Biggest Bang for the Smallest Buck Wireless Revamp

[Scooter92]

Hey guys, I'm looking to improve the wireless in my apartment. Here is a summary of all the info and the conclusion I've come to. I'd love some feedback on this conclusion.

Devices in need of support:

1 x Desktop - 50 ft from the router
1 x Home Theater PC - 15 ft from router
1 x Laptop - variable range
2 x Cell phones, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Nokia Lumia 920

Location:

Apartment, 700 sqr ft.

Technology Current Owned:
WD Net N900, Powerline AV kit XAVB2101, Motorola SB6141, and built in adapters for the phones, laptop, and the HTPC (can't find exact specs on those currently).

Current Set Up:

Motorola -> WDNet -> HTPC, Phones, Laptop (wireless) + XAVB2101 -> Desktop

Internet Usage:

My web related activites include gaming, youtube, streaming local content from my desktop to my HTPC, hulu, and netflix

Reason for Upgrading:
I'm not getting the desired throughput with my XAVB2101 and it's my understanding that wireless throughput with a wireless bridge/adapter typically lands you faster speeds anyways and I'd like to upgrade to AC on everything in my house.

Desired Technology:
New Router: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BUSDVBQ/?tag=snbforums-20

New Adapter x 2 (one for desktop, one for HTPC):
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BVRQEKG/?tag=snbforums-20

New Setup:

Motorola -> C7 V1/V2 -> HTPC, Desktop(Wireless, 5GHz) + Phones, Laptop(Wireless, 2.4Ghz)

Whatcha guys think?

 

[abailey]

I like your choice of router and I think it is a good buy. Now your powerline adapter is not one of the newer AV2 500 or 600 models. Ths newer models, in your apartment, would probably beat any wireless solution you could come up with. The best, though, and least expensive, would be if you could possibly run an ethernet cord to one or both of your PC's. If you are gaming on the computer, the most important spec is low latency. Wireless will have more latency than wired. Also wireless is a shared medium. Thus all your wireless devices have to share time and bandwidth on your router. If you are doing a constant stream from your HTPC and it is wireless, going to the device you are watching on, and it is wireless, you may not get the results you had hoped for.

 

[thiggins]

First, what sort of throughput are you getting with the powerline adapters and what do you expect. Wall-wart power supplies, especially cellphone chargers are very noisy and will reduce powerline throughput. As an experiment, try unplugging any of those you have plugged in and see if the throughput improves.

Moving to AC and 5 GHz can help wireless throughput. But 5 GHz has lower range than 2.4 GHz, so you may not get the gain you are looking for.

If the HTPC and Desktop are near each other, you would be better off getting two AC routers that support bridging. The second router would bridge to the first and you would connect the desktop and HTPC via Ethernet.

The Archer C7 supports WDS bridging. This is harder to set up than client (non-WDS) bridging and may not support WPA2/AES encryption. You might look at ASUS and NETGEAR AC1750 class or AC1200, which do support client bridges.

 

[Scooter92]

Thank you guys for your responses. I'll try and answer your questions to my best ability but I apologize for any novice remarks I make.

First, what sort of throughput are you getting with the powerline adapters and what do you expect.

I don't actually know. What I want is enough to be able to watch 1080p twitch.tv VODs, and 1080p youtube videos, which currently is not the case even 80% of the time. I believe throughput would effect the speed at which these videos would load and thus reduce the amount of time waiting for them to play and reduce pauses during.

I know throughput isn't necessarily the most important feature when considering gaming and I want to stress here that gaming is the most important task I do online (in terms of spending my free time). The need for low latency and reliable connection is of umpteen importance.

If the HTPC and Desktop are near each other, you would be better off getting two AC routers that support bridging.

They are near enough to support this endeavor, but then the price starts to get higher, especially considering other brands for routers (I looked at a few ASUS ones, still somewhat pricey). Do you have any router recommendations that may fit the bill of sub $150 dollars? Would this still suffer from higher latency in video games if I were to tackle this approach?

Ths newer models, in your apartment, would probably beat any wireless solution you could come up with.

The reason why I mentioned wireless being faster that the power AV kit was because of a quote from the recent "thewirecutter.com" review of the best power AV test kit (and consequently the fastest they tested) at this link: http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-powerline-networking-kit/

To summarize:

Finally, despite being the fastest powerline kit we tested, the ZyXEL adapters were still significantly slower than Wi-Fi at points one and two (we didn’t test Wi-Fi performance in the other two homes).

One of the test locations they tried was a 500 sqr ft apartment which is near my apartment in size.

 

[thiggins]

Powerline throughput is usually more consistent than wireless, especially in an area with a lot of busy networks, probably doing the same thing you are, i.e. video streaming.

Your best bet is to go wired if your can for video streaming.

The "1080p" streamed videos have much lower throughput needs than uncompressed ripped Blu-ray. So it should be possible via HomePlug, IF you do some detective work and track down noise sources. Adapters should also be plugged directly into wall outlets, not power strips or extension cords.

500 sq feet is nothing in terms of powerline distance. The powerline noise environment is a much bigger performance influencer.

If you want to keep the budget low, start with a pair of HomePlug AV 2 adapters and see if they work for you. If they don't, then move on to 5 GHz AC wireless bridges. If budget is a problem, try AC1200 gear vs. AC1750 or AC1900. But remember that 5 GHz range is lower than 2.4 GHz. And the high throughput levels reviewers often quote are obtained only under same-room or next-room conditions.

 

[azazel1024]

Are you able to watch them on anything else not connected through powerline?

Run some simple tests, just google speed test and run that on a couple of devices.

If the computer connected through powerline is markedly slower, than its an issue with the powerline connection. If all of them are in the same range, its an issue with poor internet speeds.

In general and with few exceptions, unless a powerline connection is really terrible, its going to support >10Mbps, which is more than enough for 1080p video over the internet, which is typically compressed to the point of being in the 6-12Mbps bit rate range. I have seen the occasionaly truely abysmal powerline connection, but most I have seen are over 20Mbps and a lot are even in to the 40Mbps range or better (though not often a lot better).

Granted, wireless is often faster, but it just depends on your setup and range. 50ft across an apartment is less than ideal, especially on 5GHz and since it is an apartment, I assume you probably have a lot of nearby 2.4GHz networks. On the basement branch of my wifi network if I am across the basement from my router, which is maybe 40ft with three 2x4 walls between me and it, 5GHz is limited to around 25-35Mbps on my laptop. Same room it chugs along at around 200Mbps. 2.4GHz by comparison in the same location will hit around 60Mbps and same room will hit around 90Mbps (only 20MHz mode on the basement router).

I have effectively zero nearby networks though.

I'd do some speed tests to see what you are getting though.

 

[Scooter92]

I will certainly do some investigation work on my current set up to see if I can improve it at all by removing devices adding unnecessary noise to the circuit my Power AV kit is using. Going to take a look at this guide Mr. Higgins himself wrote

Are you able to watch them on anything else not connected through powerline?

I tried to watch it via the wireless on my HTPC (built into the mobo, as far as I can tell absolute rubbish hardware) it did not work as well as my desktop PC. What this tells me from a purely diagnostic POV is that the performance issues aren't related (or at least aren't consistent across the devices) but rather being bottle necked by their specific hardware. I know my wife doesn't struggle with netflix on her personal laptop.

I do have some internet connectivity issues going on in my house, but that's slightly unrelated (I've replaced my router, my modem, and all my cables and am still struggling, grrrr!).

 

[Scooter92]

So, I went home and did some extensive tests on my in-home network with various noise scenarios using NetioGUI and plotted the data in openoffice for some side by side comparisons and the results were staggering.

So, first, the gear being used in this test are as follows:
Client: Intel(R) Ethernet Connection I217-V
Server: Realtek PCIe GBe Family Controller
Router: WD Net N900
HomePlug: XAV2101v2

Layout:

The first test I did was simply Server > Router > Client and I netted an average Tx/Rx of 115/117 megabytes/s. I didn't even bother including that in the chart data because it made the other results hard to see.

Here are the results for the rest of my tests with the tests explained:

1. Removed Surge Protector In Location A
2. "" + Removed Bedroom electronics, bedroom to the right of my computer room shown in schematic
3. "" + Removed Home Theater Electronics (amp, passive speakers, light) in location B
4. Loaded up Circuit with as much electronics is as typically used.
5. Moved Router back to circuit w/surge protector where it typically is in location A (all the previous tests where done with the router in the bedroom, cable length issues). This is the typical set up for my home.
6. Alternative wiring for hopefully better performance.

The orange line is Tx, and the blue line is Rx speeds.

Ok. So. When I use a HomePlug in my house, my data transfer speeds between my PCs on the network is cut by, on average, 96%. Holy crap. Forget removing noise on the circuit (it helps), that's A LOT of speed I'm missing out on. Guys, this is no bueno. What do I do!?

Something that also makes no sense is that the LED indicators on my HomePlugs are green which according to the FAQ for my devices: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/22055 that means they're operating at 80 Mbps +, which as we see, they're not. They're operating at something more like 32 - 40 Mbps.

EDIT: The speed indicated by the LED is the speed at which the two HomePlug devices are speaking at just between the two of them. My tests were done with a server PC (my HTPC) and a router in addition to the homeplugs.

 

[stevech]

80Mbps green LED... may mean the raw modulation bit rate. As in WiFi, the net throughput at the IP layer is far less, say 1/2 to 2/3, due to the half duplex method, lots of forward error correction bit overhead (coding), and many other reasons.

 

[sfx2000]

FWIW - if you can - relocate the router to position "B" - homeplugs basically mimic ethernet cables, so...

Modem <--> HomePlugA <--> HomePlugB <--> router <--> rest of the network.

Since HomePlugs are basically Layer 2 devices, once they're paired up... so assign them a non-routable static IP outside of the DHCP scope of the Modem. Peer them up off-line...

Should be good to go - wireless is all about location...

sfx

 

[Scooter92]

FWIW - if you can - relocate the router to position "B" - homeplugs basically mimic ethernet cables, so...

Modem <--> HomePlugA <--> HomePlugB <--> router <--> rest of the network.

Since HomePlugs are basically Layer 2 devices, once they're paired up... so assign them a non-routable static IP outside of the DHCP scope of the Modem. Peer them up off-line...

Should be good to go - wireless is all about location...

sfx

My desktop doesn't have wireless connection, which is why I'm using it in location C. Also, if I went Modem -> HomePlug, then all the wireless in my house would be degraded to the speed that the Homeplug sends out, which was just measured as appalling, lol.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for the careful data taking. So that I understand, the plot is homeplug throughput between location A and C, correct?

I suggest a proper baseline test.

First thing I would do is plug both homeplugs into the same outlet. Use a different outlet than the one you have the computers plugged into for the homeplugs.

Unplug everything else that is not involved in the test. This includes lights, especially any with dimmers.

Move the bedroom computer to the living room so that you remove different computers as a factor. This will give you the maximum possible throughput. Now run your test.

Start another test, then start plugging other stuff in and monitor the plot for changes.

 

[Scooter92]

Unfortunately I cannot do that today, have some other chores that will probably take up the majority of my time. But, while the test you suggested would give us the value of how fast my HomePlugs work in a best case scenario, I'm not sure how much it would help us. Realistically, I cannot put both of my PCs in the kitchen near each other, they need to stay where they are. And unfortunately, I've already tested the best case scenario (no noisy electronics in any outlet in my apartment w/the PCs in their current spots) and the results were less than desirable. If I'm misunderstanding something, please point it out. I'll likely end up still doing the test to sate my own curiosity, just can't do it now, haha.

I do have a question though: In the NetioGUI tests, I had an average Tx/Rx rate of 32-40 Mbps. The Netgear HomePlug Utility reported that the devices were talking back and forth at 80-90 Mbps. I found out that at maximum my router allows for LAN transfer speeds of up to 450-460 Mbps, so what's causing that loss in speed? Is the Netgear utility just wrong, or is it the fact that I'm using WD gear with Netgear stuff?

EDIT: A small update, all the outlets in my house are supported by ACFI breakers other than the outlets in the kitchen, and the one for the window AC unit (which is found in between the living room and the kitchen along the north wall). So, I'm not crossing any kind of different breakers w/my Homeplugs because I'm not using those.

 

[thiggins]

If the powerline signal is crossing AFCI breakers (different than GFI breakers or wall-outlets), that can really reduce throughput.

Real throughput for alternative networking technologies (WiFi, Powerline, MoCA) is always at least 50% below the link rates that adapter utilities report. Your N900 router has maximum wireless link rates of 450 Mbps in each band. But best case (same room) actual throughput if you have a matching 3x3 adapter (N900 or N450 class) will be 80 - 90 Mbps for 2.4 GHz and maybe twice that for 5 GHz (assuming 40 MHz bandwidth is used).

Ethernet throughput for LAN-to LAN for Gigabit adapters should be 500 - 600 Mbps at least.

As another poster pointed out, all you need for internet streamed "HD" is around 10 Mbps, but it must be steady.

 

[azazel1024]

If the powerline signal is crossing AFCI breakers (different than GFI breakers or wall-outlets), that can really reduce throughput.

Real throughput for alternative networking technologies (WiFi, Powerline, MoCA) is always at least 50% below the link rates that adapter utilities report. Your N900 router has maximum wireless link rates of 450 Mbps in each band. But best case (same room) actual throughput if you have a matching 3x3 adapter (N900 or N450 class) will be 80 - 90 Mbps for 2.4 GHz and maybe twice that for 5 GHz (assuming 40 MHz bandwidth is used).

Ethernet throughput for LAN-to LAN for Gigabit adapters should be 500 - 600 Mbps at least.

As another poster pointed out, all you need for internet streamed "HD" is around 10 Mbps, but it must be steady.

To quibble, no, best case is around 60% yield on both 2.4 and 5GHz. If you have a link rate of 450Mbps ideal maximum is around 300Mbps. That is in very ideal circumstances.

On my N600 router and my AC1200 laptop adapter (Intel 7260) I have a net yield same room of 180Mbps on 2.4GHz and 200Mbps 5GHz. That translates to a 60% and 66% net yield respectively. That is deffinitely VERY excellent (and both are set to 40MHz, no nearby neighbors) and above typical, but around 50% net yield on a good connection isn't that far fetched on wireless if you don't have any interfering neighbors and are same room (or very close in the next room. I have a masonry chimney partially in the way, but sitting at my dinning room table 12ft, about 1ft through the chimney's corner and at an angle through 2 2x4 walls I get around 160Mbps still on 2.4GHz, though 5GHz drops from 200Mbps to around 100Mbps).

As for the powerline performance, unless there is something else going on, the powerline performance should be abundently sufficient for streaming 1080p. So if you have real issues with that going on, it isn't the powerline adapters causing problems, the issue is else where (either with router/modem/ISP).

 

[Scooter92]

I just have problems with my network where it cuts out at random, often during gaming sessions which is extremely unfortunate because the particular games I play are real time, PvP style stuff so it translates to major frustration. I've replaced literally every component other than Ethernet cables so it's either my router just simply being a bad router, or it's my ISP. Pretty sure it's my ISP because using strictly Modem >> Desktop PCs yields a least 1 disconnect per 1.5 days at least. It's a little hard to remember because it happens infrequently.

I just read through Tim's article on setting up a wireless network with a bridged modem, strictly routing router, a switch, and a router acting as a AP. On that recommendation, I was wondering if you guys might have an opinion on this set up.

SB6141 Bridged Modem >> C7 >> TEG-S80G >> (HomePlug >> Desktop PC) + (WDNet N900(AP) >> HTPC w/Edimax Wireless Adapter)

Justification:

Why is this cheap?
I already own the modem, the AP, the switch, and the HomePlug. I would just need 1 Edimax Wireless Adapter, and the C7 which is roughly $140 dollars.

You said you only wanted to stream 1080p content. You don't need fast throughput to do that.
I know, but in a sense I'd like to upgrade my current small network and prepare myself for a time when I may need to have these speeds. I do own a large blu ray collection. Maybe I'll run out of room to store them and need to start ripping them to a NAS in which I'd like to stream to my HTPC. Who knows, trying to prepare for the future and all that it holds.

Doesn't your HTPC have wireless?
It does, but the wireless adapter is only capable of 2.4Ghz and not 5Ghz, and since my AP supplies 5Ghz and I'm 10ft from it, I'd like to use it.

You're clipping your WAN to LAN by going from the C7 to the N900.
I know, but the C27 is priced so competitively that it's as cheap as several other N900 routers and is "future proof" for lack of a better term. Essentially, it has AC functionality if I ever needed it in the future or when it becomes my AP and I get a better router. It's a good investment, imo.

Drawbacks:
1. This set up uses an unmanaged switch. If I used a managed switch, I could prioritize certain network activity like gaming (can I actually do this??).
2. I'm not taking advantage of AC speeds.

Alternative:
1. Upgrading to 600 Mbps HomePlugs and hooking them up to my HTPC and my desktop and forsaking all things wireless.

I do eventually want to revamp my wireless. Does anyone have any reservations about my proposed set up? Am I over-complicating things? Spending too much? too little?

Thanks for reading all the stuff I'm posting.

 

[Scooter92]

Bump! I'd like to buy the stuff sometime soon. Is the above configuration any good? Does it over complicate? Am I spending too much?

I talked to the wife about cabling and she doesn't mind me wiring a bit so I will be wiring the HTPC directly to the network switch so no need for the edimax wireless adapter!