MCE 2005 - How far can I push it?

AlbyZ · **14th August 2007, 10:37 AM**

It has been a while since my profile has changed, but thanks to a fellow MCE forum member, Thanks CT007, I now own an additional 2 Linksys WMCE54AG's which takes my total number of MCE Extenders to 3.

I decided to run the following test:

MCE 2005 PC, Watch and Record HD SCT10 (Regional Ch 10)
XBox 360, Watch and Record HD WIN (Regional Ch 9)
WMCE54AG #1, Playback a previously recorded HD show (although its not a HD display)
WMCE54AG #2 Watch, Pause and Resume any other channel, be it HD or SD.

Using the Media Center Resource Monitor, all 4 monitored items were green while using 2 Extenders, I was surprised that the network coped so well. When I turned the 3rd Extender on, the memory indicator went Yellow, although it didn't affect performance.

It looks like I may need to add more memory, since I only use 512MB of Ram and plan on using WebGuide 4.0, which I guess will need its share of Ram. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the CPU utilisation. Traditionally my systems sits on approx 20%, but jumped as high as 50% when I used the Xbox360 as an extender, so I figured approx 30% per extender. It turns out that with 3 extenders my CPU util maxxed out at 70%, which still leaves MCE quite responsive.

Oh and have I mentioned that I REALLY like my MCE2005 system? Definitely no need for me to upgrade the Hardware, nor the OS for quite a while, what a performer!

Alby

Heyw00d · **14th August 2007, 09:12 PM**

AlbyZ

Good to hear about your Linksys experience. Question for you; Are you running them wired or wireless?

getafix · **14th August 2007, 09:49 PM**

Goes to show that you don't need a beast to do what you want to do.

Gives me hope with my current system.

AlbyZ · **15th August 2007, 05:51 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heyw00d

AlbyZ

Good to hear about your Linksys experience. Question for you; Are you running them wired or wireless?

They are connected to a 100mbit switch, with the rest of of my network on a seperate switch uplinked to it. (Keeps the 2 types of traffic away from each other)

Alby

P.S. I just realised they are DHCP assigned, I might change it to static, for longevity

jd34 · **19th December 2007, 12:39 PM**

HI Albyz - A little old reply here but glad to hear it was (is it still?) working well for you? I am looking to buy another extender for another room in the house, but don't want to add another XBOX 360, so Linksys seems the goer - if they work? Are yours working fine and did you have to do anything in particular? I see on other threads that many people have been having issues with them running TV. This is all I am after, routing my TV to another room. Thanks! JD.

Auldar · **19th December 2007, 01:41 PM**

I think second generation extenders are just around the corner..

Have a read of this:

http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/comm...inksys-us.html

AlbyZ · **28th December 2007, 11:34 AM**

Sending TV to another roomis fine using the LinkSys Extenders. If you try anything more exotic, such as Video from your library encoded in anything fancy (ie. not out of the box, such as H.264/DivX) etc won't work. Just remember the Extenders I use are for Mce2005 only, the X360 is for both MCE2005 and Vista and the new Extenders that Auldar has linked are Vista only.

Hope that helped.

Alby