

Since you have basically done all you can for now you might as well test to see if you have a internet problem. the ISP if they are not being lazy will fix that.

Open 2 CMD windows and just let them run. Run a constant ping to the router IP and a second one to say 8.8.8.8. I pretty much have a ping running to 8.8.8.8 always so if I see issues I can quickly decide if it was something with my machines or if the internet was being bad. In your case if you see no loss to the router IP then your powerline units are fine. If you see loss...more than just a single packet say every 5 minutes...you can report it. You might have to do a bit more testing to prove it is the ISP, they might try to blame the google DNS server 8.8.8.8