Networking issues

[Meester.Rip]

It all started when my SD HDHR was pixelating. The response to my support ticket was to disable interrupt moderation and all the properties referring to offloads. Well Live TV was fixed or at least I thought it was since I mostly DVR and watch later. But I was using the MC tool to muve the TV recordings to my WHS. Then I started having problems with the recored TV hanging and stuttering. So I moved recorded TV to the local HTPC that fixed that issue. But it is not ideal since I don’t have the space to hold all my recored video which still stutters. To make things worse at about 2 hours into the Colts game my live TV turned all pixelated and started to stutter and I had to switch over to the comcast box. Right now I have an Intel gigabit PCI card coming to hopefully fix the issue. I plan on putting that in the HTPC to see if that fixes the issues, next step will be to order another one for the WHS. I already have gigabit realtek onboard NICs but they seem to be giving me issues.

[captain_video]

Are you sure it’s not your HDHR that’s heading south?  Try connecting it directly to the Ethernet port on your HTPC and see if that fixes the problem (I assume this is possible but never having done it I can’t say with absolute certainty).  If it does fix it then your network hs problems.  If the problem persists it’s probably either your HDHR or the antenna feed.

FWIW, onboard Realtek NICs have been known to cause network issues with WMC when using extenders.  I had one on my mobo and it caused all sorts of problems with my extenders.  Installing an Intel gigabit NIC in my HTPC fixed most of the issues, although a few still remain.  My next step is to replace all of my homebrew cat6 cables with retail cables.  I’ve been told that homemade cables can cause all sorts of problems if they’re not constructed carefully.

[Meester.Rip]

Even if my HDHR was going south it would not affect my Video from the WHS. But I will probably change my sources on the channels to use the more recent HDHR I bought.

I reinstalled the realtek drivers a couple times and they don’t reset the defaults. So I am not sure where I am on those settings. I think the Intel NIC will most likely help the most. I just wish Fry’s carried them so I could test and return if it doesn’t fix the issue.

I trust my cables more than I do store bought ones. I use CAT6 solid core and connectors from firefold.com. NExt time I need cable I’ll probably go wish shielded to protect from electric interference. I know the stuff they wired up my house with was dirt cheap and criss crosses all kinds of electric bundles in the attic.

[DavidStein]

you quite probably have already checked this but once i had stuttering problems and i fixed it by enabling flow control on my network controller.

its probably a longshot for you, but i figured it was worth mentioning just in case.

[George L. Schmauch Jr.]

Where did you get your NIC drivers from?  Windows Update upgraded my Atheros drivers one time and I lost all reliability in my connection  I had to use a different computer to find the chipmaker’s drivers and install them over the Windows ones.  Just saying that you might want to try drivers from a different source, if you haven’t already.

[Meester.Rip]

I am almost positive I have flow control enabled. The only thing I messed with per silicondust was the interrupt moderation and offload settings.

I got the drivers from the Realtek site. They need a restore to default option on the properties panel. And every time I update the driver they layout of the properties tabs change. Last night it was working ok for network video but I noticed on two shows that must have recorded at the same time that all network connectivity dropped for a couple minutes because at the same time in both shows the video displayed no tuner available, the HDHR tuners.

[Meester.Rip]

What a nightmare. Since I was going to have the case open I took it out to the garage to hit it with the air compressor. In doing so I must of loosened up one of the SATA cables used in my raid array.

First issue was I had to dump my two port video card and go back to on board video so I could free up a PCI slot, I haven’t noticed any difference in quality from that change.

Then because I had the on board video disabled I had to reset the CMOS to get video again, to lazy to swap the NIC and VGA card. This caused me to have to set all my BIOS settings again. This is what I originally thought was wrong with my RAID array.

Just when I was about to give up and delete the array it told me one drive was not functional, this was after about 10 reboots and a lot of staring at the BIOS. So I opened the case again and pulled and plugged every SATA cable and wallah, I was up and running.

And the new NIC has fixed all my Live TV pixelation, networked video freezes, fast XBOX syncing and when I finish watching a video the delete,start and resume prompt comes up instantly.

If it wasn’t for the great on-board video AMD has I’d be tempted to go Intel next round.

[Author]

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