Hi all. I'm having a strange problem with using my 360 as a Vista MCE extender. Everything works fine - music, live tv, etc - except for playing back recorded tv. When I start a recorded show playing both the 360 and my Vista PC become unresponsive (with the Vista CPu usage jumping to 100%). This can last anywhere from 30 seconds to a couple of minutes. During this time, though, the 360 plays the audio of the recorded tv and, if I've previously been watching something, the video for it in the small display window in the bottom right.

As I say, I don't get this issue with any other aspect of the media center experience or when playing recorded tv on the Vista PC, and I just canna figure it out - any help would be greatly appreciated!

 Andy Morton

post some specs but I think I can guess that you have an nvidia nic card and a linksys swtich/router

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Bryan Socha
Media Center MVP

Spec wise...

Vista Ultimate RTM
Intel P4 3ghz
1gb Ram
NVidia 5200fx
Hauppauge WinTV Nova-500
Nic - Intel Pro/100 VM Network Connection (onboard NIC - don't know the details)
Wifi - Belkin F5D7050 USB adapter

Network Connections

PC <-> 360 - direct ethernet connection
PC <-> Internet - Netgear dg834gv2

interesting.  what your seeing is common of an nvidia/lnksys combo.  

check for newer drivers, a lot have been coming out lately

try going into the properties for the nic card and enable flow control. 

go into the properties for your power setting (its in where you find standby).  Make sure the cpu is being limited to 50%.  If you left power default, its limited to 50% of your cpu.

 

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Bryan Socha
Media Center MVP

BTW, thanks for the help (before I forget to say it later!)

I've been trying to fix this all day, and during that time have made sure that all drivers installed are the latest I can find. The only drivers I couldn't upgrade were for the NIC, as it seems to have been discontinued. I found some XP drivers for it but couldn't for the life of me convince Vista to actually install them.

Flow control - the drivers that come with Vista don't have an option for flow control. Annoyingly, I know the XP ones do but, as I say, can't convince Vista to install them.

50% cpu - just made the problem worse - that time took 7 minutes (well, a few seconds under) to start playing the video to the program.

Assuming, and from what you're saying it sounds most likely, this is a NIC problem, I'll try plugging in an old USB1.1 ethernet adapter I've got - the performance isn't really good enough for MCE but it might help test whether that is where the problem lies.

In the meantime, any more suggestions you have are most welcome!

Try these drivers.  They are for all Intel nics for Windows Vista x86.

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df-external/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProductID=407&DwnldID=12197&strOSs=156&OSFullName=Windows%20Vista*%20Ultimate,%2032-bit%20version&lang=eng

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My Media Center Blog

Wow - great find. That's the last time I trust my motherboard manufacturer (Yes Sir, we're sure there are no updated drivers. No sir, that device is no longer supported.) Installed perfectly and gave me the option to enable flow control. Unfortunately, though, it hasn't had any impact on the problem.

do you happen to have any other network hardware you can put the mce and the xbox on together to just verify its not that?  If its a router, look for a firmware update.   I ended up having to completely swap out my network gear for known good units before I was able to get back to normal.  I'm not not 100% there but I'm far closer than before.

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Bryan Socha
Media Center MVP

Not that I can lay my hands on right now (my USB1.1 isn't Vista compatible.) I'll have a hunt round in the morning to see if I can find one.

You might also try setting the speed and duplex manually, try 100/full if that's no better try 100/half.

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My Media Center Blog

And also try to lock in the speed.  Speed auto-negotiation may cause problem too.

Managed to find a NIC pci card - slotted it in and suddenly Vista is playing recorded tv without so much as a pause for breath. Thanks for all your help guys.

I still wish I knew exactly why this was happening, though. From everything I've read it sounds like it's Microsofts new internet stack causing most of the problems, but that just seems crazy to me - I've just replaced an onboard NIC from a PC only about a year old with a card I've scrounged out of a 286 pc - and guess which one works. Microsoft boast about their software back-compatibility (and I have to say I don't think it's as great as they make it sound that Vista still runs certain Win3.1 software) and yet they can't seem to make retain compatibility with recent hardware. Anyway, thanks again and rant over ;)

Looks like I spoke to soon - having booted up this morning the replacement NIC PCI card is now showing exactly the same behaviour. So, unless I'm unlucky enough to own two ethernet adapters with the same problem, I have to assume the issue is elsewhere with my setup. Any more suggestions?

Did you try manually setting the speed and duplex and/or turning on flow control on the pci card nic?

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My Media Center Blog

Unfortunately yes, on both the PCI and the onboard NIC, as well as tcp/ip offloading settings which I read somewhere can cause Vista networking problems.

I'm starting to wonder if this isn't a bios issues, as both NICs would be controlled by the bios at some stage. I'll have to see if flashing the bios would improve matters...