Pixelation on 360 as extender

kirstglen · **28th January 2008, 09:19 AM**

Hi all,

I have been using XBox360 as an extender for quite a while with only minor problems. I yesterday did a fresh install on my Vista MCE machine and it worked alot better for HD, however, the XBOX360 now has quite significant pixelation and stuttering particularly on HD channels (Vista is fine). I was hoping someone might have some suggestions on why this happened or how to fix it.

I have an NVIDIA card but used the 100.65 drivers to stop stuttering.
I have Realtek 1.84 audio drivers.
I turned the wireless part of the network off to minimise interference.
I used the std microsoft decoder and then installed powerDVD 6.

Thanks Glen

Precisa · **29th January 2008, 03:10 PM**

Check your network card drivers in your MCE.
Someone else had this problem, and fixed it buy installing a network card instead of the onboard one.

I had the same issue, and have just replaced my motherboard for other reasons, But I haven't setup the xbox extender for the new install yet.

Mine used to show up after pausing on the xbox or after half an hour of watching on the xbox.

I might have to try it tonight, to see if it still happens

daz1970 · **29th January 2008, 03:14 PM**

What results do you get when running the network test in the Media Center Extenders functions within the 360. Do not specifically remember how to navigate to this area (Tasks, network tune?). It shows two lines on the screen that represent bandwidth required for SD or HD viewing on the extender. I have Cat 5E cable connected to the xbox 360 is way above the line for HD and I experience no problems.

kirstglen · **29th January 2008, 06:52 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by daz1970

What results do you get when running the network test in the Media Center Extenders functions within the 360. Do not specifically remember how to navigate to this area (Tasks, network tune?). It shows two lines on the screen that represent bandwidth required for SD or HD viewing on the extender. I have Cat 5E cable connected to the xbox 360 is way above the line for HD and I experience no problems.

Thanks for the advice. I checked and it is off the scale on the good side. So I am guessing it is something else.

Precisa · **30th January 2008, 12:48 PM**

I checked my extender last night and I have no pixelation anymore.

I moved from a Asus M2NPV-VM motherboard to a ASUS M2A-VM-HDMI.
They have different network chips, the old LAN was handled by the nForce 430 chipset but the new one is a Realtek RTL8111B which seems to get updated drivers a lot more.

oh, and when it was pixelating for me before, the bandwidth graph was a steady line off the top of the scale.

I don't know why it did it, but all I know is I fixed it by changing motherboards (not for that reason, it was only booting 10% of the time), and someone else fixed it by adding a pci lan card with a different LAN chip.
there might be a LAN driver update that might help you first though, since you said you didn't have the problem before the reinstall

kirstglen · **30th January 2008, 07:59 PM**

Looks like I'm off to buy a new network card

Precisa · **30th January 2008, 10:02 PM**

hope it works, if it does then please post. (including chipsets)
if it doesn't, then i suppose network cards are fairly cheap?

kirstglen · **31st January 2008, 09:51 PM**

All fixed. I bought a D-link DGE-530T adapter for the Vista machine and it worked fine. I updated the drivers and it worked still.

I disabled the onboard ethernet but I am not sure if this is necessary. My MB is an MSI K9N PLatinum with an N-force570 chipset.

As I was installing the network I remembered a Windows update some time ago that stuffed up the network card. I reversed the update and never installed it again, It looks like one of the onboard network driver updates is not compatible with the Xbox streaming.

I think the option I ended up with of putting a $25 card in is much easier than worrying about the possibility in the future.

Thanks for all the help
Glen

Precisa · **1st February 2008, 11:23 AM**

Excellent to hear

Precisa · **5th March 2008, 10:33 AM**

Now my xbox has started to pixelate again, time to check mynetwork drivers

logifuse · **5th March 2008, 10:45 AM**

Are you running a gigabit switch? If so, see KB929707.

Justin

Auldar · **5th March 2008, 12:27 PM**

I had a similar problem that caused the CPU to peg while doing sustained network traffic ie extender mode, or copy files.

I uninstalled the 2 network card entries in device manager (on-board for me), let Vista find the cards and re-add the drivers, and the problem went away.

Precisa · **5th March 2008, 03:17 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by logifuse

Are you running a gigabit switch? If so, see KB929707.

Justin

Yes I am, It went away when I changed my mother board, but now its back.

it makes sense,

Quote:

CAUSE
This issue may occur if the buffer of the Gigabit Ethernet switch is insufficient. If flow control is disabled, many consumer-grade Gigabit Ethernet switches cannot handle the large flow of Media Center Extender video stream traffic that is from a Gigabit connection to a 100 Megabit (100 Mbps) connection. A Gigabit connection flows at 1,000 megabits per second (Mbps).

I will try the solution tonight. and also check the network driver

Method 1: Change the link speed to 100 Mbps Full Duplex
NO

Method 2: Manually enable flow control in the receive (Rx) direction
sounds better

if it fixes it, you will get thanks

Precisa · **5th March 2008, 05:33 PM**

Well, the Microsoft solution didn't work.
the flow control was already on.

but I did manage to fix it by rolling back the network card drivers.

but it will most likely come back when the wife will want to use it, something will stuff up when she wants to use it.
it must be trying to balance the WAF throughout the universe