WN-100 - is this for real?

[thinskin]

Without checking for reviews, I requested the WN-100 for Christmas. There were some glitches with shipping but it eventually arrived. Setup was easy and the size of the device is perfectly small.

But the speed... is this for real? Is this some kind of joke product?

On popcornhour.com: "Utilizing the latest WiFi technology, the WN-100 will provide fast, secure and reliable connections"

I would bet that my old G devices are about twice as fast. Copying a 12GB movie (a 2 hour movie) over my N network takes 4 hours.

Is this something that can be improved dramatically with firmware upgrades or should I be getting my money back as soon as possible?

If this keeps up, Popcorn Hour might as well start making those faux electronics devices that they use in furniture stores... because the insides are pathetic.

[haizman]

(01-09-2009 11:55 PM)thinskin Wrote:  Without checking for reviews, I requested the WN-100 for Christmas. There were some glitches with shipping but it eventually arrived. Setup was easy and the size of the device is perfectly small.

But the speed... is this for real? Is this some kind of joke product?

On popcornhour.com: "Utilizing the latest WiFi technology, the WN-100 will provide fast, secure and reliable connections"

I would bet that my old G devices are about twice as fast. Copying a 12GB movie (a 2 hour movie) over my N network takes 4 hours.

Is this something that can be improved dramatically with firmware upgrades or should I be getting my money back as soon as possible?

If this keeps up, Popcorn Hour might as well start making those faux electronics devices that they use in furniture stores... because the insides are pathetic.

I tried streaming via a wireless N gaming adapter last year and it was pathetically sloooooow (I measured the speed w/ DU meter to double check). Anyway, I read somewhere that some N devices and routers need to use AES for encryption and not TKIP. I made this change and the difference was night and day. I started seeing transfer speeds that were consistenly hitting 7 MB/sec and up.

This may not apply to you, but it may be something to check if you haven't already. Good luck. I eventually hard-wired to my PCH (bigtime pain in the ass, but now worth it).

[chris57]

Try using FTP to transfer the file, its quicker than SMB. I get 1.7MB/s which is still not good.

You would be better with a second router set up as a wireless bridge if you want to stream anything other than SD xvid or copy large files.

[thinskin]

I think I may end up hard wiring it which will most certainly be a Big Time Pain In The Ass. Will my highest quality 1080p files stream then?

[chris57]

Via wired and provided that in total your video, audio and subtitles streams do not exceed 42nb/s then yes. You will need SNB for ISO files and http for high bitrate files.

[thinskin]

(01-11-2009 12:15 PM)chris57 Wrote:  Via wired and provided that in total your video, audio and subtitles streams do not exceed 42nb/s then yes. You will need SNB for ISO files and http for high bitrate files.

Just making sure those are typos... 42nb = 42mb and SNB = SMB right?

[Kalle Andersson]

I got my WN-100 for christmas as well... I reverted to wired connection because it was too slow and it seemed the samba share was not working at all anymore. I usually got the password prompt but no more, works without problems with the wired connection. But wired and wireless was with manual IP.

I'm using the WN-100 on a PC (with the drivers from http://support.popcornhour.com/article.aspx?id=1065) and it's OK there. I guess the adapter and USB requires too much processing power from the Popcorn Hour CPU.

I hope other people take the advices about the WN-100 and to get the correct expectation. It's ok if you're only streaming xvid etc, SD and web content, but no more, not even IMHO transferring files to and from the Popcorn Hour.
Eventhough I might've been able to make Samba work I wouldn't be satisfied with 1 MB / s.

[thinskin]

Oh and I almost forgot to mention the other wonderful bonus: more frequent crashes! I had some friends over for a movie tonight. One medium length movie playing off the internal HD crashed twice! Great great addition to my system! Does 10% of what I need and interrupts movie viewing with much-beloved restarts. What is their return policy?

[LolliPopp]

Hm i bought a Tplink Wifi adapter and the tplink draft n Router together and have no trouble with full hd mkvs and streaming @ all.

tplink TL-WR941ND as Router and
TP-LINK TL-WN 821 N USB Stick

[chris57]

(01-11-2009 10:26 PM)thinskin Wrote:  Just making sure those are typos... 42nb = 42mb and SNB = SMB right?

Try typing many posts and you do make a lot of typo's, you got it though.

If you have freezing issues then:-
Use manual not auto ip
Turn OFF torrents, casgle, upnp server and see if you still get them.

[RoelRoel]

I have used SMB but the speed is disturbably slow: 150 kB/s
I have a Wireless N router (i think D-link DIR-615, I will check it when i'm home)...
I knew it was slow but this slow?!?

[chris57]

For an accurate reading use filezilla and turn on the NMT FTP server app.

Then enter:-
Host: Your PCH ip
User: ftpuser
password: 1234
port: 21

Then navigate to the video folder and transfer a file via FTP to the PCH. Only do the one as it splits the speed if you do two on default settings. That will show you your MB/s speed.

I am 12 feet away direct line of site and get 1.7MB/s or 1700kb/s.

[thinskin]

I am using a D-Link DNS-323 so I think SMB is my only choice. Am investigating.

[john_nj]

While I was waiting for the WN-100 to ship I instead bought an Apple Airport Express that I configured as a wireless bridge on my 802.11N 5 GHz-only network.

Even though it's 1 floor below the AP (an Apple Time Capsule not running as a router) the throughput is fast enough for the PCH to stream 1080 mkv, vob, and dvd iso without any glitching and only about 2 seconds buffering (via SMB share on my Windows Home Server). It reports a 180 mbit connection. I've watched complete full length 1080 mkv's already, so it seems pretty solid.

Given the fact that the PCH is stuck behind a wall-mounted TV in our bedroom, the small size of the Express (it's about the same size as a macbook power adapter) worked nicely.

I had tried to cancel the WN-100 order, but PCH never responded and shipped it anyway. It actually showed up yesterday and I was pretty disappointed to read on the box that it didn't even support 5GHz N. I doubt that PCH will respond to a return request, so maybe I'll sell it on ebay for $1.

Oh, well. At least everything works.

John

[cr1cr1]

I think there is an issue with the USB port rather than the WN-100 adapter. My mistake buying this dongle, without looking up first, assuming that draft-n will deliver some speed. Well, it does, bot only on my laptop not on this very very slow device.

I am saying that there is a problem with the USB because copying from an attached usb hdd to internal hdd has about the same max speed as copying through wireless: 800KB/s (that's kiloBYTES). On cable reaches a decent speed of up to 5MBytes/s

As a lesson for all.. please check first for problems in what you want to buy, then for reviews.