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[nickharambee]

hi

i have two laptops which i use to play music at home, one as a server, and the other which i move about the house as a client.  both have integrated wireless g, and the router is a belkin wireless g router.

there are two rooms around the house that i typically want to stream music to (flac files and cover art).  in one room connection speeds are typically 36-48 Mbps and i am generally not experiencing problems.  in the other connection speeds are 18-24 Mbps and MC tends to run slow and cuts out occasionally.

i am wondering if it is possible to get some kind of a booster for the wireless network to improve speed, either something that connects to the router, or the client laptop.  does anyone know of/use such a device, and if so, which is the best available?

thanks

nick

[olarte]

uhm, this does not sound right...

If you have a 802.11g router it should be consistently high at around 48 to 54.

I would check each and every setting of the wireless nics... make sure they are not locked down to 802.11b, or to a lower speed in general.

I had a problem with very slow file copying and it turned out that the latest firmware for their Pre-N router uses a QOS setting with Ack\noack\auto etc and 802.11e protection on.

It turns out that that made a difference where 80mb folders were taking minutes to copy down to 40 or 50 seconds.

So, check all your wireless settings on the NIC's on the Pcs, and the settings in the router, specially for QOS under SSid settings.

Hope this helps.

[Mr ChriZ]

*Removed previous content it wasn't very inteligable, plus Olarte seems
to have a better idea what he's talking about  *
Failing that, type in Parabolic reflector on google. (You might have to do a "NOT Voyager"  )

[nickharambee]

i am grateful for these messages, but still somewhat in the dark.

olarte, because i can get up to full speed in many rooms in the house (48-54 Mbps) i think that the wireless network is functioning properly.  just in case though, where do i find the QOS under SSID settings?

Mr Chriz, why would i want a second wireless network - what advantage would this be over my current setup?  i was thinking of buying something that would boost the wireless network i have, preferably something that i can put in the room where i am having trouble streaming music files, or something to attach to the router.

nick

[Mr ChriZ]

That wasn't the most intelligent post I've ever made. 
Apologys Stressfull times, little concentration!

[olarte]

Well, I have the Belkin Pre-N routers and I think the QOS stuff did not show up until I updated the firmware.

You might want to try updating the firmware within the setup page for the router.

The QOS stuff is in the SSID\Security page.

also if the signal strenght is fine in all laptops except one I would suspect the problem is in the nic settings on that laptop.

go to MY Network Places, click on properties for the wireless connection click on the adapter, and go through every single setting. Mine has about 20 settings, and some of them can be set to force a certain speed, or force it down to 802.11b etc...

Also, is the NIC on the slow laptop dual band for 802.11b and 11g? could it be only an 802.11b?

Don't give up. I literally spent about 5 hours re-doing my network and have 5 pcs, a wired router, with a belkin PreN as an access point and I can connect all pcs, Nintendo DS, and My PalmTX and xbox  live with good throughput.

My kid complained about Xbox live lag on the new belkin router which led me to test everything and I found that the QOS default setting was causing the problem that I mentioned File copies that were taking 4-10 min now take 50 sec...

good luck.

i am grateful for these messages, but still somewhat in the dark.

olarte, because i can get up to full speed in many rooms in the house (48-54 Mbps) i think that the wireless network is functioning properly.  just in case though, where do i find the QOS under SSID settings?

Mr Chriz, why would i want a second wireless network - what advantage would this be over my current setup?  i was thinking of buying something that would boost the wireless network i have, preferably something that i can put in the room where i am having trouble streaming music files, or something to attach to the router.

nick

[olarte]

Hey Nick, once I had my network all redone (or so I thought) it was teh MC slowness that led me to investigate further, and sure enough that's where the QOS and 802.11e protection on stuff came in.

Everything appeared ok, and I consistenly tried copying an 80mb directory from a remote drive downstairs with horrible results.

It turns out that setting the QOS to Burst Acks and 802.11e protection on, solved the problem and as mentioned earlier it now takes 40 or 50 seconds to copy.


Even with the QOS settings in place, I still fiddled with the wireless settingso the laptop and pc and got different results.

Look through every page in the setup web page for the router until you find the QOS, if it's not there, then try upgrading the firmware.

I get a consistent signal of 54...

MC tends to run slow and cuts out occasionally.

[nickharambee]

thanks olarte

i have tweaked the advanced settings for my wireless card on both laptops, but i am still getting the same speeds, and still have trouble with tracks cutting out.

i cannot find any QOS settings for my router.  i have looked through each page of the router settings.  there is a page called 'channel and SSID' but no QOS mentioned here. firmware is up to date.

MC is now tending to crash when i select tracks over the wireless network, i am not sure if this is linked to the problem with cutting out.

any other ideas?

nick

[olarte]

That bites....

There might be two different issues, the lower signal strengh may not necessarily be the cause of the slow access... I had the 5 min copy problem eventhough the signal was at 54\full.... the QOS setting was the problem for me.


What model router is it? mine is the pre-N F5D8230-4  .

if it's the Pre-N router, there is a very recent firmware update 4.x.... you can't find it on their website unless you go through the automatic firmware upgrade check from the router status page.

If I remember right the QOS stuff was not there until I upgraded, but again this is on the Pre-N router... (I think there is only one model). it's the F5D8230-4   and had excellent reviews in a lot of places that's why I got it.

One thing to note, the QOS stuff will affect the slow response for file transfers or MC opening\browsing the remote files, it will not affect the signal strenght itself.


Was this working at one point?
what changed in your setup?

What happens if you move the slow laptop closer to the router?
do you get a better signal?
18-34 or whatever you mention sounds extremely slow for a 802.11g router connection.
How far are you from the router.

You said that one laptop shows a better signal... can you place them side by side and still get a better signal, are they the same type of nic... if so, try comparing the good signal laptop with the slow one and match the settings of the slow with fast one.

Just for kicks do you have a regular nick connection on the laptop? if so, try a wired connection and see if MC still acts up.

Also, to rule out MC, try doing some testing with simple file copies of say a 50 or 100mb folder from one drive to another, that's how I figured out my problem, and that it was a network problem, not MC. MC was taking forever to see the remote drive but it was due to the slow network, not MC.

If the file copy is ok (say a minute or so), then you might want to try a local copy of the MC library pointing to the remote drive.

Last resort try calling Belkin support they are hit or miss but I did ok when I first called them a while back.

I wish I could help you more... but that's all I can think of to suggest...

I know I burned a whole day and ending up re-designing my whole network but in the end it was worth it...

Good luck 

thanks olarte

i have tweaked the advanced settings for my wireless card on both laptops, but i am still getting the same speeds, and still have trouble with tracks cutting out.

i cannot find any QOS settings for my router.  i have looked through each page of the router settings.  there is a page called 'channel and SSID' but no QOS mentioned here. firmware is up to date.

MC is now tending to crash when i select tracks over the wireless network, i am not sure if this is linked to the problem with cutting out.

any other ideas?

nick

[nickharambee]

hi olarte

here is some info for you:

my belkin router is a wireless g router and not the pre-n version that you mention.  i may consider buying one of these, but maybe i should wait for the 802.110-n routers, though this may be some wait.  apparently i can get 20% better speed/range with my existing wireless g laptops, though if i buy the notebook adapters then my performance should double.

so, next a little bit of info on my home network.  a house on three levels, with router on the 1st floor and MC server on the 2nd floor about 10 metres away with one door between the two (connection speeds of about 54-48 Mbps, signal strength - excellent/very good).  then there are two rooms that i want to use the MC client in (i am using the same laptop in both rooms), both on the ground floor.  in ROOM 1 (about 8 metres away without a door) i get similar connection speeds to the MC server, but in ROOM 2 (about 12-13 metres away with a door in between) connection speed is usually 24Mbps (signal strength good-very good), and it is in this room that i am having most of the problems.

so here is what i am getting in ROOM 2:

(i) music sometimes cuts out and then starts again
(ii) MC server sometimes loads, sometimes doesn't
(iii) sometimes when i select a new track to play i get a message 'MC has encountered a problem and needs to close' but doesn't actually close, so i can click OK and keep using it.  sometimes though MC just crashes and closes when i choose a track.
(iv) MC can be slow to respond when browsing the library

In ROOM 1 i get very few problems, but occasionally i might have difficulty connecting to the server and very occasionally MC crashes.  no cut out of music though.

connecting the client directly to the router, i had one problem trying to connect to the server, but no crashes and no cut out of sounds.

i am trying to get this set up for the first time.

in terms of file speed i am getting about 25MB per min.

nick

[JimH]

If you can't solve the networking problems, you can probably solve the playback hesitation by converting to MP3 at some lower bitrate.  It's configured on the client, under MC's options for Library.  The client can tell the server to convert and how to do it.

[nickharambee]

before i was able to stream flac files i was converting to mp3 and was having the same playback problems

nick

[JimH]

Try a lower bitrate, just as a test.