Apologies if I should've been able to find this answer with my Googling machine, but I didn't. Not exactly.

As most of us do nowadays, I have a wireless router connecting a bunch of devices in my house. A couple desktops, a laptop, some tablets, TV, etc.

Everything works just fine except for the desktop computer in the kitchen. I recently built a new one for that location and bought a new USB adapter, but it still drops the connection every so often. Most of the time, it's fine, but the signal is definitely weaker and the connection drops often enough where it's noticeable.

I suspect it's because of the location. Thus, I'm interested in trying a powerline adapter to see if that may solve the problem.

My question is this: would this kitchen PC, using a powerline adapter, be able to communicate with the other devices on the wireless network? Specifically, I want it to be able to talk to the other desktop PC in the house, as my kids like to play Minecraft together.

Would taking the kitchen PC off the wireless network and onto the powerline adapter isolate it from the network completely, or because it is still running through the same router would it still be able to talk to the network?

It depends on your router...

The majority of routers (in my experience) join the wireless clients and the wired clients on the same subnet and devices can easily communicate with each other.

There are some routers though that have 1 subnet for the wireless clients and 1 for the wired clients. By default these cannot talk to each other.

So check your router, basically. They are fairly easy to tell because there is more than 1 DHCP scope (DHCP is what assigns the IP address to your devices) covering more than 1 subnet. You can post the make and model here and I can check it out if you are unsure.

ASUS RT-56NU

I checked the manual and admin page and couldn't tell exactly, but I didn't see anything that looked like there would be two different subnets.

Thanks.

Oh, additional question: The router, as well as the wireless network adapters for both desktop PCs, is dual-band. If the powerline adapter would talk to one wireless network with no problem, would it automatically communicate with both, or would I have to set it to talk to just one? Mainly just curious about that, as I haven't even purchase a powerline kit yet and with this specific PC, it's not really important to be able to switch bands. With the other desktop PC (whose wireless is working fine), I sometimes want to change bands - I'm experimenting with 5 Ghz to link the two desktop PCs for LAN gaming, whereas if I want it to talk to everything else in the house, especially Chromecast, it has to be 2.4 Ghz.

do you have any hard-wired computers now? Any laptop you can test by hard-wiring it and disabling wifi to see what IP you get?

also, for your computer in your kitchen - ignoring how that's kind of weird, if your router has different bands, have you tried another one?

Like, for my google fiber router, it has a faster band with smaller coverage, and a slower band that gets more distance. I was having lots of dropped packets using the fast band on my desktop, but swapping to the slower one improved quality of connection immensely.

Yeah, I might just go back to the 2.4 Ghz band, as I think that gets better coverage. I'll test it out.

I don't have any hard-wired computers, but I can run an ethernet cable from my laptop to the router in the home office when I get a chance.

As for a computer in the kitchen, yeah, it's odd. Leading up to my son's birth seven years ago, we had an addition put on the house. At the same time, we had a storage room that was attached to the garage turned into a laundry room. That storage room was only accessible from the garage, so we had it changed so that we could enter the storage/new laundry room from the garage and then enter the house (kitchen) from the laundry room. The old door from the garage to the kitchen was turned into a computer nook. Hence, the PC in the kitchen.

The idea behind making it a computer nook rather than something else kitchen-related was that I could do my work on that computer and keep an eye on the kids in the new playroom, which is attached to the dining area of the kitchen. As it has worked out, I never use that computer.

2.4GHz has lower transfer speeds but higher coverage (physics,yeah!).
If you have a TV or a microwave or something electronical right beside your router, that can disturb the signal as well.
As for powerlines, you'll notice performance drop if you live in an apartment building or so when the peek hours arrise (interference in the grid).
I have the ASUS RT-N56U (probably the same model as yours? Maybe you miss spelled? Dunno,didn't check it up) and you can configure the networks as you wish. By default wired and wireless share the same network (just a different DHCP server,which makes no difference regarding connectivity)

Yup, typo on my part. Good to know about the networks. Maybe I'll see how a powerline adapter works (or just forget about toying with 5 Ghz and just switch to 2.4 and see what happens).

I don't think interference is a concern - it's not next to anything.

The problem I have isn't a huge one. Works fine most of the time. Drops frequently enough, though, where it's noticeable.

Powerline adapters work like charm, easy to set up - basically plug and play and press 1 button. Ive been using them for 2 years now.

Sounds exactly like my problem that was fixed by switching to a different band (2.4ghz)

Yup, I switched bands and things seem to be better. Good to know that I should be able to use a powerline adapter if need be in the future.

Thanks for the replies.

fwiw my PC is connected via powerline to my router, and my printer via WiFi, and it works fine, well at least it did until I upgraded to Win 10. So this stuff might not always work out-of-the box.

Update: picked up a powerline kit and it was awful. Got 5 Mbps tops, sometimes down under 1.

So far, switching the wireless adapter to 2.4 Ghz from 5 has made the connection more stable, even though it decreases the speed. Guess I'll just stick with that.

I have a similar setup to yours and recently I also had to purchase a powerline adapter. My top speed is about 100 down but I have two devices upstairs, a laptop and a Nvidia Shield TV gaming console. I get about 90 down on my laptop using a wireless 5ghz connection and about 30 down on my Shield using the powerline adapter. While the speed on the latter is slower, it's a much more stable connection then the laptop. In fact I couldn't even do any online gaming on the device with using only the WiFi.