ethernet port speed for MVP

[aoehlke]

Hi all.
I am a very very satisfied sagetv user... this is some of the best software I have seen in 10 years+.

I have been using a media mvp for the past few months, VERY happy with it too... no longer have tons of wires going from pc to tv etc... and pc is now free for online poker while the wife is watching reruns of trading spaces

My beef, that I have, is the link speed of the media mvp.
To use it, I must lock my PC ethernet port to 10 mbps half duplex in order to have non-stuttered playback of video. Not a big deal in and of itself, but, I have other equipment on my LAN besides the PC and the MVP... and now access the the pc with sage is 1/10th the speed it could be for file transfers, remote desktop etc etc. Is this a limitation of the MVP? (I think so). Are the newer MVPs still suffering from this or has hauppauge fixed it? Or is it a sage issue? is there anything I can do to still have 100 mbit on the pc, but have smooth video on the MVP? I thought of 2 things... one is buy a managed switch and lock down the mvp port to 10 mbit... but that is probably going to cost me big $$$. The other is to try and get a cheap router/hub on ebay that is only 10 mbit, and connect the mvp to that, as an in between. would that work? is there anything I can do to avoid spending money and fix the problem? any suggestions welcome.

[Para]

aoehlke,
I have intsalled 4 MVPs with SageTV and not one has had the problem like you describe. I do remember reading posts about the issue, but I never experianced it. Maybe I am just lucky? Not usually

One common thing I have done is use known/tested hardware. Specifically, I have used a Linksys EZXS55W 5 port workgroup switch to connect the PC/server to the MVP(s). Other than having to troubleshoot some wire issues (on one installation), they all worked as planned.

It is possible that you have a wire or other hardware issue (maybe even your MVP). This reply may not be as useful to you as an answer, but I just want you to know that the MVP should work as you want (not just as it seems to be for you now).

[SafetyBob]

Could you be more specific as to what else you have on your network. I have run two MVP's at the same time from my sage server (which is not used for anything else than sage) while everyone else is surfing the net (that would be two desktops) and not had problems. I might ask you let everything go at full speed and not use your desktop to play poker and see if you have any problems. Perhaps the online poker is just hogging to much bandwidth at a time and the result is your occasional chopping.

That said if you do get good MVP viewing without poker, than you need to look at building something to have just sagetv on. A number of us have done this, because it is so much easier to maintain, vs. a real desktop that has all sorts of programs raising hell with your operating system.

If you still have the chopping problem and are not doing the poker thing, you need to give us a little more info.....mobo manufacturer, and what make/model of switch are you using for your network.

Bob E.

[aoehlke]

Hi guys, thanks for taking the time to reply.
As far as what else is on my network... there is an xbox and another PC.
The poker is not the issue... Even with everything else powered off, and the PC "idle" I still get the choppy playback when I leave the sage server ethernet at auto or 100 mbit. This seems to be experienced by some other users, as I read about the fix on the forums, and the fix does work (locking the server ethernet port at 10 mbit). As I said though, this is kinda sucky, as it means anything else that connects to the sage server for non sage stuff, is also stuck at 10 mbit.

I understand that a managed switch would be able to deal with this in hardware, as I could leave my server ethernet card at 100 mbit, and lock the jack on the swtich to 10 bit that the mvp is connected to. but a managed switch is goign to be costly, even a used one. I was thinking I could probably get an old 10mbit hub on ebay for cheap, and just connect the mvp to that, as this would force the slower speed... and let me leave my pc in 100 mbit mode.

I am still unsure what the source of the problem is... is it my switch, my pc ethernet card, the "older" mvp that I have, the sage software, or a combination of a few things? I know I am not the only one... and yes I know some of you ahve no problems... buggars


he also, I will add that the motherboard is a asus p4p800 deluxe, which has an integrated 3com 3c90 gigabit ethernet card.
I use a dlink di 604 router to the sage server, and this goes off to a linksys 100 mbit switch, where the mvp is connected.
I doubt there is a wiring issue... that would cause no video at all... and would also mean that the 10 mbit wouldnt fix my problem, which it does... thanks for the suggestions though... feel free to chime in again with ideas.
RSVP
AO