SB3 and Netgear DG834PN....Issues

[peejay]

Did you check which channel your wireless router is running on, as Koenraadr suggested? Depending upon your country, the default channel will change, but moving the channel around worked for me after I was having dreadful problems like the ones you describe. Most people leave the channel settings alone, which means if you live in close proximity to others, you can have 5 or more signals all colliding (The SB3 seems a little sensitive to this - I guess streaming devices would be...). Try a channel setting several channels away from the default.

So, it turned out for me to be interference (at least that's the conclusion I came to).
Good luck, and don't give up. It took me some weeks to resolve my problem, but you'll find the forum members here very sympathetic and helpful, and once the SB3 is up and running, it's worth every bead of sweat.....

[Empgamer]

That's pretty much the same as mine. Personally I only connected with ethernet to make sure everything worked. Once that was confirmed I found it more a hindrance than a help becuase it will circumvent pretty much all wireless access requirements.

If it works on ethernet, at least the SB3 is OK (unless the wireless card is stuffed). I'd then pull the ethernet and pull the power on the SB and start again. Try turning BOTH security and mac access off to get it working at first (remember to 'Apply' these settings). If DHCP is working correctly it will normally assign the same address to the same device once it's connected for the first time. One thing that I forgot a few times is that for each and every change with the router you have to click 'apply' (I applied and exited each time I'd finished a batch of changes). My SB by default came up with 255.255.000.000 in it's subnet and I'd entered the wrong default gateway that it asked for (e.g. not 192.168.000.001). If both mac recognition control and security is turned off the SB3 should connect fine as you essentially have an open network that all and sundry could connect to.

With 6 above, you access the section from one of the groups of settings in the third block down on the left of router home page, something to do with IP or LAN/WAN I think (not at that PC now). You can go in and just bring up currently attached devices and resrve it that address. If you slimserver is getting the same address every time (as is likely if it's on the main PC) you probably won't need it but I did as a belt and braces).

Final thought. Does your pass key have letters and numbers in it? I am told SB3 will often conect when there are both, sometimes not if it's just numbers. My first mission was to get it working without any security at all. Once all was turned off that was an absolute doddle. For me I would turn both off, apply, and strat from there. I shall now slowly go through and re-enable security. Mac access control is fine.

I'm on channel 11 IIRC.

[Mark Lanctot]

Troubleshooting guide here:

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cg...emsSecondGuide

Incidentally Big AAC, you should be using the following settings:

- if you're using "Automatically detect IP address", OK, you'll probably get 192.168.0.100 or something. If you assign your own IP address, which is highly advisable, try 192.168.0.3.

- subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0. These numbers are placeholders for the "192.168.xxx.xxx" numbers. 255 means "don't change these numbers", 0 means "these numbers can change". So 255.255.255.0 means accept IP addresses that start at 192.168.0.1 and end with 192.168.0.255. All devices on your LAN must have the same subnet mask or they will think they are on different subnets and won't talk to each other. So do NOT use 255.255.0.0 or your SB won't talk to your SlimServer because your SlimServer machine's subnet mask is 255.255.255.0!

- gateway, in your case, is 192.168.0.1. This is your router, your "gateway" to the Internet, with the Internet on one side and your LAN on the other. It's the device the SB must talk to in order to get out to the Internet.

- your SlimServer is at 192.168.0.2.

- the SB uses 3 digits for all IP addresses. So 192.168.0.1 = 192.168.000.001.

[Mark Lanctot]

Oh and if MAC address filtering isn't working something is fundamentally flawed. Either the router is defective or you have the MAC address wrong.

Check that the MAC address is what you expect. The MAC address is printed on the bottom of the SB but it can be changed. You can check what it is by pressing and holding the left cursor button, then "Current Settings". I believe it's item 12 of 18.

[Big AAC]

Well things certanly seem more stable now than ever before. Although i still don't have WEP or WPA enabled i now have the SB3 MAC address listed as a 'trusted wireless station' on the NETGEAR control panel. I haven't turned 'Access Control' on though, does this mean that MAC filtering isn't trully ON? do i need to activate this? the SB3 is definately a trusted device but i'm not sure if that really means anything without access control switched on?

Interestingly i had a message to say that slim.exe couldn't start when i switched the PC on earlier. I see this is a Vista error though and a simple click on slimserver on my desktop got is up and running again.

I will continue to monitor things over the coming days as i really want to make sure i have this running stable on wireless before i start messing with settings again. I will make a note of all my current setting so that i can revert back should everything go wrong!


A question though. I have the buffer running constantly when songs are playing, is it natural for the buffer to gradually decrease down to 0% when the song finishes? it shoots stright back to 100% when the next rack starts but just wanted to check!

BTW thanks everyone for the help to date, it really has helped because a few days ago i really thought i'd be taking my SB back.

[Empgamer]

You will need to check the box/radio button to Enable Access Control for it to be actually active. At the moment the Netgear is aware of what devices are trusted but will not do anything about it until it's told. IIRC I turned off my SB3, switched on mac acceess control, applied new settings and turned on SB. All went fine. Out of interest, have you moved the SB away from the router yet?

With this router you can do a back-up of the current settings, somewhere down the bottom set of menu options on the left. You may have to go into maintenance etc, can't recall. Just save that as something like, 'SB working - no security' in a suitable folder and you can re-load it if it all goes wrong. Saves messing writing loads of changes down, esp if you make a few. Apologies if you are already aware of this.

Also, have you tried different channels re signal strength/interference if you get drop out when you do move it away? Did you roll back the firmware or are you still on the latest?

Can't help with buffers I'm afraid. Still getting to grips with the whole thing. Superb piece of kit.

[Mark Lanctot]

A question though. I have the buffer running constantly when songs are playing, is it natural for the buffer to gradually decrease down to 0% when the song finishes? it shoots stright back to 100% when the next rack starts but just wanted to check!

Yes, this is normal. It means the data is being sent faster than it's played (this is good) and so near the end of the song there's no more data to send, it just plays from the buffer, emptying it.

The buffer is 25 Mb = 3.125 MB, so some very small MP3s can fit entirely in the buffer.

[Big AAC]

With this router you can do a back-up of the current settings, somewhere down the bottom set of menu options on the left. You may have to go into maintenance etc, can't recall. Just save that as something like, 'SB working - no security' in a suitable folder and you can re-load it if it all goes wrong. Saves messing writing loads of changes down, esp if you make a few. Apologies if you are already aware of this.

Also, have you tried different channels re signal strength/interference if you get drop out when you do move it away? Did you roll back the firmware or are you still on the latest?

OK, next step is to try it with Access control turned on then. Thanks for the tip on backing up. saves me writing down a whole load of settings!!!

my default channel was 11 and i've changed to 2 which seems to have helped. I've also rolled back to V1.03.18 and i'm wondering if this might have helped actually! Might be a line of enquiry for Netgear/Slim devices to look into?

The only inconsistancies that i'm experiencing now relate more to Vista really. I notice that Slimserver isn't running automatically on startup even though it is set to. Its not appearing in the system tray either even when running!!

Will have to look into this further though as i know its been reported by a number of Vista users which is reassuring i guess!

Just set up Last.fm last night aswell...WOW!

Mark - thanks for clarifyng!

[Empgamer]

Glad it's all working. Wonder if any of your problems could be Vista related at all?

[Big AAC]

not sure, i think it may have been a mix of both Vista and the Router settings i ha been using. The slimserver icon still won't show in my system tray, its definately running and is listed under the exceptions in defender. It seems that, based on the vista thread, there hasn't been a definitive answer on this!? time will tell.

I have just now switched Access Control on and all seems to be fine. As correctly described earlier though, MAC filtering should work anyway!

Anyways, I'm saving the NETGEAR settings as i go along. so if it should go t*ts up i can revert back to these settings.

next stop is WEP, if that works (along with MAC filtering) i'm tempted to leave it there to be honest.

Oh, and just in case anybody missed my last post, Last.fm....WOW!