Connecting Powerline Adaptor to multiple devices?

Kamran

Dear all, hope you had a nice bank holiday weekend! I had a quick question with regard to Powerline adaptors.

I’ve previously used a powerline adaptor to good effect (improvement in speed when compared with wifi by upto 20meg). However, I now have 2 devices in close proximity that I’d like to connect an Ethernet cable to – my existing computer and a new smart TV.

I’ve done a little reading and understand that it’s not as simple as splitting the Ethernet cable, so I was wondering which of the following options would be recommended?

1) Continue using the powerline adaptor that I own (only has one Ethernet port on each plug) and somehow use my spare, old O2 router as a “hub”.

2) Purchase a powerline adaptor that has more than one Ethernet cable slot, such as this one


Ideally, I’d prefer option 1 as it puts to use a spare piece of kit and stops me from spending £50, but I’m not quite sure as to the setup. If anyone could give me some pointers (I read somewhere that DHCP needs to be disabled?) it'd be much appreciated!

Thanks very much! :T

ps - if I use option 1, would it split the speeds to the 2 devices or would it be as if I had a second powerline adaptor all together?

TadleyBaggie

Option 1 should be fine, done it myself. The router might cycle trying to get an internet connection but that shouldn't affect the ethernet side of things.

Kamran

TadleyBaggie wrote: »

Option 1 should be fine, done it myself. The router might cycle trying to get an internet connection but that shouldn't affect the ethernet side of things.

Thanks for that. Any tips on the set up? And settings I need to adjust on the old router? Cheers

womble12345

Buy a network switch, I have something like this plugged into my powerline adapter so I can plug my TV and raspberry pi into ethernet cables...

http://www.ebuyer.com/132456-tenda-s105-mini-5-port-10-100-network-switch-s105

securityguy

"Ideally, I’d prefer option 1 as it puts to use a spare piece of kit and stops me from spending £50, but I’m not quite sure as to the setup. If anyone could give me some pointers (I read somewhere that DHCP needs to be disabled?) i"

Yes, you need to disable the DHCP server. Google based on the precise model of box you have.

But personally I'd buy a cheap switch. TP-Link or Netgear shouldn't cost more than £20 for five ports.

Kamran

Thanks for the responses! So is there any downside to using my old router as a Ethernet hub? I don't mind buying a switch like you suggested but if I can save a few quid?

securityguy

"So is there any downside to using my old router as a Ethernet hub? "

No, the four ports are usually linked by a cheap switch ASIC and the performance will be OK (usually 100BaseT rather than GigE, but your Homeplug stuff is unlikely to be faster than that in practice). Indeed, the old Be Boxes I've got lying around appear to support VLAN tagging, too. It's just that getting it working reliably involves making sure that all the routing services are turned off, and don't mysteriously spring back into life at inopportune moments, and by the time you've done that, a cheap unmanaged switch (which will usually also be much smaller and have a lower power consumption) looks like a better deal.

GunJack

does your o2 router accept ethernet input, or just an rj11 ? if no ethernet input, it'll be awkward...

securityguy

GunJack wrote: »

does your o2 router accept ethernet input, or just an rj11 ? if no ethernet input, it'll be awkward...

What do you mean, "input"? He just wants to use it as a switch, so any of the ethernet ports will do. There are a tiny number of devices which only have one ethernet port (D-Link DSL320, for example) and there were these USB DSL modems back in the day, but so far as I know, every device shipped by O2 was a Thompson (now Technicolor) router with an ADSL port and four or five 100BaseT ports. And I doubt someone would pick up a device with zero or one ethernet ports and say "ah, I wonder if I can use this to link multiple ethernet devices together.

GunJack

soz, bit off-colour today, getting my wap and routers mixed up

Kamran

securityguy wrote: »

What do you mean, "input"? He just wants to use it as a switch, so any of the ethernet ports will do. There are a tiny number of devices which only have one ethernet port (D-Link DSL320, for example) and there were these USB DSL modems back in the day, but so far as I know, every device shipped by O2 was a Thompson (now Technicolor) router with an ADSL port and four or five 100BaseT ports. And I doubt someone would pick up a device with zero or one ethernet ports and say "ah, I wonder if I can use this to link multiple ethernet devices together.

That's precisely what I have. So just out of interest, so long as I turn off DHCP I'm good to go? And how will the devices know which router is the access point? Is there any particular sequence I plug things into the Ethernet cable? What I mean is how would my laptop know which router to connect to, given that it's connected to both. Or is that what turning off the DHCP does..?