USB Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

[tshuttle]

All,

I am just wondering if the HD300 Extender would accept a USB Gigabit Ethernet adapter instead of a WiFi N adapter? I seem to have trouble watching high-bitrate HD content (1080p) on my 10/100 network. Lower bitrate material seems to play just fine (ie. 1080i, 720p, 480p, 480i). I have read a couple of posts regarding this and they seem to point toward bandwidth requirements. Unfortunately the HD300 does not come with a GigE port. Any info regarding this would be greatly appreciated.

Here is my basic setup:

SageTV Media Center -> Netgear 10/100 Switch -> HD300 Extender

Thank you in advance.

- Tom

[wrems]

Somethings not right... Your fast ethernet connection is more than fast enough to support playing back 1080p. There is something else in the equation that is causing your problems. Do you have a bunch of computers or devices on your network sucking bandwidth? As long as you're wired and there are no problems with the wiring itself you shouldn't be experiencing these issues.

Do the files you're pushing through play fine on the HD300 from a connected USB hard drive in stand-alone mode? That'd be my first troubleshooting advice. Take your network out of the equation.

[tshuttle]

I agree that it should be fast enough, in theory. I did some quick research and discovered that Blu-Ray discs play at a maximum 40.0Mbps so a 100Mbps network connection should have no issue playing BD @ 1080p. There are only two other devices currently plugged into the switch... a HD200 and the SageTV Media Center (I did this for troubleshooting purposes).

I am using a Netgear layer-3, 24 port, managed ethernet switch so I highly doubt that is the bottleneck either (ie. switch processor)

I will try playing my HD content via a connected USB source to ensure that the issue is the network and report my findings.

I will also try playing my HD content on my SageTV Media Center computer to ensure smooth playback at the source.

However, the question still remains, is it possible to use a USB GigE adapter with the HD300?

[wrems]

It wouldn't gain you anything and I don't believe it would work. Maybe someone else can chime in here...

[tshuttle]

wrems, thank you for your quick responses :-)

Anyone else care to comment?

[GKusnick]

Ideally you would want a gigabit switch and a gigabit link from the server to the switch (so it can serve multiple clients at once). With that sort of infrastructure, the 100 Mpbs link from the switch to the extender should be adequate. If you're still having issues, then there's probably a performance bottleneck on the server itself (e.g. disk transfer rate, file fragmentation, or something along those lines).

To answer the specific question, I believe the HD300 firmware includes drivers for its onboard network adapter and for the specific USB wireless adapter recommended. I'd be surprised if it includes drivers for any other adapters.

[tshuttle]

Greg,

Thank you for your insight.

I don't think it is the server in this instance as it has 2 7200 rpm SATA drives in a hardware RAID-0, a 3 GHz quad-core processor and 4 GB of RAM with a Gigabit Ethernet adapter plugged into the switch (at 100 mbps, because the switch is 100 mbps). Also, lower bitrate content plays just fine.

The switch does have 2 Gigabit uplink ports, so maybe I will try plugging it into one of those.

With regard to the drivers for the USB Ethernet Adapter... I agree, they probably aren't included in the package on the HD300. I was just wondering if anybody can confirm this.

[_Demo_]

There is no other network driver included in the firmware. The best way to confirm the transfer speed is to run a iperf test between your server and HD300:

----

You will need to run the following commands on the HD300 through telnet
(login is root, no password) :

cd /tmp
wget http://download.sagetv.com/firmware/iperf8654
chmod +x iperf8654
./iperf8654 -l32k -s


Then on your server download jperf2 from http://xjperf.googlecode.com/files/jperf-2.0.2.zip

Extract it and run the .bat file (assumes you have java installed)

In the server ip enter the ip address of the HD300, click the
box next to buffer length then set the size to 32 and the unit to kbytes, click the box next to tcp no delay. After that you can run the test and it should be similar to what happens when playing files.

This will give you the bandwidth between your server and the HD300.

----

_Demo_

[Nelbert]

Easy way to check if it's the server is to plug the HD300 into the server directly with a cross-over cable. That will eliminate the switch.

Have you tried disabling flow control in the switch or the server?

I've had problems with netgear "supposedly business class" managed 10/100 switches, but it's not limited just to netgear, and the fact that netgear insisted on having their version of flow control enabled and no ability to switch it off. So much for being a managed switch.

We found throughput dropped like a stone on large data transfers between servers due to the netgear switches flow control pausing the data flow. The servers weren't using flow control but the switch was and it kept inserting pauses in the data flow. As we couldn't disable the flow control in the switch ports we had to bin the switches.

In the reverse to the way it's supposed to work, disabling flow control in either the server or the server switch port should stop pauses being inserted transfering data from the server. Disabling flow control at the client requesting data makes no difference, even though it's supposed to send the pause command.

If it's a flow control issue then tbh even if you did get a supported USB adapter it won't get rid of the issue.

[tshuttle]

Good stuff Nelbert and _Demo_.

I will try both when I get a chance and report my findings.

[wrems]

Originally Posted by _Demo_

You will need to run the following commands on the HD300 through telnet
(login is root, no password) :

cd /tmp
wget http://download.sagetv.com/firmware/iperf8654
chmod +x iperf8654
./iperf8654 -l32k -s


Then on your server download jperf2 from http://xjperf.googlecode.com/files/jperf-2.0.2.zip

Extract it and run the .bat file (assumes you have java installed)

In the server ip enter the ip address of the HD300, click the
box next to buffer length then set the size to 32 and the unit to kbytes, click the box next to tcp no delay. After that you can run the test and it should be similar to what happens when playing files.

This will give you the bandwidth between your server and the HD300.

----

_Demo_

Demo, great info.

Are these the exact same steps to do this for on an HD200? Out of curiosity I tried performing the above steps to see what my bandwidth is to my HD200 and I couldn't get these instructions to fly... I kept getting errors when doing the iperf once telnetted into the HD200.

Thanks!

[_Demo_]

Originally Posted by wrems

Demo, great info.

Are these the exact same steps to do this for on an HD200? Out of curiosity I tried performing the above steps to see what my bandwidth is to my HD200 and I couldn't get these instructions to fly... I kept getting errors when doing the iperf once telnetted into the HD200.

Thanks!

You need to change http://download.sagetv.com/firmware/iperf8654 to http://download.sagetv.com/firmware/iperf

and
./iperf8654 to ./iperf

when using on the HD200.

_Demo_

[wrems]

Ideally, how should the jperf graphs and overall bandwidth be?

What would be an indication of a problem, and or, perfectly normal scenario?

[drewg]

Originally Posted by wrems

Ideally, how should the jperf graphs and overall bandwidth be?

What would be an indication of a problem, and or, perfectly normal scenario?

You want to see steady bandwidth around 90Mb/s. I have a D-Link "Green" switch, and having flow control enabled on my server caused me problems. Here are 2 graphs, one with f/c on (where b/w jumps around 10Mb/s) and f/c off (where it is pegged at 94Mb/s). Without turning f/c off, I could not play BD rips on an HD300 that had previously played fine on an HD100.

Drew

[wrems]

Interesting. Pretty much what I figured too. I have run tests now with and without flow control and my results are not consistent either way... It's fairly sporadic. Now to determine what's going on with my setup... It definitely explains some things that I have noticed on occasion.

Any suggestions as where to start? Should I be starting another thread? I feel like I might be threadjacking here and that's not my intent.

[drewg]

Originally Posted by wrems

Any suggestions as where to start? Should I be starting another thread? I feel like I might be threadjacking here and that's not my intent.

First thing I'd try would be to take the switch out of the equation, and talk directly to the HD300 and see how performance is then.

Drew

[wrems]

That's what I was about to do. I'm just dreading accessing all my equipment

[gplasky]

You have two constants. The switch and the network cable. You could use a known good cable. Find a short patch cable and move the extender closer to the switch and test. And as mentioned take the switch out of the equation.

Gerry

[_Demo_]

Originally Posted by wrems

Ideally, how should the jperf graphs and overall bandwidth be?

What would be an indication of a problem, and or, perfectly normal scenario?

The best case is a transfer speed around 90mbit/sec and not varying too much.

[jptheripper]

sorry to threadjack, is there similar iperf instructions for the HD100 as well?