Forum Overview :: American McGee's Honda Civic :: Re: Don't do it!

[quote name="Lizard_King"][quote name="Ice Cream Jonsey"] I ended up purchasing the router that Ray suggested as soon as I saw it. I'm going to ask a very stupid question, LK. The link you provided ... it looks like it offers ethernet as something you <i>plug into your wall</i>. That can't be it, though. I can buy cat5 cable going from a PC to this thing and into the wall... but how does any of it get to a router or cable modem? That seems pretty science-fictiony. I want to believe, of course. But I probably misunderstand it. [/quote] It is pretty magical, I'll admit, and definitely something you want to try with a store that has a decent return policy (eg amazon, monoprice if possible). You literally plug one end into an outlet where your router is, and then plug the other adapter into another outlet where the computer/xbox/whatever is. To expand the network, you just...add another adapter where it is needed. In every case, you simply plug it in and a light either comes on or it does not, and your cat 5 commitment is simply from the computer/router to the powerline ac adapter (which shouldn't be run through a surge protector or UPS). It piggybacks on your existing electrical wiring, and that's pretty much all there is to it. The <a href="http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=61223">qt3</a> thread on it can give you some information on the other allegedly faster but less versatile option, which is using your cable wiring the same way and is now standard fare in some cable company installations apparently (you won't have to mess with any of the tweaking in the more recent posts unless you notice a catastrophic drop in performance as you add pieces to the network). I should be in the worst case scenario for performance given my setup: I mixed both the linksys cisco 200mbps pair and the generic monoprice 200mbps pair and I'm in an apartment where there's always a chance of something shady when it comes to wiring (the cable wiring is an abomination). However, I still get really great transfer rates (at wireless g: 250k/s;at wireless n 1-2MB/s; with powerline 4-5mbps) for large files to and from my NAS, and the streaming from my media computer to my ps3 is now working just as lag free as it does off of a flash drive, which means I can fast forward and rewind through 4 gb xvids without skipping. I still can't believe it works, but I've put some time into it and between that and my ddwrt router the only downtime in my system is from resetting my shitty cable modem every month or so when comcast is being comcastic. They can't go full retard since U-verse is in my area, and they have to pretend to compete with one another. Recommended, and fuck wireless. My apartment is a black hole of wireless signals (a casual scan can pick up as many networks as your utility is willing to list), and I give up on the technology altogether. [/quote]