InfiniTV 6 ETH - Check your NIC!

[gthompson20]

I have seen a lot of people complain about the InfiniTV 6 ETH tuner and pixelation. Well I thought I would share my experience in case it could help others (present and future)

I cannot stress enough the need to:
1. Make sure you have updated the NIC Drivers on your Windows Media Center PC
2. Check the settings available for that NIC and make needed changes

Long story short - I have a USB Infini TV 4 and acquired an Infini TV ETH 6 unit. While testing the 6 with an Intel NUC computer (Intel NIC) and I had no issues. Everything looked and worked great. I moved the InfiniTV 6 ETH unit to its final location and started trying to use it with my HTPC that has a realtek NIC. I noticed that in both the 360 extender and on a TV connected directly to the HTPC that I was getting pixelation or breakup every 30 - 60 seconds. It was pretty much on all channels and especially noticeable on HBO. So first I checked my signal Levels, they were great (1db 36.7 SNR)! Second I thought maybe the cable modem, and or the MOCA adapters were causing issues, so I disconnected everything and the pixelation continued. So that was not the issue. Thirdly I thought maybe I was having some network interference so I disconnected everything from the switch except the HTPC and the ETH 6. Nope still there... Finally I knew that I had updated to the latest Realtek NIC Drivers, so I went and took a look at the advanced settings (For those of you with Extenders, this was pretty much required back in the day to get the extenders to work well). I noticed that the Realtek Drivers had 2 items set to enabled that looked fishy to me:
One Was Called "Green Ethernet", and the other was called "Save Power" or something similar. I disabled both those settings, and Enabled Jumbo Frames for my GiGE Network, and VOILA ! No more breakup!
I know that Realtek is a pretty popular onboard NIC so if you are having pixelation or breakup issues, take a look at your settings for the NIC. I would actually recommend just picking up and Intel NIC like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6833106033 as they are pretty much flawless etc.

Greg

[barnabas1969]

You don't want/need jumbo frames. Try turning it back off.

[gthompson20]

You don't want/need jumbo frames. Try turning it back off.

Actually I do I am a network Engineer, and Have Jumbo Frames on my Switches and My Computers so that I get the fastest transfers when moving files around between GigE machines

[barnabas1969]

You don't want/need jumbo frames. Try turning it back off.

Actually I do I am a network Engineer, and Have Jumbo Frames on my Switches and My Computers so that I get the fastest transfers when moving files around between GigE machines

OK, but your tuners/extenders aren't going to use jumbo frames. It should also be noted, as you said, that your switch needs to support jumbo frames too.