XBOX 360 and problem with recorded and live tv

adammlowe · **20th June 2008, 12:19 PM**

Up until yesterday, my Xbox 360 has been humming along beautifully as a MCE extender. Until yesterday...

When I load up the Xbox it connects etc all no problem as normal. I can select a show from the guide (or recorded tv list), it starts playing it, but then the image freezes (the audio continues). The same thing happens if I attempt to fast forward. If I then try to play something else, all I get is a black sreen with audio playing. The files play fine on the MCE machine itself (which is Windows Vista Ultimate SP1, 4GB, Quad core XPS 420 etc) and the xbox is connected by GB connection. When I test the network bandwidth, it seems fine for HD. I should also mention that there appears to be recent installs or windows updates.

I have looked at similar threads, but not sure if this is different.

adammlowe · **20th June 2008, 03:20 PM**

UPDATE: If I connect the Xbox directly to the PC - the issue disappears. My router (WNR3500) appears to be working fine otherwise, any recommendations?

scritch · **20th June 2008, 03:47 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by adammlowe

UPDATE: If I connect the Xbox directly to the PC - the issue disappears. My router (WNR3500) appears to be working fine otherwise, any recommendations?

Not easy to work out the issue here. Can you try the following?

1. Try connecting your PC and Xbox to different ports on your router. so if they are in ports 1 & 2, move them to 3 & 4.

2. Try different patch (ethernet) cables.

3. If you can get hold of an ethernet switch, connect one port of the switch ports to one of the router's ethernet ports, and the PC and Xbox into the switch directly.

Regards,
Shane.

Precisa · **20th June 2008, 05:06 PM**

There is an issue that MS knows about with Gigibit routers and xbox extenders.
the xbox is a 100mbit connection
the media center in a gigabit connection

the router does not have enough buffer space to hold all the data that the media centre wants to send to the xbox.

the fix is either
-lower your media centre connection to 100mbit
-buy an expensive gigabit router with a large buffer.
-try turning on some setting buried deep within your media centers network settings that involves flow control.
"Method 2: Manually enable flow control in the receive (Rx) direction"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929707/
Edit: if that is turned on, try checking your flow control setting in your router (if there are any)

My problem was none of these.
it was an microsoft update that had a new network driver, I rolled the old driver back in, and it was sweet, but stuck at 100mbit (I should check again for new drivers some day, I think that might be stopping SP1 for me)

scritch · **20th June 2008, 05:42 PM**

Quote:

-lower your media centre connection to 100mbit

Be careful with this - most home routers don't have the ability to fix the switch ports to a specific speed. The problem with only changing it on your computer and not on the switch is you'll face performance issues due to auto-negotiation failing.

By fixing the speed of the PC NIC, it is default that auto-negotiation is disabled for speed and duplex, so the switch will fail the negotiation and either connect at the wrong speed and at half duplex, or fall back to 10Mb Half Duplex (as the default fallback is to a hub connection that doesn't support auto-negotiation), causing all kinds of problems (most specifically, really low speed and lots of collisions).

If your router/switch can support changing the speed and duplex manually for one of it's ethernet ports, then yes try setting it to 100Mbx Full duplex on both the switch and PC. If not - best to leave it alone.

Regards,
Shane.

adammlowe · **25th June 2008, 12:02 PM**

An update - thanks for that help.

I changed the setting on the Network Card to be 100MBPS FULL DUPLEX. This correected the issue with the media centre, however as predicted, caused problems with other file transfers and internet browsing (it was very very slow).

I also tried reverting drivers to old versions, but to no avail. This was working, so not sure what has happened.

I ended up purchasing a new card (the intel was is integrated) and it works at full duplex no problem. So I guess it is a quirk with the intel one. Next time I format the machine, I'll see if it works, or if it is just some driver quirk.