# Ethernet: Worth drilling holes?



## Ruby Dragon (Apr 10, 2012)

So, after it ha taken nearly 3 days for Total War: Shogun 2 to download, I heard from somebody at school that Ethernet is faster than wireless. He might just have a shitty router but I am wondering if this is true, and I am seeing RJ-45 (that is the connector my laptop uses) up in about 350 MHz bandwidth, and that uses CAT-5e. This sounds amazing too me, so, is it faster or would I just be wasting time? Because if it is,  would happily do it, because I do a lot of large downloads. With that, my laptop also falls asleep sometimes during a massive download and I don't notice it. So, worth doing the wiring or not?


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## BRN (Apr 10, 2012)

Ethernet is one way to make the connection between your router and your computer. The difference can be pretty significant - but, it's not going to change dramatically! 

The speed of your connection _really_ depends on the connection between your router and the outside world, which is something that ethernet cabling can't change.

Wireless works for most people, and it's stable enough to be OK. Wiring something up isn't really worth drilling holes, in my personal, subjective opinion.


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## Draconas (Apr 10, 2012)

I've had better results using Ethernet than wireless for a laptop, I had better data rates* lower ping, and some other fun options such as wake-on-lan and such.

*internal network, max wireless speed is 50-ish MB/s, Ethernet can push 500+MB/s on gigabit routers.


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## Ruby Dragon (Apr 10, 2012)

Hm, still not sure. I do have very good wireless connection strength but it's not very good speed-wise, and, as mentioned before, I do a lot of massive downloads and watch a lot of videos. Would Ethernet work better with this?


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## Arshes Nei (Apr 10, 2012)

Ethernet is generally better. 

Would this humorous article help? http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/wired-vs-wireless-security-vs-speed/624


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## Ruby Dragon (Apr 10, 2012)

Okay, that convinced me to get ethernet. Now to persuade my dad to drill holes through my wall and run a cable...well, I will be moving downstairs to my brother's room in a year or two as he is moving out soon, but still, it would be nice to have it now. I am not worried about security; all of my accounts have remember password on, and I have no banking accounts. All an internet-peeper would see is YouTube, cracked, maybe some pointless browsing on wikipedia and shopping sites, and every now and then porn. Really though, speed and stability are two huge pluses for me.


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## DarkXander (Aug 24, 2015)

For FPS gaming ethernet is faster, due to 90% of wireless being half duplex, vs ethernet being full duplex.   As far as downloading you might not see much difference if you have a good wireless router, but if you do a jitter or latency based test you will see a significant difference.  Going to ethernet can also eliminate the effect in FPS and other fast paced online games where characters jitter, or strobe around.

Speaking as a Network Engineer and First Person Shooter PC gamer of 15 years.


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## Luccus (Aug 25, 2015)

Make sure you'll get an "cat. 6 sftp cable" if you going longer than ~20m.
It'll help with the speed and stability part.


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## MakTheFurry (Mar 14, 2016)

Yeah, Im in the loft and the router is in the living room (Downstairs) I'm not sure in my case if it would improve my internet or not, I think it would a tad but probably not worth drilling holes.


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## Yuko Aka (Mar 14, 2016)

you are always going to get a faster connection using an Ethernet cable from your router only because the uncertainty of any disruptions through wireless will affect your connection speed, but in regards to making your internet faster, it is only determined by the connection "to the outside world" -BRN 
and how do some of y'all get 50mb/s im stuck with a shitty 11mb/s


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## MakTheFurry (Mar 14, 2016)

And im stuck with 200Kb


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## Yuko Aka (Mar 14, 2016)

MakTheFurry said:


> And im stuck with 200Kb


wOah life must be hard :C i couldn't survive with internet that slow


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## BRN (Mar 15, 2016)

Yuko Aka said:


> you are always going to get a faster connection using an Ethernet cable from your router only because the uncertainty of any disruptions through wireless will affect your connection speed, but in regards to making your internet faster, it is only determined by the connection "to the outside world" -BRN
> and how do some of y'all get 50mb/s im stuck with a shitty 11mb/s



There's all kinds of chokepoints... distance from the nearest signal repeater, quality of the wiring from your signal repeater to your home, quality of the wiring within your home, quality of your internet router...


What I can tell you is that my friend just drilled some holes, and went from 40 to 104Mb/S. 

Yep.


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## Yuko Aka (Mar 15, 2016)

BRN said:


> There's all kinds of chokepoints... distance from the nearest signal repeater, quality of the wiring from your signal repeater to your home, quality of the wiring within your home, quality of your internet router...
> 
> 
> What I can tell you is that my friend just drilled some holes, and went from 40 to 104Mb/S.
> ...


Omg the dream


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## Zrcalo (Mar 15, 2016)

Ruby Dragon said:


> Okay, that convinced me to get ethernet. Now to persuade my dad to drill holes through my wall and run a cable...well, I will be moving downstairs to my brother's room in a year or two as he is moving out soon, but still, it would be nice to have it now. I am not worried about security; all of my accounts have remember password on, and I have no banking accounts. All an internet-peeper would see is YouTube, cracked, maybe some pointless browsing on wikipedia and shopping sites, and every now and then porn. Really though, speed and stability are two huge pluses for me.



you're still going to need a router. Or people can access your computer directly and use it to farm their own things, which would make your computer and internet connection extremely slow. 
I'd get an ethernet cable and hook your computer up to the router. you can get a long ethernet cable you can run down the hall if you need too.


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## FurryComputerNerd (Mar 23, 2016)

Ethernet is faster but drilling a hole in the wall seems a little overkill... 

I'd look into options like powerline. This essentially works by using your house's electrical wiring as part of the data line between you and the router. No drilling required!


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## BRN (Mar 23, 2016)

FurryComputerNerd said:


> Ethernet is faster but drilling a hole in the wall seems a little overkill...
> 
> I'd look into options like powerline. This essentially works by using your house's electrical wiring as part of the data line between you and the router. No drilling required!


Wouldn't this be using the house's copper wiring for data in tandem with electrical supply? It sounds like there's a lot of opportunity to lose transfer speeds.


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## FurryComputerNerd (Mar 23, 2016)

BRN said:


> Wouldn't this be using the house's copper wiring for data in tandem with electrical supply? It sounds like there's a lot of opportunity to lose transfer speeds.



It used to be a problem but the tech has improved. The system I use myself normally hits up to 40 out of the 50 mbps that I'm promised by Comcast, so it's working well enough for myself. Lagging in games like GTA and BF4 has been fairly rare as well. If you were in an apartment or complex shared with other people I could see a problem though.


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