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PL1200 Is a piece of junk!!!!!!!!
Don't buy!!!!!!! It loses connection all the time. Get a ZyXEL PLA5202 You will be happy you did, because the Netgear PL1200 wil give you nothing but headachces. The ZyXEL lets you turn off power saving so you don't have to worry about it falling asleep during a stream. The utility works great on a Mac too.
I find power saving mode/standby mode causes no end of problems with Netgear powerline adapters. Netgear will tell you that the PL1200's don't have standby mode, or that it cannot be switched on or off, however Zyxel's powerline software finds the setting and changes it.
Check out my earlier post here:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Powerline-Networking/Netgear-Powerline-1000/m-p/1129924#M3771
This explains the software version you can use to turn off standby mode on the Netgear units
I have done this on all my newer Netgear adapters (PL1200 and PLP1200) and they work perfectly well now.
The link to the Zyxel software is here:
ftp://ftp.zyxel.com/PLA4201_v2/software/PLA4201%20v2_V7.0.2.14.0611.zip
Hope this helps
12 Replies
Most likely your house wiring or noise than the unit itself, unless you were just unlucky and had a faulty unit. I have plenty running in my home (and the home before it) perfectly well.
Over and over again people want to blame the wiring in the house. That is horse do do. I live in a newer small apartment. The ZyXel units connect right up and remain connected. I can watch TV through the night, fall asleep and wake in the morning and the ZyXel unit are still going strong. The Netgear units drop out after about 20 minutes. I replaced the Netgear units three times and the results were the same everytime.
I like ZyXel too. It makes NAS boxes that are better value for money than Netgear. I also gather that ZyXel's powerline software is better than the junk that Netgear writes.
But before you dismiss comments about mains circuits, remember that your ZyXEL PLA5202 plugs operate at half the network speed of the PL1200. So you are not comparing plugs with comparable specifications.
The communication frequency between the faster plugs may well be more susceptible to mains interference than the frequency of the slower plugs.
You have to try faster ZyXel plugs, something like the PLA5405, in identical circumstances before you can reach reliable conclusions.
- Trfied running the ZyXel utility with Netgear plugs?
