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Powerline Compatibility - Mini Connectors with TP-Link Does Not Work

PC_60 — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 19:27:43 GMT

I am running a BT Smart Hub 2 which has a single Disc added to it and two BT Powerline Mini Connectors.

Having had various problems and visits from BT engineers testing my home setup out as I have had problems sustaining a reliable connection and service. I am reduced to the SMART Hub being connected to the master socket ( I think version 5C now) on the ground floor of a 3 story building . An ethernet cable connects to the first BT Mini Connector which was paired with a second on the same floor to get a 'wired' connection to a YouView box.

The Disc is on the second floor to extend WiFi a bit further.

Connections for other PC's on the middle floor were pathetic and unreliable so I bought a TP-Link AV1300 kit to extend the powerline service. One is a Powerline only device and the second a TL-WPA8630p has dual band wifi.

With the basic TP-Link Powerliine device (no wifi) installed and paired to the Pirmary Mini Connector things work. As soon as I add the TL-WPA8630p with wifi on things get very very unreliable so I cannot recommend buying these if you are thinking about it, at least not at the moment.

Things will connect but and they may operate for a while but fall over quite often. I found reference to the the fact that TL-WPA8630p may invoke its own DHCP IP services in another post on here so as recommended I set the IP address of that device as 'Static'. Still things fall over, so then I used PLC-VDSL interference setting that TP-Link have that it says may slow down things to try and prevent things falling over... it does nothing.

Has anybody else got such a combination working reliably? as frankly to me it looks like I need to bin the lot as garbage and start with a single manufacturers kit.

Thanks

Re: Powerline Compatibility - Mini Connectors with TP-Link Does Not Work

NeilO — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 19:45:30 GMT

Hi, @PC_60 welcome to the community and thanks for posting, I can't give you advice on the TP-Link set-up but noticed you mentioned a disc. If you have a complete wifi subscription you can ask for up to three disc's if one is not providing enough wifi coverage throughout your home.

You can request them by following the complete wifi troubleshooter

Thanks

Neil

Re: Powerline Compatibility - Mini Connectors with TP-Link Does Not Work

PC_60 — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 15:53:40 GMT

Thanks Neil but I have not found the WiFi disc that good and given that I have;

1 Printer and 3 computers one of which is a server on the middle floor the WiFi simply does not cope with the traffic and is frankly far less secure a way to connect.

I am surprised to find that BT actually sell TP-Link kit and that there isn't some warning regarding the compatibility of devices. TP-Link said that their kit is incompatible with BT Mini Connectors but they were not very good when I contacted them. I have lost faith in both TP-Link and BT kit at this stage.