Powerline AV 500 Network Speeds

Tried putting in gigabit switch and adapter into my computer and still seeing 35Mbps transfer speeds despite utility reporting ~100Mbps. Is the utility off? What kind of true transfer speeds are people seeing on these types of adapters?

Hi,

It seems like your network is setup fine, it's just the connection is running through your electrical lines/wires that's why its just 35mbps. The LAN speed from the network is normally 100mbps for home products.

What do you mean? Aren't powerlines/wires how the powerline networks supposed to run?

LAN speed is only 100mbps in theory. In practice it is usually lower. I can do computer->laptop through the router wired at around 80Mbps. Presumably I ought to be able to get close to that with computer->powerline->laptop since powerline above 100Mbps, but in practice I am getting 30-40 Mbps, which tells me that's how fast the powerline network is transferring. Even in the same room I only get up to around 50Mbps. Hence the question as to what kind of throughput are people seeing on their AV 500 powerline network. 50Mbps is much slower than 500Mbps maximum would imply (90% degradation just sounds high). Also powerline utility claims 100-200 Mbps between two powerline devices, but it is obviously off.

I have not done extensive testing but I thought I would add something to this.

Using the NetGear AV500's, I'm showing 127 Mbit/s up/down in the utility.

I'm getting just under 54 Mbit/s real-world throughput each way.

Boxee Box -> AV 500 -> AV 500 -> Ethernet to Cisco Router -> Ethernet 1 Gbit/s to Core i3 Desktop. (No wireless here)

It could be that the Boxee is the limiting factor. I may plugin my laptop directly later to do more testing.

I getting speeds similar to Brandon.

Netgear utility reports ~130Mbps XAV5001 upstairs and XAV5004 downstairs (home Theater) on different power legs (phase) within breaker panel.

Real world transfers at ~60-65Mbps.

Acer Revo HTPC (Atom based) -> XAV5004 -> XAV5001 -> Gigabit switch -> HP EX470 Mediasmart server

I've tried computer to computer with similar results. These also match SmallNetBuilder Charts.

I'm hoping Netgear is working to improve the firmware, to match the 80-85Mbps throughput the latest 500Mbps competing products (that use the same Atheros AR1500/AR7400 chipset) are reporting.

Here's my set up.

AV Gear > XAV5004 (Lounge) > XAV5001 (Study) > Linksys WRT54GV2.0 > Media Server PC.

Results:
Netgear Powerline Utility > 40Mbps
Network Meter (File Transfer) > ~20Mpbs

*Test done using Laptop ethernet port into the 5004 10 meters away from 5001

When All the AV gear is switched off, consisting of Samsung TV, PS3, AC Ryan PlayonHD2 mini, FoxtelHD STB, the results improve slightly.

Netgear Powerline Utility > 60Mbps
Network Meter (File Transfer) > ~30Mpbs

Testing the 5004 in another location (5 meters away) provided much better results.

Netgear Powerline Utility > 160Mbps
Network Meter (File Transfer) > ~75Mpbs

Just to rule out the router as a bottleneck I tested the laptop directly into it transfering a file from the media server pc and got ~90Mbps in Network Meter.

I really would like to see this though.

I too am getting disappointing real-world speed with XAVB5501. The utility is reporting speeds of 210Mbps one way and about 270Mbps the other way. After upgrading both switches and the NICs to gigabit I find that the real world speed I am getting is just under 30Mbps.... :(

This is disappointing to say the least, especially after spending so much money on extra gigabit equipment.

I'm happy to try things if anyone has any ideas how I can resolve this. I will be borrowing a 25m cat 6 cable so I can "miss out" just the powerline adapters to see what the speed is without those.

I think it's pretty misleading that the utility is so far out in the speeds it reports - how is it measuring these speeds and, more importantly, how do I get those reported speeds!!

I may well try tweaking transmit/receive buffers, jumbo frame size, windows TCP frame size and interrupt handling, although this should only be necessary to fine tune the network...

I bought these adapters to stream HD video and it still stutters...

Folks:

Your observations are correct. The Powerline utility is grossly inaccurate. Use something that measures throughputs across the LAN such as iperf, LAN Speed Test, etc.

SmallNetBuilder.com has good reviews and discussions of the Powerline products. Webmaster thiggins has reviewed these products and forum member rhombus has superb reviews of his own on the forum. Additionally, there are articles dealing with Powerline products and performance such as this one.

From analyzing the articles and reviews, the Netgear 500 Mbps is the best one of the bunch. If Powerline isn't working for you, and ethernet cable is not a choice, then consider MoCA if you have coaxial cable in your home. MoCA should give better performance and stability over Powerline (all things being equal).