HD300 super slow

[SimeonPilgrim]

I have recently purchased my first SageTV system.

The server setup was fine, I'm using OTA digital with a dual tuner.

The HD300 extender is in the living room with the recommended wifi usb adapter.

The HD300 menu's are slow and the live TV, or recorded playback is ok for the first second, then runs at about 50% speed with no sound.

I installed the latest extender software.

Then I installed the current beta software (20110217-2), and things were a touch better, but still completely unusable.
I then reverted to the latest normal software.

If I use SageTVClient on my laptop (built in wifi), the menu's and video play perfectly, before/after/during the HD300 struggling.

I then tried the Segatv USB wifi in my laptop with the built-in turned off, and it also played perfectly (placed next to TV where HD300 is). My laptop said the quality was great and the speed was 104Mbps

So I think the wifi card it self is good, I have a bunch of logs after I worked out how to turn debugging on, but I'm not sure I can point to what was happening in each log period.

Not sure if I should open an issue over this, or test the HD300 via Ethernet, or Wifi in the same room as the server, but I'd have to move the TV to that, so I'm wondering what the recommend next step.

[Edit:]
Ok I move the TV to the office and via Ethernet or 3 feet Wifi, the HD300 works flawlessly. So it seams to be an wifi issue.

Also noticed that when I touch the HD300 (while TV and HD300 running) that the picture goes mental, on the first touch, and after grounding to device it's happy to be touched. If I slide my feet to make static, then touch the device it restarts. To also extend the high-jacking of my own thread, I've noticed a couple times on start-up the screen output colours are inverted/hallucinogenic, and only fix by changing the the resolution via the Video Setup menu in the non-sagetv menu.

[SimeonPilgrim]

I've posted a support request, but until that gets somewhere, does the community know anyway in the logs to tell the connections speed/values/etc.

Or a plugin to test network performance? The HD300 supports SMB, so I could copy large files, in both directions and time that? Does it support ftp, as most client report transfer speeds?

[Edit] Ftp not present, and file transfers will be impacted by File IO speeds, worse on write than read but still not what I'm wanting to test. So trying 65K ping's

[SimeonPilgrim]

My issue seems to be the same as describe in this other forum post: HD300 Wireless is Extremely Slow (i.e. unusable) - Help

[brewston]

Use this technique to measure your bandwidth :

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...02&postcount=8

[SimeonPilgrim]

Thanks for the link, I had seen mentions of using iperf, but not how to put onto the HD300.

For testing I put the laptop in the same place as the HD300, and used the SageTV Wifi adapter.

So my HD300 results are 22-30Mbps, with average around 25Mbps.
And the laptop results are 25-35Mbps, with average around 30Mbps.

On my laptop, watching a 1080i OTA recording of Oprah, it bounced between 30% and 70% of the link at 52Mb, thus was using 16Mbps - 37Mbps.

Now to start experimenting to try improve network conditions.

[mdnttoker]

If you have coax connections available, I highly recommend a couple of MOCA bridges over wifi...

[SimeonPilgrim]

Thanks for that idea, there are cable drops where I'd want things. I have been looking into getting another dual band N router, to bridge the network, and have some Ethernet ports by TV. But at $100 a pop, that makes the HD300 no longer a $150 ($180 with wifi) solution.

What I really want is to get the performance my laptop gets with the wifi stick that SageTv sells but with the HD300. It should be able to get the same performance, but doesn't. Maybe the over head of the thinner client, and static/grounding problem makes for poorer Wifi.

[SimeonPilgrim]

Things get weirder: I picked up a 4-port Netgear Powerline 85 Adapter Kit, plugged it in.

The menu's are really snappy, and the 720p and 1080i recorded TV plays but pauses each second, the video and sounds works then stops, works then stop.

Were-as the Wifi cards, works then the sound stops, and the video start/stops but seams slow.

So I did the throughput test about and get 8.5Mbps. Which explains the gurky playback, but not what the wifi is slow on the menu's and falls apart on playback.

[Edit] Plugging the powerline unit straight into the wall (not into a multibox) and I now get 14Mbps, and the 1080i video only stutters every other second. Which really begs the questions why the 25Mbps wifi is terrible in comparison.

[Taddeusz]

If you are in a large neighborhood you want to make sure there are no other wireless networks on the same channel or that yours is not overlapping other channels. The only non-overlapping wireless channels are 1, 6 and 11. A lot of routers are set to auto which might cause them to bounce around to different channels. It's best to pick the least used of those three channels. You should see the best throughput this way.

[SimeonPilgrim]

The Airport Extreme is set to auto, but the channels it is using are 11 and 149.

I will try fixed on channel 11.

What's the best way to scan the channels in use in the neighborhood (from Mac or Win7)?

[wrems]

Not sure if it's the best way, but one way is inSSIDer.

[SimeonPilgrim]

Tried netstumbler but that doesn't work under Win7, so I did use inSSIDer. There are 19 AP that it can see. Channel (Count), 1 (4), 4 (1), 6 (6), 6+2 (2), 11 (5).

The 5 on 11 one is mine, and the others are have RSSI values of 87,89,89,91 verse my 50 living-room or 30 in office.

I also changed my server to 100mb, but that didn't help noticeably. I found that hint on a 6.x beta build from 2008 discussion. Found by looking for the entries I saw in the log files:

audio pts is smaller than stc, entering paused mode

[mechling-burgh]

I have two Netgear powerline AV 200 and found I had to move it around the house before I could find a clean enough connection to get it to work. Even after all that it would pause ever now and then. It didn't happen enough to make a big deal out of it. The weird thing was I could watch HD with out any problems but Tekzella was unwatchable. My old wireless router went and I replaced it with a netgear WNDR3400. The signal is so good I was able to use my old Asus WL-330gE to run my old HD100 wireless. This has been working better than the netgear powerline av 200 adapter did and it's only a wireless g unit not an n. Maybe try different outlets in the house and see if you get a better signal on the powerline units. You might also need a better wireless router. I always bought what was on sale but I have to say the new router gives a much better signal and better performance.

[SimeonPilgrim]

I also picked up a WNDR3400, last night to try it as a wifi bridge, but DD-WRT doesn't run on it. *snap* So I was planning to try the WNDR3700 as it does run DD-WRT.

But I didn't think to try it as the base radio. The Airport Extreme was better as far as I was conceded, but I'll give it a try in that role.

[stevech]

My extender is connected to a MoCA adapter (IP over cable TV cable). A pair of these was $150. Much better than WiFi, and no power line noise as in IP over the power lines.

[SimeonPilgrim]

Well I went to BestBuy and picket up two powerline 200AV system and a wifi ethernet bridge, and an AirPort Express.

Testing so far only with the "Linksys-Cisco Dual-Band Wireless-N gaming and video adapter" has the HD300 running perfectly, [deleted bad testing results, to be re-done]

I have had an issue with the bridge disappearing link, and a had to static assign the HD300. Which then worked after powering down/up both devices.

[SimeonPilgrim]

Ok, the "WD Livewire Powerline AV Network Kit" works really well, instant on, and testing correctly (from server to hd300) gets 50-60Mbps. HD300 is really nice. So I'm going to stop fiddling (except to test any fixes for original issue).

[SimeonPilgrim]

To test for the support guys (using different channels), I went back to the wifi stick (leaving as currently setup), and with the HD300 powered but off (red light) I was getting 48Mbps to the device. Thus the wifi is actually work very well.

When I turn the device on, and sit in the menu, I can only get 7-11Mbps to the device. And TV playback is stutters, and sounds is still lost after first stutter.

on device top show only 3-10% cpu usage, when plugged via ethernet or wifi.

Next plan capture network traffic.