So basically I've been thinking about going from playing on a laptop to building a new desktop and I'm looking for advice on how to handle providing Internet access for it : the main router in my apartment is basically two rooms away from mine, plugged onto the only optical fiber access point, making me wonder whether I should go for the 10 to 14 meters of Ethernet cable running from the main router along the wall through the corridor up to my room and my PC or rather setup a second router in my room (which would be a repeater of some sort I guess) and get Ethernet access from that one. Should depend on how fast Internet speed decays when you go a long way with an Ethernet cable compared to the second router's constant falloff (which would be about 10 meters away from the main one but two walls separating them) but I don't have a clue really
Thanks in advance
P.S.: Obviously my desktop can't be in any other room than mine otherwise my question wouldn't make any sense
So basically I've been thinking about going from playing on a laptop to building a new desktop and I'm looking for advice on how to handle providing Internet access for it : the main router in my apartment is basically two rooms away from mine, plugged onto the only optical fiber access point, making me wonder whether I should go for the 10 to 14 meters of Ethernet cable running from the main router along the wall through the corridor up to my room and my PC or rather setup a second router in my room (which would be a repeater of some sort I guess) and get Ethernet access from that one. Should depend on how fast Internet speed decays when you go a long way with an Ethernet cable compared to the second router's constant falloff (which would be about 10 meters away from the main one but two walls separating them) but I don't have a clue really
Thanks in advance
P.S.: Obviously my desktop can't be in any other room than mine otherwise my question wouldn't make any sense
Internet speed does not decay in a 10 - 15m cable.
Ethernet cable is always best for everything.
Only downside in your case is laying it along walls and across doors will be a nuisance. I'd recommend hiring someone to install a path for the cable through the rooms.
Using two routers will be playable but unstable at times. Wifi doesn't penetrate through walls very well and suffers interference from other devices.
If you go for the wifi receiver make sure they connect on the 5GHz band, it will let you get high speeds and is mostly free of interference. 5GHz normally doesn't reach very far through walls though but the receiver solves that problem most often.
Internet speed does not decay in a 10 - 15m cable.
Ethernet cable is always best for everything.
Only downside in your case is laying it along walls and across doors will be a nuisance. I'd recommend hiring someone to install a path for the cable through the rooms.
Using two routers will be playable but unstable at times. Wifi doesn't penetrate through walls very well and suffers interference from other devices.
If you go for the wifi receiver make sure they connect on the 5GHz band, it will let you get high speeds and is mostly free of interference. 5GHz normally doesn't reach very far through walls though but the receiver solves that problem most often.
second router is goofy af – definitely go for the ethernet route
second router is goofy af – definitely go for the ethernet route
you definitely want to avoid going wireless as much as you can if we are talking gaming. common copper cables start dropping packets at 50m+ so you shouldnt be worried about that at all, if you are fine with running it across 2 rooms and tidying it all up. your third and most hassle free option would be getting a pair of powerline adapters, these basically use your existing electricity circuit for network traffic. the only downside to these is that they sometimes drop if the circuit is under heavy load (eg running a washing mashine/dishwasher/microwave at the same time).
you definitely want to avoid going wireless as much as you can if we are talking gaming. common copper cables start dropping packets at 50m+ so you shouldnt be worried about that at all, if you are fine with running it across 2 rooms and tidying it all up. your third and most hassle free option would be getting a pair of powerline adapters, these basically use your existing electricity circuit for network traffic. the only downside to these is that they sometimes drop if the circuit is under heavy load (eg running a washing mashine/dishwasher/microwave at the same time).
Has anyone tried powerline adapters? Im tryna avoid cables through the hallway and into another room
Has anyone tried powerline adapters? Im tryna avoid cables through the hallway and into another room
Shitty unshielded Cat5e cable, which is probably the cheapest you can even buy these days is rated for 1000 Mbit/s over 100m.
Your router probably doesn't even support anything faster than 1000 MBit/s. 10 Gbit/s is neither useful nor cheap enough to add to a router that can't handle anything faster than a 1 GBit/s internet connection anyway.
As for Wi-Fi:
802.11ax isn't really a thing yet, 802.11ad doesn't work through walls so the only standard that could even theoretically be faster is 802.11ac. If your router doesn't support that the choice is obvious. Even if it does the advertised speeds do not factor in walls so it's still a gamble and latency will be worse either way.
As CondoM mentioned 5 GHz WiFi is really bad at going through walls, but 2.4 GHz can't even theoretically reach 1 Gbit/s so 5 GHz is your only choice (60 GHz doesn't go through walls at all). However you will lose speed. "Old" ac Wi-Fi routers (pre 2016) have a theoretical maximum of 1.3 Gbit/s and through a wall you'll get maybe 50-70% of that so that's slower. "New" ac routers with a 2.34 Gbit/s maximum could theoretically be faster than 1 Gbit/s through a wall, but your router needs to support that, the second router needs to support that and will be correspondingly expensive and the latency is still worse and your internet is guaranteed to be slower than 1 Gbit/s so you gain nothing at all.
tl;dr
Ethernet doesn't have falloff, Wi-Fi does.
A random ethernet cable from a garbage dump will be faster than Wi-Fi and your internet connection.
Shitty unshielded Cat5e cable, which is probably the cheapest you can even buy these days is rated for 1000 Mbit/s over 100m.
Your router probably doesn't even support anything faster than 1000 MBit/s. 10 Gbit/s is neither useful nor cheap enough to add to a router that can't handle anything faster than a 1 GBit/s internet connection anyway.
As for Wi-Fi:
802.11ax isn't really a thing yet, 802.11ad doesn't work through walls so the only standard that could even theoretically be faster is 802.11ac. If your router doesn't support that the choice is obvious. Even if it does the advertised speeds do not factor in walls so it's still a gamble and latency will be worse either way.
As CondoM mentioned 5 GHz WiFi is really bad at going through walls, but 2.4 GHz can't even theoretically reach 1 Gbit/s so 5 GHz is your only choice (60 GHz doesn't go through walls at all). However you will lose speed. "Old" ac Wi-Fi routers (pre 2016) have a theoretical maximum of 1.3 Gbit/s and through a wall you'll get maybe 50-70% of that so that's slower. "New" ac routers with a 2.34 Gbit/s maximum could theoretically be faster than 1 Gbit/s through a wall, but your router needs to support that, the second router needs to support that and will be correspondingly expensive and the latency is still worse and your internet is guaranteed to be slower than 1 Gbit/s so you gain nothing at all.
tl;dr
Ethernet doesn't have falloff, Wi-Fi does.
A random ethernet cable from a garbage dump will be faster than Wi-Fi and your internet connection.