Assassin's Simple/Beginner HTPC Buying Guide - Page 493

network: This way there is no bottleneck in the local LAN, and only the Home wireless router is the limiting factor going to the Internet.
If you need to prioritize the type of traffic going to/from the Internet, you can use the QOS setting on the Home wireless router to give gaming or IP phone traffic higher priority.
You can also add a separate firewall between the Home wireless router and the backbone switch (which I do).


I really just needed to see this picture to get it


Go here:

http://www.totusoft.com/lanspeed1.html

use that to test your network speed between your PC's


Please report back or post a picture of results.

Then do this:

http://www.thehtpc.net/htpc-tips-and-tweaks/network-tips-and-tweaks/improve-vista-and-windows-7-network-performance/#more-%27[/quote]


The first one we are going visit is bandwidth throttling. This was introduced in Vista and subsequently leaked over into Windows 7, continuing to cause many people grief. Open your registry editor by running regedit from the Start -> Search programs and files field. You should be an administrator of the system you are doing this on. We now want to browse to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters

DisableBandwidthThrottlingOnce there, a new DWORD value needs to be created called DisableBandwidthThrottling. Create that value and double-click it to open it for editing. Change the Base radio button to Decimal then change the Value data entry to 1. Click OK to accept the new value.

Now, I recommend you go ahead and reboot at this point and once getting back to your Desktop, try streaming a file that has always been troublesome before. If you stream without choppiness, stutter or skipping, you’re problems are solved and you can end here. If you are still experiencing trouble, continue on and try the next registry change.[/quote]


Good luck..

Lenovo backlit $34

Mfusick,

I find it disconcerting that you use my exact response (word for word and text formatting) copied directly from another thread here without at least saying it was a quote.

my response

I don't really care as my response certainly isn't copyrighted, but I find it unsettling you feel this is an OK activity.

BruceD, Im sure he just forgot to give credit where it was due.

I have performed the above fix. By numbers, I see no change. Here are a couple snippits of my findings...

Here is a test before the fix was made. I tested using a 20mb file. I think the write delay was because my HDD needed to spin up.



Here it is after the fix... I see no change in read speed which is what we are looking to improve correct??



Here is my transfer speed now, looks as though nothing has changed. But the 3D movie (Immortals) that was having the stuttering issue seems to play ok now.



I see no change in speed after this registry edit... I feel the non-stuttering playback is just a coincidence and will continue to cause issue. I'd hate to have to replace my CAT5e cable, its running through the attic. I may build a new cable today and run it through the house along the floor for testing. Id like to continue troubleshooting and rule out whats causing my poor transfer speed. Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

Xzener

Sorry I did actually originally quote but the copy paste crushed a few posts into one post that had a threads worth of info into a single logical short reply.

I was only concerned with helping him - not looking smart.

There's probably parts from more than 5 different posts , some mine, some not.

Sorry. I only edited it out cause it was hard to read originally.

Your clearly not on gigabit. Is every LAN NIC a 1000 rated gigaspeed rated ?

How about your switch ? Post the models and we can search it out.

You could try a cheap mono price cable tossed if that fixes it before you run it the hard way

There was more to the fix that I just performed... I changed my "NetworkThrottlingIndex" to a 1 and reran the test... Still only transferring at 11mb/sec.

Im going to build a new cable right now and test it. By the way, its CCI CAT5e cable rated to perform gigabit networking.

Freaking CRAP!!!

I just built a new cable and ran it through the house... Now Im getting 85mb/s?!?! This is the speed I should be getting. The CAT5e cable running through the attic is bad. I'm going to attempt to recrimp the ends in hopes NOT to have to rerun the cable through the attic. I will post back my results.

Oh... Thank god!!!

After inspecting both ends (I only had one tip left), it looked as though the server end had two wires touching each other causing cross talk. So I rolled the dice and recrimped the server end of the CAT5e cable that runs through my attic. Ran a test, and my speed is very fast now. Averaging about 85mb/s which is leaps and bounds what it was before (11mb/s). It looks like I can transfer a 45gig Bluray 3D movie from one PC to the other in about 10 minutes.... Which is PLENTY FAST to stream across my network now with no issues.

Mfusick, thank you very much for all your help. Assassin, sorry to hijack your thread with my problem, but as always, it has the most knowledgeable people lurking in here.

THANK YOU!!!

Xzener

Ok, here is a question. Since I got it all sorted out, and it wasn't the HTPCs... Would you guys recommend restoring my systems to before the registry fixes that took place during troubleshooting?? I created restore points just in case.

Xzener

Done. Transfer speeds still check good.

Thanks Assassin!

I'm still trying to figure out why I'm the only person on the planet not impressed with switching to an SSD. I have tried switching cables, using different ports (including the SATA 2 ports), and checking for new drivers, but I still get a Windows Experience index of 7.4 and a Roadkil speed of about 220 MB/s, which is only slightly faster than the two HDDs I'm using. I have an ASRock H61M/U3S3 Intel Motherboard and an OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" SATA III Solid State Drive (SSD), and I'm pretty sure I followed Assassin's guide as closely for this as I did for the rest of the build.

I reinstalled windows on the new drive (since, of course, making a clone didn't work).

Suggestions?

Thanks.

Michael

Glad it worked out.

I use your icons BTW... Very cool stuff.

Anything new coming ?

You should post icons here at AVS too.

Not especially large. I have a 2TB HDD and a 3TB HDD, each about half full; recorded TV shows on one and movies on the other. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I would assume in your case it's because of the slower PC speeds from the H61 chipset (and I am assuming a basic pentium or celeron cpu) have a certain level of performance so your limited there.
+
Agility is a slow SSD. One of the slowest. It uses a cheaper version of NAND that writes and reads much slower than most SSD's do. The Vertex series uses the faster NAND and the MAX IOPS series uses the fastest NAND (Toggle)
So- your seeing a very slow SSD compared to a very fast HDD- on a PC that is not very fast.

So your difference is smaller than most people experience with either faster hardware, faster SSDs, and coming from slower HDD's.

I assume most people coming to SSD have a faster SSD and are coming of a slower HDD. I also assume many people might have faster than a h61 chipet.

But I noticed a difference on my Core2 Duo machine with DDR800- so.. while your difference might not be as extreme as many with i5 and i7 with 8GB 1600mhz are seeing... you should still be seeing a good improvement.

You must be a slow thinker/user where you tend to do more things 1 at a time type vs many at once. Doing one thing at a time a HDD does not show much limits. Throw in dual monitors and start doing lots of stuff at the same time and you should see a very big difference in the speed a folder opens, a program opens.. etc...

I have a 120GB OCZ SSD in my HTPC too. I have the faster memory version. Here is a comparison in performance:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/372?vs=389

You can see there is a significant speed difference. Your SSD has the identical controller and parts as mine other than the NAND chips. Not all SSD's are equal.

But I think almost all of them should be fast enough in a basic HTPC environment so I am surprised you don't feel the speed difference more.

Are you running ACHI mode in your BIOS ? Compare you benchmarks to the ones at Anandtech. If it's not significantly different there is nothing wrong. Perhaps your just not an SSD person.

I am a very heavy power user on my desktop- and on my system the difference is night and day. Right now I am downloading- Streaming the Giants vs Packers NBC NFL game on my second monitor- Surfing AVS while I waiting for MAKEMKV to finish my disc- and also running mediacentermaster on my tv shows library so it updates my metadata on the newest stuff. I do much more than one thing at a time- and a HDD just dies and stalls on me making the experience unbearable.

The harder you work your PC the more you appreciate SSD. You should see a difference in speed. Try living with it a week and then go back. I think you might be surprised.
Edited by Mfusick - 11/25/12 at 6:14pm

Ive been wanting to get back into icon creation. I created a thread here, but it never took off. I'd like to expand on my 3D icons... Just havent had the time lately. Thanks again for the help.

Xzener

in a HTPC environment +1 here.

mediabrowser loads up and runs the backgrounds and artwork much smoother- the experience is more extreme the larger your library vs HDD

Well I would bump it for ya

Throw a link in this thread- Even give assassin permission to link in his guide. It would take off for sure.

I like to see some of the newer movies or collections updated to include the newest ones. Your box set icons and collection icons are awesome !!

I also use them in mediabrowser for my folders- Like HD MOVIES, BLURAY, TV SHOWS.. etc...

I've lived with it for six months. I am surprised. I was expecting read speeds about twice what I'm getting. Apparently, what I have is what I have. It's not a problem, but I think I would have been better off spending the same money going from the G530 to an i3 2105, despite the advice I got to the contrary.

I just wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking something.

Thanks for the info.

Michael

Thanks! You guys are great. Id love to get back into the scene... But Media Browser themes as well as XBMC themes have gone different directions. My icons dont seem to be used that much anymore. I tried keeping up with themes back when Pearl released... But themes were being created with different ratios for icons.... I gave up. There was no uniformity, and my icons looked like crap stretched and skewed in such ways. I guess what I need to do is ask the community and see what they want.

What do you guys think?

Probably not the case, but are you sure you're plugged into one of the 6 gig sata ports?

Just another plug for Assassins guides. My main desktop, which functions as a secondary HTPC for the kids, has had analog audio issues since I put the computer together. It has never been able to play analog audio on many Disney movies which are blu-rays converted to MKVs. I figured it was a codec issue, but never figured it out until I sat down and went through Assassin's Shark Codec guide yesterday. Assassin has a little warning about decoding AC3 audio which was exacly what I needed.

Best (and one of the cheapest) HTPC purchases ever is Assassin's guides!

I'd still say the SSD is more important in speed and experience than the CPU. The advice you got was solid.

There is always an advantage to buying better or spending more, but when your budget it limited you just make the best decisions you can.

personally I'd take a G530 + SSD vs an i3 and HDD. It's not a hard decision at all for me.


I linked a i3 2105 for $79 above just in case you want a deal.

Awesome, I had no idea you could do that. I'll definitely look into doing this tonight when I get home. I'm guessing this can be done from the MB configuration thing in the taskbar? Sorry for all the questions, I never messed with MB that much after I initially got it setup the way I wanted it. Thanks again for the info.

Yup. Just select the advanced- and configure external players. Point it to VLC. You can assign VLC to handle a certain type of media file only, example being the type your current players is struggling with.

Yup. Tried them both, no difference. Also not much better than the SATA 2 ports.

Also redid the mb drivers for SATA 3.

Thanks, though.