Server stutters video when streaming

[TIGR]

Nonetheless, I suggest trying it to see if it alleviates/eliminates the stuttering. That will at least help in diagnosis even if it's not an end-all fix.

 

[freaksavior]

hmmm, I'll try it later, mom is watching twilight new moon haha

 

[Vagike]

Well i've been playing iron man for about 30 minutes without any issues wich isn't unusual after the server is rebooted. network usage is around 40%

need something that shows RAM usage. that meter shows committed pagefile.

 

[cdawall]

shitty router....

 

[newtekie1]

I would assume there isn't an anti-virus or automatic defrag running in the background that could be using the hard drive on the server, right?

My first guy feeling is that something else is active on the network that is bogging down the switch, but you said the problem goes away when you reboot the server...

 

[TIGR]

....but you said the problem goes away when you reboot the server...

Indeed, I'm kind of ignoring that part at the moment, hoping that it's been coincidental as it sure wouldn't help me figure out what's going on.

 

[freaksavior]

I would assume there isn't an anti-virus or automatic defrag running in the background that could be using the hard drive on the server, right?

my first guy feeling is that something else is active on the network that is bogging down the switch, but you said the problem goes away when you reboot the server...

Yeah, nothing else on the server is running.

shitty router....

As i said on txt, its a pain to bypass the 2wire, I tried and gave up.

Indeed, I'm kind of ignoring that part at the moment, hoping that it's been coincidental as it sure wouldn't help me figure out what's going on.

I am running torrents pretty much all day and all night, but its only uploading and my upload is maybe 50kb total.

need something that shows RAM usage. that meter shows committed pagefile.

here is Everest screen shot

 

[newtekie1]

The number of connections still might be overloading the switch or router, even with a low upload speed.

 

[freaksavior]

I played new moon which is only 3gb, and it stuttered a little more than iron man did.

I can try running a gigabit, I think 5e is ran through my house, not 5 becuase i know 5 is older and this house is 6 years old.

 

[TIGR]

Hey freaksavior, try just copying a file from the server to one of the computers you're trying to stream to. See what speed the file copy dialog says it's coping at.

 

[freaksavior]

a large file like 10/12 Gigs? or something small like 3? and how would i get a log of that?

im going to attempt to bypass my 2wire pos tomorrow.

edit: just checked the ethernet in my house, it is 5e rated @ 350mhz

 

[TIGR]

Right in the file copy dialog it will tell you the speed at which it's copying. If this is too low then we know there's a bottleneck somewhere in the hardware or network. I'd do a file at least a few GB in size so it's not over before you can observe the speed lol but beyond that it doesn't matter.

 

[freaksavior]

Switched to gigabit and no problems so far. going to keep testing the network and see

edit: it did hiccup once, but its not been as bad so far.

 

[TIGR]

Which really does make me wonder. Even though I "felt" gigabit would help, it shouldn't (as per the numbers I posted above). To the best of my knowledge, throughput should be more than sufficient with 100Mbps, even considering the losses that are always there making it less than "true" 100Mbps. Maybe someone else can explain something I don't know?

 

[freaksavior]

Yeah, I know what you mean. Seems like 100Mbps would have been fine, and it was for a while which is really weird.

 

[TIGR]

I wonder what the bitrate range for those files is. I think—correct me if I'm wrong—that many if not most modern video codecs use variable bitrate (VBR). Perhaps the bitrate just varies more than I previously thought and can spike high enough to overwhelm your 100Mbps. It could explain the spike in the graph of your network usage, but I'm still bothered by the fact that other than that spike, the usage is fairly uniform, suggesting that the bitrate really doesn't vary much. I'm just thinking aloud in hopes someone in the know can explain further. Does it seem to stutter during particularly colorful, fast-changing, etc. scenes that would use more data per frame?

I have one idea for further diagnosis, if you'd be willing. When you get the stuttering or see the network usage spike, can you go back and go over the same part of the video again to see whether or not it happens again at the same time and thus the spikes are linked to certain positions in the video? If so, I imagine it's the variable bitrate spiking. If not, I think we can rule out the particular video files you're trying to stream.

 

[freaksavior]

updated op

 

[cdawall]

Maybe the lan on that gb is just shitty I mean it was a very abused mobo...not that I would now anything about that

 

[Easy Rhino]

as long as the HDDs on the server are good then the problem has to be on the client end.

 

[freaksavior]

Two different machine with the same issue. I will run a hdd diag

 

[yogurt_21]

what are the specs of the 2wire?

imo they are about the worst brand you could buy in the business.

but I guess for a low usage home network it's not that big of a deal.

for the server are you actually running it as a server ie routing everything through it before it hits the router, using active directory, group policies, or anything like that? Or do you simply have a server os installed on it? In that case appliance would be the more correct term.


i'd check the transfer rates on the 2wire and make sure it's not capped. If it is I highly suggest rerouting your network through the server with a switch before it hits the router. This will effectively chage your config from a home network to a more professional one. From that I'd check transfer rates directly to the appliance (or server if you plan on actually using it as one) over 1 hop. If the rates are good there then you'll know that it was the router causign your issue. If the rates are still bad, it's time to reinstall the os and start from scratch on the config.

 

[Vagike]

How fast is the ram actually running at? clocks?

I think that processor/memory bandwidth is the problem.
That E4400 out of the box does 2.0ghz @ 800mhz FSB. Overclocking to 2.4GHz I'm guessing puts you close to a 1066Mhz FSB, but that 2mb cache is probably another limitation.

I run an E6850 with Corsair 2x2GB DDR2 800 on an ASUS P5Q-EM, with an old 7200.8 for the OS and a 1.5tb 7200.12 for everything else. I play a 720p movie on the tv, transcode a 720p to my xbox360, and stream a 720p to my laptop via media share, and thrash a number of torrents; using 70 to 95% of my cpu and only up to 5% of my gigabit network.

I use windows 7.

 

[cdawall]

How fast is the ram actually running at? clocks?

I think that processor/memory bandwidth is the problem.
That E4400 out of the box does 2.0ghz @ 800mhz FSB. Overclocking to 2.4GHz I'm guessing puts you close to a 1066Mhz FSB, but that 2mb cache is probably another limitation.

I run an E6850 with Corsair 2x2GB DDR2 800 on an ASUS P5Q-EM, with an old 7200.8 for the OS and a 1.5tb 7200.12 for everything else. I play a 720p movie on the tv, transcode a 720p to my xbox360, and stream a 720p to my laptop via media share, and thrash a number of torrents; using 70 to 95% of my cpu and only up to 5% of my gigabit network.

I use windows 7.

Considering most media boxes from hp and such use old celerons or atom chips I find the e4400 to be overkill for his setup

 

[freaksavior]

what are the specs of the 2wire?

imo they are about the worst brand you could buy in the business.

but I guess for a low usage home network it's not that big of a deal.

for the server are you actually running it as a server ie routing everything through it before it hits the router, using active directory, group policies, or anything like that? Or do you simply have a server os installed on it? In that case appliance would be the more correct term.


i'd check the transfer rates on the 2wire and make sure it's not capped. If it is I highly suggest rerouting your network through the server with a switch before it hits the router. This will effectively chage your config from a home network to a more professional one. From that I'd check transfer rates directly to the appliance (or server if you plan on actually using it as one) over 1 hop. If the rates are good there then you'll know that it was the router causign your issue. If the rates are still bad, it's time to reinstall the os and start from scratch on the config.

The server is basically just a file server. I've set up user permissions but nothing else afaik.

Im only using the 2wire as internert gateway, everything is being routed through my airport extreme.

My network topology is this

2wire > airport > patch panel > gig switch (there are 3 one for each room that there is networking)

if someone wants to take a look I don't mind create an account and giving your rdp access to look. I'm tired of it doing this when it should handle this without problems.

How fast is the ram actually running at? clocks?

I think that processor/memory bandwidth is the problem.
That E4400 out of the box does 2.0ghz @ 800mhz FSB. Overclocking to 2.4GHz I'm guessing puts you close to a 1066Mhz FSB, but that 2mb cache is probably another limitation.

I run an E6850 with Corsair 2x2GB DDR2 800 on an ASUS P5Q-EM, with an old 7200.8 for the OS and a 1.5tb 7200.12 for everything else. I play a 720p movie on the tv, transcode a 720p to my xbox360, and stream a 720p to my laptop via media share, and thrash a number of torrents; using 70 to 95% of my cpu and only up to 5% of my gigabit network.

I use windows 7.

2.4ghz and 800mhz ram

 

[Easy Rhino]

it makes more sense that it is your router or something clogging up your tubes.