Slow SMB shares?

[deadzoro]

Recently updated to 1.1.7, and thought I wasn’t have any issues. However, a couple of nights ago, I tried to stream a movie off my network drive, only to have it buffer roughly every 5 minutes or so. “No problem”, I thought, “It’s just a big file, so it’s probably got a particularly high bitrate.”

Last night, I was streaming another file (significantly shorter, smaller resolution, and a lower bitrate), and it was buffering at least as much as the movie the previous night. So I tried streaming one of the movies I’ve successfully streamed from the network drive before, only to have it also buffer fairly frequently (where before there had been little to no buffering once the film actually started).

I verified that the drive was not having other data written to it or read from it at that moment, and just this morning checked to make sure it doesn’t need to be defragmented.

Is it possible that SMB in the newer version of WiiMC is somehow slower than in previous versions? Does anybody have any other ideas for things that I could check?

[Anonymous]

Just wanted to second this observation. I have been using WiiMC since version 1.1.2 with files shared from a samba 3.0.28a Fedora 7 box. This is the first time I had watched a number of movies and shows since I had updated to 1.1.7 from 1.1.5 and for the first time every video I watched buffered constantly. Some videos just a couple of times while others were almost unwatchable.

[Anonymous]

Hey, just wanted to post a quick update. Turns out my problem was not samba or WiiMC at all.

I recently upgraded to a NETGEAR WNDR3400 wireless router and one of the settings I had changed negativity affected video buffering. In case anyone else owns this router or one like it this is the setting that caused the issue:

Setup -> Wireless Settings -> Wireless Network (2.4GHz b/g/n) -> Mode: -> Up to 300 Mbps
to fix the problem the value should be (which is the default):
Setup -> Wireless Settings -> Wireless Network (2.4GHz b/g/n) -> Mode: -> Up to 145 Mbps

My older router did not have this setting so I never had this issue. Also, if I had left this value at the default, I would have been fine as well.

Between NETFLIX and WiiMC my Wii is truly a complete Media Centre!

[Author]

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