This may be posted to the wrong group - if so, please let me know where would be better. It's kind of a cabling issue...
I'm pretty sure I'm missing something obvious here.
I have a client with a large house with massive walls, which prevent wireless from being a viable option outside of the room containing the wireless access point. There are three locations needing network service - two offices (West and East) on either side of the ground-floor foyer, and the exercise room in the basement.
I'm generally not permitted to run cable, though I was able to co-opt an existing cat5 cable from the West office to the phone closet in the basement, about 50 feet from the computer in the exercise room. I've added keystone jacks to this and the cable functions properly.
So, we've tried Netgear XE-102 power line ethernet adapters, and this works just great for the two offices on the ground floor.
In the West office, the DSL service goes to a router (Netgear RP114, providing DHCP), which feeds the local PC and also feeds a XE-102 (#1). I've also put ends on a cat5 cable someone ran to the phone closet at the far end of the basement, and this cable works. No problems here.
In the East office, another XE-102 (#2) picks up the signal and goes to another Netgear wireless router (just acting as switch and Wireless Access Point). This has a Phaser printer connected to it and provides wireless for the laptop on the desk. No problems here either; this works very well.
However, XE-102 (#3) in the exercise room in the basement does not work well at all. The two offices upstairs appear to be on a single circuit; the basement exercise room is not only on another circuit but another breaker panel. The XE102 downstairs can just barely get a connect - at best it can pick up an IP address, but can't connect to the router, by browser, ping, or telnet (that router does support telnet). Everything times out. DHCP renews will often time out.
If I run a long cable from the cat5 drop to the phone closet in place of the cable from the XE-102, the network wakes right up to full speed, so I don't think there is, say, a firewall issue. Unfortunately, running this cable is not acceptable to the client.
So, on the idea that the second breaker panel is a barrier that the XE-102 #3 isn't crossing, I added a fourth XE-102 (#4) to an electric outlet on the same circuit as the XE-102 #3, and connected it to the cat5 drop in the phone room, which is connected to the RP114 router in the West office.
The moment I plug the cat5 cable from the router to the fourth XE-102 in, the activity light on that XE-102 and all the port activity lights on both routers upstairs start flashing constantly, several times per second. The network as a whole suffers very badly. Unplugging that cable stops this, but may have triggered a need to power cycle the two routers upstairs to restore stability. It looks rather like a loop feeding itself.
I've tried swapping in other XE-102 units; they all behave in the same manner.
Obviously this idea of the fourth XE-102 jumpered to the router doesn't work the way I hoped it would. Any suggestions as to how to get a solid signal to XE-102 #3 on the second breaker panel?
Thanks for any assistance (or redirection to a better forum).
Patrick Keenan