Issue with gigabit switch

rickmomenton · 5 Jan 2018 at 19:15

I purchased a Netgear Gigabit switch because I was getting buffering on some large video files when streaming to my LG TV which is downstairs.

I am using cat 6 ethernet cables and 1 cable connected from my gigabit switch to my router (BT Home hub 5) and the rest connected to the switch, however I see no improvement in speed I still get buffering the same as before and also when uploading files from pc to nas I max out at only 62mbps.

I'm using 600mbps rated homeplugs and my nas is synology ds216j with wd red 3tb.
In synology network settings it says 1000mbps full duplex.

Anyone got any ideas?

bremen1874 · 5 Jan 2018 at 19:18

Temporarily replace the Powerline connection with a network cable and see if the problem goes away.

andy_mk3 · 5 Jan 2018 at 19:21

62MB/s is 492Mbps, so for 600Mbps homeplugs, you are pretty much running them at as fast as they will go, taking housing wiring into consideration.

rickmomenton · 5 Jan 2018 at 19:34

andy_mk3 said:
62MB/s is 492Mbps, so for 600Mbps homeplugs, you are pretty much running them at as fast as they will go, taking housing wiring into consideration.

62 megabits not megabytes sorry for not being clear, in the synology resource monitor it averages around 7-7.8 MB/S so maxes out at around 62megabits.

BigT · 5 Jan 2018 at 19:46

bremen1874 said:
Temporarily replace the Powerline connection with a network cable and see if the problem goes away.

Do this as a first step in diagnosing the issue.

rickmomenton · 5 Jan 2018 at 20:19

BigT said:
Do this as a first step in diagnosing the issue.

Just took my nas downstairs connected it directly via cat 6 ethernet cable and I get around 13megabyte (104megabit) max speed when checking synology resource monitor and the videos play much more smoothly just get the occasional buffering for around half a second, do these speeds seem right to you or is something still not right?

bledd · 5 Jan 2018 at 21:11

Powerline is causing the first limit.

13mb sounds like 100mbit limit from either a switch,port or cable. (100mbit = 12.5mb/s)

Is your TV gigabit?

I'd use a dedicated player instead of the TV for playback.

BigT · 5 Jan 2018 at 22:04

My gut feel was going to be powerline bottleneck first then transcoding or the ability of the playback device.

What’s the setup in terms of file sizes, encoding, app being used to view on the TV etc.? Does the Synology just act as a DLNA server, or fileserver or does it have Plex or something?

Orcvader · 6 Jan 2018 at 11:51

Download and install the powerline software from whatever manufacturer it's from, it will tell you the true sync speed between the two units. Most likely that will be the bottleneck. Your NAS will only see the speed between it and the powerline unit it's connected to, not the powerline speeds themselves.

rickmomenton · 6 Jan 2018 at 14:33

bledd said:
Powerline is causing the first limit.

13mb sounds like 100mbit limit from either a switch,port or cable. (100mbit = 12.5mb/s)

Is your TV gigabit?

I'd use a dedicated player instead of the TV for playback.

I think you hit the nail on the head, my TV has a fast ethernet port 10/100 so not gigabit and this explains the speeds, I will invest in a dedicated player.
Many thanks to everyone for the help.

Caged · 6 Jan 2018 at 18:07

What video content are you sending to a TV that could possibly require more than 100Mbps?

bledd · 6 Jan 2018 at 20:17

It's more likely to be a video format that the TVs decoder chip doesn't have the power to handle.

Unless it's some 4K ultra file type or something.

neodude · 9 Jan 2018 at 15:02

Your LG TV will have a 10/100 ethernet socket so your Gigabit switch is superfluous. I have the same issue when trying to stream 4K HDR content. Switch to Wifi.