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Powerline LED lights Red AV200 nano and adapter XAV2101
Using this rig with a Comcast modem had worked fine. Recently users in the attached 'cottage' served by the adapter have experienced communications problems. Checking the modules disclosed that when the AV200 is plugged into the wall it first show a green Powerline LED light, which goes to red after a few minutes. The XAV2101 adapter which services the cottage does the same. This is a change - but it may have happened suddenly or over time. I am often not around to attend to this kind of detail for the owner of home and cottage, and until recently there were few complaints from guests in the cottage. In the past couple of months the owner's electricity bill has gone sky high, and she is still trying to figure out why. I have two possible explanations for the current problem with the Powerline connection. One is that the addition over time of 'updated' electrical appliances has added significant 'dirty power' to her wiring, so that its ability to carry data has been significantly compromised. If so, don't suggest that substituting a wireless connection (WiFi) is trivial. The cottage is about 75 feet, through multiple walls, etc, from the Comcast modem and possible attached router locations. Same for wired ethernet. A 100 foot, minimum, run through at least one house wall, an outdoor run, and and an exterior cottage wall. Foolhardy DIY nonsense. So what is really needed is a way to clean up the electricity in the wiring, so it can transmit data. Is this possible? Or has the 'updating' of our electical systems and components (including smart meters) completely obsoleted the in home ethernet over power lines technology and standard? A second possibility is that there is a grounded short in the owners electrical system, both dumping electrical power into earth and introducing noise (static) on the power sine wave. I may be able to check for unswitched grounding of electricity at the service panel, given access to it. Does anyone out there - besides me - think this is a plausible source of both dirty power and power loss that is worth the time and effort to check out? Does anyone know of instrumentation - other than multimeter and wiring disconnects at the breakers - that can test for unswitched grounding on a per circuit basis?