Powerline Adapter has slow download speeds, but need for WOL

[nolegrl]

Equipment:

Powerline Adapter: TP-LINK TL-PA4010KIT AV500 Nano Powerline
Router: TP-LINK Archer C7 AC1750
Modem: SurfBoard SB6141
Motherboard: ASRock H87M Pro4
Switch: TP-LINK TL-SG1008D 10/100/1000Mbps 8-Port Gigabit Desktop Switch, 10Gbps Switching Capacity
Wireless Dongle: TP-LINK Archer T4U AC1200 Wireless Dual Band USB Adapter, 2.4GHz 300Mbps/5Ghz 867Mbps

I have a self-built desktop computer with a powerline adapter hooked up to my router via a gigabit switch. Both ends of the powerline adapter are plugged directly into the wall. My computer is on the second floor, while the router is on the 1st floor. I have a 35mbps plan with my ISP.

When I have the powerline adapter plugged in, it works for general internet browsing, but as soon as I try to download something or transfer a file to my NAS, it crawls. I did a speed test, and I found that the powerline adapter is only getting me 4.93mpbs download speed. When using my wireless usb dongle stick, I get 40.07mbps download speed. That's a huge difference!

Now the obvious solution is the forgo the powerline adapter and just use the wireless dongle, but I also like to keep this computer available for WOL. I've read that you can only do this with an ethernet connection.

Does anyone have any insight as to why this might happen and how to fix it?

Also, is there a way I can keep the powerline adapter plugged in for WOL, but use the wireless connection as the preferred connection source? Right now, it seems to default to the powerline adapter and I have to unplug it to get the wireless.

Thank you!

 

[bill001g]

I have never tried it but WoL is a function of the bios it is not related to the OS. So in theory at least you should be able to trigger the boot on the ethernet and once the OS is up it can be configured to use favor the wireless over the ethernet. By default windows prefers a ethernet port. You need to change the metric in the interface setting so that the wireless is preferred.

Powerline mostly work when it doesn't you have few options. There are not setting or anything you can change. Your only hope would be that a different outlet in the same room just happened to work better. Something is causing interference in your house wiring but in most cases you can not do much to change it. Pretty much any thing with a motor can cause issues for powerline but even poor quality power supplies on PC have caused issues. If you are really determined to find it you can turn off all the breakers in the power panel except the ones you are using for the powerline units on each end and then turn them on one at a time. If there is something on the same circuit as ether one you will need to turn off or unplug until you find the souce of the interference.

 

[nolegrl]

Thank you! I tried changing the preferred order, but it didn't seem to actually change. I followed this guide: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/27994/how-to-change-the-priority-of-wiredwireless-network-cards-in-windows/ and set the wireless adapter to 2 and the ethernet port to 3, but when I checked it in netstat, it still showed ethernet as 2 and wireless as 3. Did I missing something, or did something change in Windows 10?

 

[bill001g]

I would hope win10 did not change that. I normally use the router print command to display metrics. You can temporarily change them with the route command but you normal just set it in the ip settings where you did