Owner's Manual

Appendix A

Troubleshooting

Media Center Extender

belong to them. Changing your router to operate on a different channel

may improve your performance.

To change your wireless networking channel, use the webpage

administration utility for your router. Consult your router instruction

manual for more details on changing channels and other advanced

configuration options for your wireless network.

Network setup changes

One of the more difficult modifications to make to your home

wireless network can also have the most significant impact on overall

performance. For example, you may have a work Computer in your office,

a family Computer in your living room that stores all of the media you

want access to, and a Media Center Extender in your master bedroom. If

your broadband Internet access enters your house in your office, you’ll

likely have both the family Computer and the Media Center Extender

connected wirelessly to the work Computer, which is connected directly

to the router (at the access point). But this type of configuration is not

supported because it causes streamed video and other media to travel

over the wireless network twice and can result in a seemingly unsolvable

network performance problem. Consider more complex modifications

to your home network, such as changing the point of entry for Internet

into your house. If you have a phone jack near the Computer in the

living room, perhaps the DSL or cable modem and router can move

there, and the office Computer can connect wirelessly to the network.

This configuration change allows the family Computer to connect to

the router with wired Ethernet, placing significantly less stress on the

network for streaming media playback.

Another option to consider is moving your wireless access point or

router to a different room in the house to reduce the overall wireless

distances or obstructions. Perhaps it is reasonably easy to run a longer

Ethernet wire between your family Computer and the access point, but

still locate it in another room.

Record TV shows at lower quality levels

If you cannot solve your network performance problems, one option

to consider is setting Windows Media Center to record TV shows at a

lower quality level. The lower recording levels for Windows Media Center

use less storage, and it requires less network bandwidth to stream