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Six years ago..
Nov. 19th, 2017 10:51 pm.. I asked about mains networking prior to trying it.
A sign of how well it's gone is that I haven't said anything else about it since, apart from a comment a month after getting it going that it was working better than the previous PC was. (Not long afterwards, the PC got replaced with this one.)
I'd started with a pair of TP-Link AV200 ones - for this PC and the router in the living room - and soon got another pair for JA's PC upstairs and the printer next to this PC. This means her connection was reliable and that she could print directly, rather than having to go via this PC. They were a slightly newer model, but worked together happily.
This weekend, the one for this PC failed. No lights, nothing. I swapped it for the printer's, but clearly this wasn't a long-term solution.
Fortunately, two months ago I'd found a pair of On Networks adaptors in a Chesterfield charity shop for a quid each. As that's a small fraction of what they'd cost new, I bought them on the basis that they'd be useful at some point, even if I wasn't expecting it to be like this!
One of the questions I had wondered about over the years was whether different companies' kit would work with each other. The answer is that - with 100Mbs or faster ones - they should, but don't necessarily actually do so.
I did wonder if the problem with getting the new one working was an example of one of the exceptions, but it turns out that I'd pressed the 'pair up' button on one of the TP-Links for too long and ended up resetting that one to a new secret key. The new one then paired with that, leaving the printer and this PC probably talking to each other but not the router. Oops.
I then managed to get JA's one to pair with those two rather than have one of those two pair with it (and thus the router's one). Oops.
This meant I'd have to do what I wanted to avoid, get to the router's one. That's because it's behind an IKEA Billy bookcase which is behind the TV and assorted media boxes. Fortunately, it's at the end where that's not too difficult and fortunately (again) it's one of the smaller 'CD' tower ones rather than the proper bookcase ones, but..
And that's worked! Yay, internet on the PC again. (Another fortunately is that the phones etc have been able to get internet via the router's wifi, so I could look some stuff up while this was happening - I have just remembered where the TP-Link manuals are, but the new ones didn't come with any.)
I've also swapped the older TP-Link that was hidden there for one of the new ones on the grounds that if its twin failed, this one might be heading for the end of its life too. I have, this time, taken a photo of its password so - in theory - could do the pairing via the ethernet cable rather than having to faff around pushing buttons.
Here's to another six years of trouble free networking...
Gosh, does that mean this PC is nearly six?
A sign of how well it's gone is that I haven't said anything else about it since, apart from a comment a month after getting it going that it was working better than the previous PC was. (Not long afterwards, the PC got replaced with this one.)
I'd started with a pair of TP-Link AV200 ones - for this PC and the router in the living room - and soon got another pair for JA's PC upstairs and the printer next to this PC. This means her connection was reliable and that she could print directly, rather than having to go via this PC. They were a slightly newer model, but worked together happily.
This weekend, the one for this PC failed. No lights, nothing. I swapped it for the printer's, but clearly this wasn't a long-term solution.
Fortunately, two months ago I'd found a pair of On Networks adaptors in a Chesterfield charity shop for a quid each. As that's a small fraction of what they'd cost new, I bought them on the basis that they'd be useful at some point, even if I wasn't expecting it to be like this!
One of the questions I had wondered about over the years was whether different companies' kit would work with each other. The answer is that - with 100Mbs or faster ones - they should, but don't necessarily actually do so.
I did wonder if the problem with getting the new one working was an example of one of the exceptions, but it turns out that I'd pressed the 'pair up' button on one of the TP-Links for too long and ended up resetting that one to a new secret key. The new one then paired with that, leaving the printer and this PC probably talking to each other but not the router. Oops.
I then managed to get JA's one to pair with those two rather than have one of those two pair with it (and thus the router's one). Oops.
This meant I'd have to do what I wanted to avoid, get to the router's one. That's because it's behind an IKEA Billy bookcase which is behind the TV and assorted media boxes. Fortunately, it's at the end where that's not too difficult and fortunately (again) it's one of the smaller 'CD' tower ones rather than the proper bookcase ones, but..
And that's worked! Yay, internet on the PC again. (Another fortunately is that the phones etc have been able to get internet via the router's wifi, so I could look some stuff up while this was happening - I have just remembered where the TP-Link manuals are, but the new ones didn't come with any.)
I've also swapped the older TP-Link that was hidden there for one of the new ones on the grounds that if its twin failed, this one might be heading for the end of its life too. I have, this time, taken a photo of its password so - in theory - could do the pairing via the ethernet cable rather than having to faff around pushing buttons.
Here's to another six years of trouble free networking...
Gosh, does that mean this PC is nearly six?