Networking help

[SenMithrarin85]

Since building my pc in 2107, I have been using a powerline connection for internet, since wifi was unstable (tried USB wifi devices and only received half of my normal download speed, both when plugged into case ports and the mobo itself) and running an ethernet cable through the house is not practical.

My only issue with them was the fact they would periodically shut themselves off and cut my connection. I read online that they are known for this and have built in power saving that is unable to correctly discern when the connection is idle and when it isn't. I used windows task scheduler to set up a task to ping the gateway at regular intervals to prevent this and it worked fine for ages.

Now recently, after clean installing windows, I have tried to set this task up again and receive the error message (account name is not valid) whenever I use the "run whether user is logged on or not" to hide the cmd window that the task creates otherwise.

I have tried googling, but all I can find are threads dating back years (some even back to vista), microsoft forum threads that go nowhere (copy-pasted generic response by "support agents") and am at my wits end.

I have also tried installing the TP Link utility software and disabling power saving on the plugs but the issue persists.

[iceman1980]

Homeplug units are impacted by many things. AC circuits are often quite noisy so the PowerLine units must overcome this noise.Whats the model code of these Powerline Adapters?

[chiefputsilao✖️ping]

if you don't want to drill between the walls/floors of your house, consider running cat5/cat6 LAN cable at the edges of your walls at the floor or ceiling from your main modem/router to your target devices or use another router with improved coverage in conjunction with your main modem/router.

[SenMithrarin85]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Tarantula Hawk:

Homeplug units are impacted by many things. AC circuits are often quite noisy so the PowerLine units must overcome this noise.Whats the model code of these Powerline Adapters?

TL-PA401OP KIT

[emoticorpse]

What are/were your speeds with usb wifi adapter?. What are/were they with the powerline?.

[SenMithrarin85]

Początkowo opublikowane przez emoticorpse:

What are/were your speeds with usb wifi adapter?. What are/were they with the powerline?.

my download speed is usually 37mb/s (yeah UK fibre sucks). I get the same on powerline. With USB wifi it was only 15 mb/s for some reason.

[_I_]

most usb wifi adapters suck
get a pci-e x1 (for desktops) card or mini pci card (for laptops)

[iceman1980]

Początkowo opublikowane przez _I_:

most usb wifi adapters suck
get a pci-e x1 (for desktops) card or mini pci card (for laptops)

"Mini PCI card" you neglect to tell them that they are M.2 interfaces and there is M key, E-key and A-key types.

[_I_]

that all depends on the laptops mini pci slot
older m-pci will not work with m.2 devices

and some desktop pci-e wifi cards are a mini pci slot adapter for a laptop card

[iceman1980]

Początkowo opublikowane przez _I_:

that all depends on the laptops mini pci slot
older m-pci will not work with m.2 devices

and some desktop pci-e wifi cards are a mini pci slot adapter for a laptop card

I've replaced the M.2 wifi module in my laptop. It was an A+E-Key replaced the garbage KillerWLAN chip with an Intel 9260. Sick of gaming laptops being sold with that piece of garbage it makes such flaky connections with access-points.

Początkowo opublikowane przez SenMithrarin85:

Początkowo opublikowane przez emoticorpse:

What are/were your speeds with usb wifi adapter?. What are/were they with the powerline?.

my download speed is usually 37mb/s (yeah UK fibre sucks). I get the same on powerline. With USB wifi it was only 15 mb/s for some reason.

Nah thats definitely the Powerline adapter. When you buy a powerline adapter the specifications such as AV-600 (600Mbps is done in effectively a clean room environment. Powerline adapters additionally don't like being plugged into powerboards or plugged in the wall in a dual-outlet on the same certain with noise creating electronics, or on the same breaker circuit with noisy appliances, (Motors, Vacuums, Fridges, Blenders, etc)

[Supafly]

Początkowo opublikowane przez SenMithrarin85:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Tarantula Hawk:

Homeplug units are impacted by many things. AC circuits are often quite noisy so the PowerLine units must overcome this noise.Whats the model code of these Powerline Adapters?

TL-PA401OP KIT

Had Tl series 4 kit years ago. I used to get random drops. Once I started getting drops the frequency of them would increase. Powering them off would provide a period of no drops followed by a drop that began a cycle of ever increasing drops.

I started powering them off overnight and turning back on in the morning and rarely had a drop afterwards. Sometimes I'd just power cycle them, off for a few seconds then back on, would give me the same results.

Make sure they are not plugged into extension/power/surge protector strips.

[SenMithrarin85]

Update. tried a pci wifi card:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TL-WN881ND-Wireless-Interface-Low-Profile-2-6-24-4-1/dp/B006BSPTAQ/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=pci+wifi&qid=1569366645&s=gateway&sr=8-3

But sadly speed was only half of what I get on ethernet. Not sure if the card isn't fast enough or the signal is too weak.

Would rather not even use one. But as stated above, the power saving on the powerline adaptors keep cutting my connection off every so often. I have installed the software from TP Link that allows you to turn that feature off, but the plugs are not taking any notice.

The only way I could stop that from happening, was to create a task to ping the network gateway at regular intervals but windows will for some reason, no longer allow me to run the task with the command line box hidden. Used to be that I could set it to "run whether user is logged on or not", but now I receive this error:

https://imgur.com/EnI0QFF

Would really appreciate a way to solve it.

[[☥] - CJ -]

so wait
you're from the future and you need network help?
wow, thats sad
lol

Anyway

Ethernet will always give higher speeds compared to WIFI
And only Dual Band 5GHz will allow you to access Gigabit speeds or anything high like you might be expecting

account name could have to do with the website you want to ping or something i suppose? or location?

no idea..

on second look
it looks like its talking about the account group?

[SenMithrarin85]

Początkowo opublikowane przez ☥ - CJ - 8/6/19 - Meja 8/30/19:

so wait
you're from the future and you need network help?
wow, thats sad
lol

Anyway

Ethernet will always give higher speeds compared to WIFI
And only Dual Band 5GHz will allow you to access Gigabit speeds or anything high like you might be expecting

account name could have to do with the website you want to ping or something i suppose? or location?

no idea..

on second look
it looks like its talking about the account group?

some misunderstanding here lol

What I'm pinging is my network router. It basically used to keep the powerline plugs from dropping out, but now for some reason, windows throws this error up now. the "run whether user is logged on or not" option is required else I get an open cmd box when the task runs.

[iceman1980]

Początkowo opublikowane przez SenMithrarin85:

Początkowo opublikowane przez ☥ - CJ - 8/6/19 - Meja 8/30/19:

so wait
you're from the future and you need network help?
wow, thats sad
lol

Anyway

Ethernet will always give higher speeds compared to WIFI
And only Dual Band 5GHz will allow you to access Gigabit speeds or anything high like you might be expecting

account name could have to do with the website you want to ping or something i suppose? or location?

no idea..

on second look
it looks like its talking about the account group?

some misunderstanding here lol

What I'm pinging is my network router. It basically used to keep the powerline plugs from dropping out, but now for some reason, windows throws this error up now. the "run whether user is logged on or not" option is required else I get an open cmd box when the task runs.

Yeah the reason for that is Powerline adapters operate on the datalink layer / Network access layers. It doesn't operate on the Interent-layer / network layer. So effectively you are creating a WOL event, by waking them up using a ping.

https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-8/powershell-script-run-certain-service
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

 
#Perform wake-on-lan 

while ($true) {
# Write-Host "Performing ping wake up"
Test-Connection 192.168.1.1
Start-Sleep -Seconds 360

This will do your wake-up routine.

[MagicMight]

The reason you are getting that error (the specified account name is not valid) is because for some reason, you need to type your device's full name in that prompt. For example, my administrator username is PC, but in that field I have to enter LAPTOP-ABCDE123\PC. That device name before your username is created randomly when you install windows and it should be visible next to the 'Author' label of your open task. I can't see it in your picture but I am not sure if you simply edited it out, like you did with your username below.

If the above does not work (though it most likely will ): Instead of selecting 'run whether user is logged in or not', another alternative to doing your thing without the cmd window appearing would be to use a tool that hides batch file execution (such as nircmd with the nircmd exec hide command).