Homeplugs going faulty?

First off i wasn't sure if this was the right place to post this or not but thought it was the closest for my question.

I'm using a pair of Max Value 200mbps homeplugs to connect my ps3 to my router. I bought them over a year ago and they've worked great until the last couple of weeks.

Every now and then my ps3 will come up with a message saying 'An Ethernet cable is not connected' and it will sign me out. Then about a second later it will sign me in again and then another second later it will come up with that message again sign me out then sign me straight back in again.

The router isn't the problem because i got a new one last week and it's still the same. Nothing happens with the internet or anything, it's just the connect for the ps3.

Is this a problem with the Homeplugs going faulty or something else?

I've never found them particularly reliable. The last place I tried to use them in, there was packet loss and the ARP broadcasts would keep getting dropped, meaning I would lose connectivity to anything past the homeplug (the router and the rest of the internet) for minutes at a time.

In this new place I've moved into, I tried them again but the speed and overall performance was again pretty awful, so I've opted to link things together using wireless bridging - no issues what so ever.

It could be a fault with the homeplugs, it could be interference on your mains ring, but I have no advice on how you can troubleshoot it. Sometimes, the easiest solution is to just admit defeat, recognise the technology is a fudge, and use an alternative (wireless in my case).

Obviously they're pieces of electronic equipment so they can go wrong, but I've never had problems with mine (crosses fingers!).

There could well be an element of "you get what you pay for"- I don't know the brand you mention and I haven't used the 200Mbps versions, but I've had some 85Mbps Devolos in use for several years now. I plugged 'em in when I got 'em and have pretty much ignored them ever since^*, they just keep working.



^* Apart from dusting them occasionally

They work very well for over a year and they still do work very well it's just the occasional disconnect.

I think what mixt is saying about the whole technology being poor is a bit off though.

In reply to a post by Corbula:

it's just the occasional disconnect.

It could be because you're using the 200Mbps versions- that's a hell of a high frequency to shove down a cable meant for 50Hz mains

I don't know the details, but I think they uses techniques similar to the DSL used for broadband over a phone line- interference on that can easily cause corrupted or dropped packets, I can see no good reason why it shouldn't apply to homeplugs as well.

I use a number of Solwise 85mbps adapters in places where network cable can't be run (WAF reasons) and found them highly useful.
However, over a period of 6 years I have had two devices out of a total of seven simply stop passing traffic with no prior warning. One of them stopped showing a homeplug network connected and the other simply gave up the ghost (when I unplugged this one I noticed that the plastic front cover had become brittle and one of the screw fixing lugs had come disconnected meaning the front cover was a bit loose (but I don't think this was why it stopped simply a sign of old age)).

I ascribed both of these to old age and just bought a couple more - given the constant usage and time they'd lasted I thought I'd got my money's worth...

When one of mine went faulty, I had the same fault. You could try (1) swapping them around (2) giving both a violent shake (3) use another one to identify the faulty unit.