Laggy Performance with XB360 Extender - Is There a Fix?
Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2020 8:56 pm
I'm not sure if this is the best place for this post...I think it could potentially apply to three different forums haha. Brace yourself for a long post and a few scenarios!
In the past few months, I have had a very poor watching experience on my XBox 360. The video (live TV or recorded does not make a difference) will be clean for around 10 seconds, then fall behind the audio and become choppy, then the picture and audio will freeze and recalibrate itself. Previously this only happened when the storage on my computer was pretty full. I would move all of my recordings to my external hard drive and then playback on my XB360 would be smooth once again. Now, even with over half of my computer's storage free, and even shortly after restarting the computer, the XB360 playback is still laggy and I can't get back to a smooth playback experience no matter what I try.
Current setup:
1.) HTPC: Windows 8.1 pro 4GB RAM with HDHomerun Prime tuner using WMC ... I only use this computer as a HTPC and use WMC and have my emby server running.
2.) Connection: Powerline ethernet adpaters...HTPC (downstairs living room) is connected to XB360 (upstairs bedroom) via powerline ethernet cable. The XB360 seems to receive internet fine and connects to XBox Live just fine, but is slow specifically when using WMC. My internet speed isn't anywhere near fast enough to handle this wirelessly, so the powerline is necessary.
Hypothesized problems:
1.) There is too much power being consumed in my house and thus the powerline adapter can't work at its full potential. I have noticed the connection between HTPC and XB360 gets worse when I have my overhead light turned on.
-challenge to that hypothesis: My electrical bill shows I consume roughly the same power (and sometimes) less than the previous year and I did not have this lag in the past.
-challenge to that hypothesis: I have unplugged all rarely used devices in my bedroom and that has a minimal improvement. The XB360 playback still stutters and lags often.
2.) My computer isn't strong-enough to push out the signal in order for for the extender playback to function well. Admittedly my computer is slow. It actually sucks, to be honest. If I open Firefox and try to navigate and have a few tabs open, the computer slows down significantly.
-challenge to that hypothesis: Only in recent months has this laggy and stuttered playback been an issue that wasn't fixed by freeing more space on the hard drive. In the past, the computer was just as slow with Firefox but the extender playback was smooth.
-I've done several things to free up disk and CPU space to hopefully improve the connection with the extender and nothing has helped.
Questions (conveniently labeled in case you want to identify one in your answer!) :
-Does anyone have any thoughts as to what I can do to regain smooth playback?
a.) should I reset my powerline adapters and reconnect them to each other?
b.) should I remove my XB360 as an extender and add it back? I am slightly worried if I remove it now, the extender may say the signal is too weak to connect to my XB360
c.) should I roll back my HTCP to a date from, like, April in order to gain that magical mix of settings that worked well?
d.) should I add RAM to my computer? I'm not sure how much that would cost and would like to avoid having someone open my computer if possible. I'm open to it if it will fix things, though. I used to have WMC on a Windows 7 computer with 4GB RAM and had zero issues with connection to the extender.
e.) do you think the problem lies with the computer or the electrical circuitry? (I assume most answers are going to be that it's a combination of both)
f.) would a mesh internet system work better? My computer and XB360 can't even recognize each other off of wireless signal strength alone, but they can find each other by powerline. However, as I've said, I have problems with the powerline connection now whereas it had worked fine in the past. would perhaps adding a mesh internet to my house improve that wireless communication between the two vs. the performance I'd get over powerline?
g.) are there ways to improve the performance of my powerline adapters? No, none of them are connected to surge protectors.
h.) is there a way to prioritize resources on my computer so the HTPC/Extender/WMC handshake takes precedence and performs at full ability?
I'm trying not to spend a lot of money, simply because I am using the HTPC and extender setup as a way to save money vs. cable boxes and have larger room for DVR. If the fix is expensive, it might be more cost-effective to just get a cable box for upstairs.
Thanks for sticking with me. I'd truly appreciate any help big or small. This is extremely frustrating and I'd like to get my setup back...it was a great experience before!
In the past few months, I have had a very poor watching experience on my XBox 360. The video (live TV or recorded does not make a difference) will be clean for around 10 seconds, then fall behind the audio and become choppy, then the picture and audio will freeze and recalibrate itself. Previously this only happened when the storage on my computer was pretty full. I would move all of my recordings to my external hard drive and then playback on my XB360 would be smooth once again. Now, even with over half of my computer's storage free, and even shortly after restarting the computer, the XB360 playback is still laggy and I can't get back to a smooth playback experience no matter what I try.
Current setup:
1.) HTPC: Windows 8.1 pro 4GB RAM with HDHomerun Prime tuner using WMC ... I only use this computer as a HTPC and use WMC and have my emby server running.
2.) Connection: Powerline ethernet adpaters...HTPC (downstairs living room) is connected to XB360 (upstairs bedroom) via powerline ethernet cable. The XB360 seems to receive internet fine and connects to XBox Live just fine, but is slow specifically when using WMC. My internet speed isn't anywhere near fast enough to handle this wirelessly, so the powerline is necessary.
Hypothesized problems:
1.) There is too much power being consumed in my house and thus the powerline adapter can't work at its full potential. I have noticed the connection between HTPC and XB360 gets worse when I have my overhead light turned on.
-challenge to that hypothesis: My electrical bill shows I consume roughly the same power (and sometimes) less than the previous year and I did not have this lag in the past.
-challenge to that hypothesis: I have unplugged all rarely used devices in my bedroom and that has a minimal improvement. The XB360 playback still stutters and lags often.
2.) My computer isn't strong-enough to push out the signal in order for for the extender playback to function well. Admittedly my computer is slow. It actually sucks, to be honest. If I open Firefox and try to navigate and have a few tabs open, the computer slows down significantly.
-challenge to that hypothesis: Only in recent months has this laggy and stuttered playback been an issue that wasn't fixed by freeing more space on the hard drive. In the past, the computer was just as slow with Firefox but the extender playback was smooth.
-I've done several things to free up disk and CPU space to hopefully improve the connection with the extender and nothing has helped.
Questions (conveniently labeled in case you want to identify one in your answer!) :
-Does anyone have any thoughts as to what I can do to regain smooth playback?
a.) should I reset my powerline adapters and reconnect them to each other?
b.) should I remove my XB360 as an extender and add it back? I am slightly worried if I remove it now, the extender may say the signal is too weak to connect to my XB360
c.) should I roll back my HTCP to a date from, like, April in order to gain that magical mix of settings that worked well?
d.) should I add RAM to my computer? I'm not sure how much that would cost and would like to avoid having someone open my computer if possible. I'm open to it if it will fix things, though. I used to have WMC on a Windows 7 computer with 4GB RAM and had zero issues with connection to the extender.
e.) do you think the problem lies with the computer or the electrical circuitry? (I assume most answers are going to be that it's a combination of both)
f.) would a mesh internet system work better? My computer and XB360 can't even recognize each other off of wireless signal strength alone, but they can find each other by powerline. However, as I've said, I have problems with the powerline connection now whereas it had worked fine in the past. would perhaps adding a mesh internet to my house improve that wireless communication between the two vs. the performance I'd get over powerline?
g.) are there ways to improve the performance of my powerline adapters? No, none of them are connected to surge protectors.
h.) is there a way to prioritize resources on my computer so the HTPC/Extender/WMC handshake takes precedence and performs at full ability?
I'm trying not to spend a lot of money, simply because I am using the HTPC and extender setup as a way to save money vs. cable boxes and have larger room for DVR. If the fix is expensive, it might be more cost-effective to just get a cable box for upstairs.
Thanks for sticking with me. I'd truly appreciate any help big or small. This is extremely frustrating and I'd like to get my setup back...it was a great experience before!