SageTV 6.2 Pauses During Playback

[joe123]

Hello.

I have had this problem since 6.x and I just upgraded to 6.2 thinking that it would fix the problem, but it is still there.

Every once in a while, like every 20-30 minutes or so while watching a recording, the image/sound freezes for about 8-10 seconds and then resumes.

I am using wired MVP, all of my 8 drives are 64k formatted and I run defrag every month or so.

The pauses happen when nothing else is running on my SageTV. Farily fast system - dual Intel CPU, 1GB of memory.

Any guesses what is causing the pauses?

[rfutscher]

I had a problem where playback on my two clients would pause every so often. They would pause at different times while watching the same show.

I ran Task Manager and discovered that network activity would stop when there was a pause.

I reformatted my record drive, just to make sure it was formatted correctly.
I found the write catch for the drive turned off. I turned it back on.
I downloaded and installed the latest network drivers.
I added a second drive.
I installed the newest drivers for my video card.

I only have slight problems now when there are three recordings and a live playback going at the same time. I don't think it was any one thing that was the total cure.

With four tuners going and a client, fragmentation should not be a problem. The drive heads have to move anyways to service all five buffers.

Originally Posted by joe123

Hello.

I have had this problem since 6.x and I just upgraded to 6.2 thinking that it would fix the problem, but it is still there.

Every once in a while, like every 20-30 minutes or so while watching a recording, the image/sound freezes for about 8-10 seconds and then resumes.

I am using wired MVP, all of my 8 drives are 64k formatted and I run defrag every month or so.

The pauses happen when nothing else is running on my SageTV. Farily fast system - dual Intel CPU, 1GB of memory.

Any guesses what is causing the pauses?

[joe123]

Originally Posted by rfutscher

I had a problem where playback on my two clients would pause every so often. They would pause at different times while watching the same show.

I ran Task Manager and discovered that network activity would stop when there was a pause.

I reformatted my record drive, just to make sure it was formatted correctly.
I found the write catch for the drive turned off. I turned it back on.
I downloaded and installed the latest network drivers.
I added a second drive.
I installed the newest drivers for my video card.

I have done all of those steps except for the using the latest network driver from Windows update, so I will do that and see.

Do you have your disks to spin down after x minutes? I have 8 drives and I have them spin down after 15 minutes of non-use. If I leave them all on, the systems builds up too much heat.

[joe123]

A couple more questions if anyone knows with regards to the Network parameters:

On my Win XP VIa Rhine Fast Ehternet Adapter Properties, I have the following options set:

Receive Buffers: 64k
Transmit Buffers: 64k
Flow Control: DISABLED

Shouldn't the flow coltrol be Enabled? Other option is "Hardware Default"

What about the Receive / Transmitt buffers sizes ok?

Thanks,
Joe

[rfutscher]

Originally Posted by joe123

I have done all of those steps except for the using the latest network driver from Windows update, so I will do that and see.

Do you have your disks to spin down after x minutes? I have 8 drives and I have them spin down after 15 minutes of non-use. If I leave them all on, the systems builds up too much heat.

I used the drivers from the Realtek site for my NIC. The windows download drivers made the problem worse.

No, I do not spin down the drives.