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I ordered one of these for use in my new garage which does not have a RJ45 connector except for the solar panel device. Talking to the solar power folks to see if I could tap into this connector to run a RJ45 line to the other side of the garage, they said get a Powerline Port.

So off I went to Amazon and ordered this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Linksys-Powerline ... B006JG5S6K

Works great! My router is located inside the house, right in the middle within an office area. So I plugged the first one into an empty electrical socket, and ran the 6 foot RG45 cable to an empty port on the back of the router.
Went to the garage and plugged the other unit in that has 4 RJ45 pots. Booted up my desktop pc in the garage, and bingo - I'm connected.

Note: the device works best connecting directly to a walled socket, not a power strip.

Yeah, I've used other brands. They work fine, just be aware you get nowhere near the speeds they claim.

Noted, but it's faster than WIFI.

U have solar power? May need to pick your brains. Considering it for the house we're hoping to build.

The new house came with it, and it's on a lease for 20 years; otherwise, would have to shell out $20k or more to own it. Talking to several people, they suggested a lease was the best option. Anything that goes wrong, they come out and fix it for free.

Hmm. Have to see if that's an option here.

We went house shopping and a couple had solar. Wife is sold on it. I worry about maintenence. Also curious how much it cuts down the electric bill in realworld usage.

I'll let you know as soon as I get my bill.

We had a solar contractor come out and spec out a system etc. We don't use that much electricity less than $1500/yr. So it would have been a really long payoff.

step 1 is panels - if you are in a net metering state you can get them tied straight into the power grid and you basically get credit for what you generate. That would have run about 10k. With a little fiddling, they output 110 v AC. With this option you can also sell credits in the interstate market, which may or may not be worth much. If the power goes down, you may be able to run some things during peak power with more hardware in the loop.

step 2 is panels that go into net metering or batteries. This is apparently getting better (i remember seeing picks that looked like ww2 submarine battery banks, but by the time you're finished with batteries, controller hardware, etc. we were up to about $25k. With this rig, you are fairly self sufficient (or we would have been). But we run very little AC, a few window units at night in the summer, and heat with oil. Our house is too old to be retrofitted with any kind of central anything.

Here is my connection speed with this adapter:

<a href="http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4675631512"><img src="http://www.speedtest.net/result/4675631512.png" /></a>

Here is my laptop on WIFI:
<a href="http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4675794994"><img src="http://www.speedtest.net/result/4675794994.png" /></a>

John: Thanks for the info.

Exec: I've used a lot of powerline adapters for clients, and the most I've ever seen out of any of the 100 Mbit ones is around 20 Mbit. Adequate for internet, but not so great for file transfers.

I have a patio addition in my house that I stupidly forgot to run CAT5 to during construction, and have not felt like getting under the house to run it. For now I just have a 50' cable running along the wall from an adjacent room.

Recently I tried a powerline adapter that had decent reviews that claimed to be 200Mbit. I had hoped that I would maybe get at least 90. No luck. Best I could do was 50. Only way I could get more was to connect the two boxes to the same breaker (two different outlets in the same room) which was pointless.

This is for a Media Center PC and you need 60+ Mbit to stream DVR recordings from one Media Center PC to another without glitches.

The problem with these units is it's basically Wifi over power line, and it's greatly affected by how much wiring you have to go through, and (most importantly) whether the two outlets are on the phase ("rail") of your power bus.

I had to use powerline to networks one of my old offices which was in a pre -1900 victorian house. There were many sets of wires, and it took a lot of trial and error to get everything on the same general circuit. At some point there was a roof leak, and they took out a ceiling fixture, which apparently had been the "bridge" from where the server was to the rest of the house. More trial and error fixed it. I used powerline in my 1940s house when I moved it and it was ok - but I never stream vid and my internet the was 3/0.5 . Tried to see if it would stretch to my garage, but it's actually on the next lot with its own meter, so no go.

Well, this will hold me over until I can talk to AT&T about running a dedicated line over to my work bench in the garage.