An odd thing happened the other night

[lhwidget]

Hi,
I've been using a pair of Netgear WNHDE111 N bridges to connect a PC in my bedroom to the router and server in my study for about a year now. They are about 25' apart with the bedroom unit sitting the same height as the study unit, with two sheet rock walls between them.

I've been getting routine performance, no problem streaming audio or surfing the internet, and fair to good performance streaming HD TV (avg 15 Mb/sec load). If I try to stream my test Bluray (Avatar, with full HD sound intact, a steady 35 - 40 Mb/s load), they choke instantly, won't even play the credits.

I decided to move the bedroom unit to a higher location (maybe 3' higher than the study unit), but with only one wall between them.

I thought I might get slightly better performance, maybe fewer drop-outs, maybe fewer buffer over runs.

What I got amazed me. The bedroom unit was off for maybe 10 minutes while I ran cables. When I had it hooked up and running, I decided to try Avatar to see if there was any change.

It was amazing, Avatar played for 30 minutes straight with only two tiny drop-outs (single frame skips with no interruption in the sound).

I stopped Avatar, did something for a few minutes, then tried Avatar again just to make sure, and it was back to the way it had always been, wouldn't even play the first two seconds of the credits without stuttering.

Other performance is as before now.


Sorry for the long story, but does anyone have any idea of what may have happened?

If I could "fix" whatever changed, I'd have a super performing N bridge that I could actually use to stream Bluray content.

 

[thiggins]

Whatever happened was an anomaly. 802.11n can't provide 30+ Mbps of steady, dropout-free throughput.

 

[lhwidget]

Whatever happened was an anomaly. 802.11n can't provide 30+ Mbps of steady, dropout-free throughput.

Thanks Tim,
I was expecting to hear that, and after a year using them, I certainly agree.

I do have another question.

Occaisionally, (every 2 - 4 months) the stuttering on recorded HD TV playback will steadily increase until it becomes obnoxous and bad enough to hang the playback software.

Out of curiosity (and desperation) I tried a full reset of the firmware & re-entry of the operating parameters. This has reliably stopped the bad stuttering/hang problems (though not the occaisional minor stutter).

Why does this help? I've always thought there were data tables kept by each unit that would eventually become to large or be corrupted by some other mechanism.

Is there anything to my line of thought, or is something else happening?

 

[stevech]

Maybe a memory leak in the router's firmware? A power cycle would cleanse that and give a clue.

And yes, streaming 1080i HD on WiFi is not normally reliable. There are alternatives to WiFi that don't require cat5 cable runs.

 

[lhwidget]

Maybe a memory leak in the router's firmware? A power cycle would cleanse that and give a clue.

And yes, streaming 1080i HD on WiFi is not normally reliable. There are alternatives to WiFi that don't require cat5 cable runs.

I have a pair of Netgear AV500s I'll be trying soon, I hope that's what you had in mind.

 

[thiggins]

As stevech noted, memory leaks and other firmware bugs could produce what you are seeing.

Powerline is one alternative. If you have Coax in both locations and don't use satellite, MoCA is another.