Vista Media Center Extender - XBOX 360 unusably slow

I've had ZERO success in playing MCE content - ie live TV,
recorded TV etc on the XBOX 360. The menus are intolerably slow,
taking 5-30s to
respond. Eventually when streaming starts I get a couple of seconds
then streaming stops.

I have Windows Vista Ultimate x64 (SP1 RC)

If I try the performance test tool I get an error:

Unable to Measure Network Performance

A connection to the Windows Media Center Extender cannot be
established. Please make sure that the Extender device is properly
connected and that the start screen is visible.

This occurs with firewall and av all stopped. I (no longer -- thanks
to dynamic disks!) have OneCare installed, and the Xbox most
definately can connect to the PC as it manages to bring up initial
windows albeit with slow response.

Host machine is dual core (Pentium D 820) with 3Ghz ram running Vista
Ultimate x64. TV progs are on striped disk (2 devices). As before
network throughput is in the 16-20 Mbps range over 802.11g

Wireless power saving is off, and ping time is ~1ms.

Both devices are on same subnet with no additional firewall rules etc
set on router.

Finally Video streaming (mpeg4) and music streaming (mp3) from a PC ie
to
Media Player using the xbox 360 dashboard works *very smoothly*
meaning there is something wrong on the media center/xbox side.

- Nigel.

Few questions:
- Is navigation slow in Media Center directly on the PC? (or is the PC fine
and it is only slow on the Xbox?)
- What does CPU usage on your PC look like when you encounter slow
navigation on the Xbox?
- If you directly connect your PC to your Xbox 360 using an Ethernet cable
(completely bypassing your router), does this behavior go away? Note that
because you are bypassing your home router, you'll need to manually toggle
the network type back to Home in the Windows Firewall settings when you
switch to a direct connection

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"planetf1" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> I've had ZERO success in playing MCE content - ie live TV,
> recorded TV etc on the XBOX 360. The menus are intolerably slow,
> taking 5-30s to
> respond. Eventually when streaming starts I get a couple of seconds
> then streaming stops.
>
> I have Windows Vista Ultimate x64 (SP1 RC)
>
> If I try the performance test tool I get an error:
>
> Unable to Measure Network Performance
>
> A connection to the Windows Media Center Extender cannot be
> established. Please make sure that the Extender device is properly
> connected and that the start screen is visible.
>
> This occurs with firewall and av all stopped. I (no longer -- thanks
> to dynamic disks!) have OneCare installed, and the Xbox most
> definately can connect to the PC as it manages to bring up initial
> windows albeit with slow response.
>
> Host machine is dual core (Pentium D 820) with 3Ghz ram running Vista
> Ultimate x64. TV progs are on striped disk (2 devices). As before
> network throughput is in the 16-20 Mbps range over 802.11g
>
> Wireless power saving is off, and ping time is ~1ms.
>
> Both devices are on same subnet with no additional firewall rules etc
> set on router.
>
> Finally Video streaming (mpeg4) and music streaming (mp3) from a PC ie
> to
> Media Player using the xbox 360 dashboard works *very smoothly*
> meaning there is something wrong on the media center/xbox side.
>
> - Nigel.

On Jan 3, 2:01 am, "Todd Bowra [MSFT]" <[email protected]>
wrote:

> - Is navigation slow in Media Center directly on the PC? (or is the PC fine
> and it is only slow on the Xbox?)

PC is fine. Only slow on xbox

> - What does CPU usage on your PC look like when you encounter slow
> navigation on the Xbox?
Very low - 10-20% max

> - If you directly connect your PC to your Xbox 360 using an Ethernet cable
> (completely bypassing your router), does this behavior go away? Note that
Yes it appears to

But this isn't practical - devices are in different parts of the
house.

Also I have a PC connected to the same ethernet switch (router) as the
xbox and can sustain 16-20 Mbps traffic (802.11g 54Mbps) steady data
stream.

I can also watch videos using standard windows file sharing & the
internal xbox browser with no breakup/delay, so its mce specific.

I think I have exactly the same problem.

- Vista Ultimate x64 w/ SP1 and the latest updates
- 802.11G 54Mbps wifi network
- Xbox 360 running as an extender
- Windows Media Center runs totally fine directly on the PC
- PC CPU never higher than 10%
- Only firewall is Windows Firewall
- From the Xbox, navigating the menus is very, very slow, locking up for minutes at a time... making it totally unusable
- I added the Xbox as an extender, but the Network Tuner comes back with the same error you mentioned... "Unable to Measure Network Performance", "A connection to the Windows Media Center Extender cannot be established..."

In searching around for solutions, it seems like several other people with Vista x64 have run into a similar problem. Has anyone found a fix or workaround? Thanks in advance for any ideas or help.

- Chris

Hi im having the same problem too, i used to be able to use media centre perfectly but now its as slow as you guys say. The only thing i can think of is that my ROUTER (and isp - but that has nothing to do with it) changed and thats when the trouble started more or less! its great when i had it working at a reasonable speed though!

I had this same exact problem using XBox 360 Media Center Extender connected to a Vista x32 desktop via a wired Ethernet network: slow menus, slow actions, choppy and pixelated video, etc. Pretty much unusable.

The network tuning in the extender said that all was fine, and the graph was maxed out way above HDTV.

Finally, I came across this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929707/

This article recommends either turning on TX flow control for my Ethernet controller on my desktop, or dropping network speed from 1 gigabit

Turning on TX flow control did nothing for me, BUT when I dropped my link speed from Auto-Negotiate (1Gbps) to 100Mbps, and restarted my 360, it works great now!

I guess my D-Link DGS-1008d switch doesn't handle the high bandwidth well at all, but at 100Mbps works a-ok. Piece of junk.

Give this a try.

-Paulo

I've gotta agree with Corkman
I'd say it's possibly a case of dodgy wiring. 100Mbit/s will be easily fast enough.

Did Everything You Said Corkmann And Was Hopeful As My System Is The Same As Yours. It Seems Improved But Still Lagging In The Navigation Area. Any Suggestions.
Fyi I'm Also A Cork Man But On The Other Side Of The Pond In Ireland.
Cheers

You should ensure that the Extender device is correctly connected and that the start screen is visible. As you are bypassing the home router, you will require to manually toggling the network type back to Home within the Windows Firewall settings when you change to a direct connection.

Amazingly I found an answer on another forum which said just disable visualisations in the settings in wmc, I was very sceptical, it seemed too easy but "BANG" I'm up and running much quicker navigation through music albums etc.