Billion 7800DXL Orange port lights

[Simon]

I'm trying to connect the above router to my PVR so as to view / record Freeview Data channels (Vintage TV), but the port light on the router is staying orange, meaning, I think, that the connection is only 10/100 and not Gigabit Ethernet.  The channel won't display at all at the moment, and I've also tried viewing YouTube via my Yamaha Bluray player, which also only connects at 10/100 (orange light), and any videos just constantly buffer and play almost frame by frame.  I believe that all four ports should be Gigabit connections, and I can't see any settings in the PVR to change, so how can I get this to work?

[pctech]

As you say Simon the ports are all GigE capable and there's no way to throttle the ports down to 100 Meg so this means that either the PVR/DVD player is only offering 100 Meg or you have the same hardware issue I had on a 7800N where one of the ports would only connect at 10 Mbps

A hardware replacement fixed that.

In the meantime if you haven't already try a new Ethernet lead or try resetting the router back to factory settings incase you've got a gremlin in your firmware.

Apologies in advance if you've tried both of these.

[Simon]

I haven't tried a new Ethernet lead, as I assumed they were all the same.   

But I've tried all three spare ports, and all display Orange.  The port which is connected to my 8 year old computer is a nice green! 

[Steve]

It's worth swapping leads over if you can or testing with the PC on the various router ports, not all ethernet leads are the same i.e. Cat 5,5e and 6 offer different levels of performance.

[Simon]

I've ordered a Cat 6 lead, which it states is Gigabit, so will see what happens when that arrives.

[nowster]

Some cheaper Ethernet leads only have four wires in them, which is perfectly fine for 10BASE-T or 100BASE-T, but won't work for 1000BASE-T.

[Gary]

Cat 5e should be fine, unless every single component in the network is gigabit rated, then you will never have a gigabit network, because your network will always run at the speed of your slowest device. Cat5e cable of good quality can run near or at gigabit speeds, it just cannot be "certified" for this use. By comparison, Cat6 is designed especially for gigabit use, and is certified to operate at said speed. It becomes a matter of whether or not you want to pay extra money, for little or no noticeable improvement in the performance. In most cases, it makes more sense to go with Cat5e.

[Steve]

Someone will tell me I wrong I'm sure, but isn't 100Mbit/s plenty for what your trying to achieve? The Youtube streaming I wonder whether that is a broadband bandwidth issue and also is there a facility on the player to increase the buffer size?

[Gary]

I think you are right, Steve. Considering the port on FTTC BTOR modems are only 100Mbps and that streams everything as fast as you can want for most of us, there is no need for a gig connection, it sounds more like an issue with the PVR/and or Router. Even 4K TV HDMI leads only transfer at 100 megabytes a second.

[Gary]

I'm trying to connect the above router to my PVR so as to view / record Freeview Data channels (Vintage TV), but the port light on the router is staying orange, meaning, I think, that the connection is only 10/100 and not Gigabit Ethernet.  The channel won't display at all at the moment, and I've also tried viewing YouTube via my Yamaha Bluray player, which also only connects at 10/100 (orange light), and any videos just constantly buffer and play almost frame by frame.  I believe that all four ports should be Gigabit connections, and I can't see any settings in the PVR to change, so how can I get this to work?

How is your blue ray player connected? Is it wireless or Ethernet? Bandwidth could be an issue, or the router is a bottleneck with from its Wan/ADSL connection to LAN. Also if using wireless especially 2.4Ghz which suffers loads of interference vs 5Ghz and also has not so much bandwidth you could have issues unless your router supports airtime fairness, as it will slow down to the slowest wireless device on your network. Basically If you have wireless 802.11g kit you wont be getting good transfer speeds. Airtime Fairness gives equal amounts of air time (instead of equal number of frames) to each client regardless of its theoretical data rate. This ensures higher download speed to latest devices when slower devices are connected.

[nowster]

Cat 5e should be fine, unless every single component in the network is gigabit rated, then you will never have a gigabit network, because your network will always run at the speed of your slowest device.

Utter rot! I can transfer files at 900Mbps between two ends of my home network (three gigabit switches) despite my Satellite PVR only having a very slow 100Mbps-only port, my SIP ATAs only having 10Mbps ports, and most of the inter-switch cabling being CAT5 (not even 5e).

[Simon]

To answer several points - the Bluray player is a top of the range Yamaha and the PVR is a Panasonic Freeview HD hard drive / DVD unit, both of which are less than 2 years old.  The fact that I'm getting similar symptoms on both devices (problems streaming data) would indicate a network issue.  I can stream happily on all other connected devices, both wired and over WiFi, so I don't think it's a bandwidth issue. 

[Gary]

Utter rot!

900Mbps is not 1000Mbps  But I was thinking of wi-fi not Ethernet so oops

[Gary]

 

To answer several points - the Bluray player is a top of the range Yamaha and the PVR is a Panasonic Freeview HD hard drive / DVD unit, both of which are less than 2 years old.  The fact that I'm getting similar symptoms on both devices (problems streaming data) would indicate a network issue.  I can stream happily on all other connected devices, both wired and over WiFi, so I don't think it's a bandwidth issue. 

That didn't answer the questions really, Simon. Have you got wireless 802.11g devices mixed with wireless 802.11n? Also what frequency are they on 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz (makes a difference) If your router has the appropriate settings and CPU grunt to cope with streaming things should be ok, but it will slow to the speed of the slowest device which may be an old 802.11g device, which is a theoretical 54Mbps in reality a lot less sometimes also 2.4Ghz is affected by interference a great deal more than 5Ghz and has less bandwidth.

  Bandwidth over wifi may be an issue, also it does not matter if they are top of the range two years ago, or yesterday. My BDP-S790 Blu-ray is 3 years old as is my Sony HX853 TV and they both stream youtube netflicks etc fine with no buffering at 1080P, but that was only after I invested in more bandwidth (fibre) as my old line was a mess (remember the dropouts I had) and I got a better router with things like Airtime Fairness, also since I have 802.11ac devices the router has helped my older 802.11n hardware the newer ac routers give legacy 802n devices a bit of a boot up the backside compared with some 802.n routers. Best way though is to wire the whole lot up with Ethernet Cat 5e and switches because no matter what, wifi is pants compared with cabled networks.

[pctech]

Not used Yamaha AV gear (didn't even know they made Blu Ray players) but have to say I found the YT and iPlayer clients on the Panasonic Freesat box not great, albeit the box was connected to wireless access point as I didn't want to trail an Ethernet lead from my router.

Anyway, were these working ok with your router before Simon?

[Simon]

That didn't answer the questions really, Simon. Have you got wireless 802.11g devices mixed with wireless 802.11n? Also what frequency are they on 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz (makes a difference) If your router has the appropriate settings and CPU grunt to cope with streaming things should be ok, but it will slow to the speed of the slowest device which may be an old 802.11g device, which is a theoretical 54Mbps in reality a lot less sometimes also 2.4Ghz is affected by interference a great deal more than 5Ghz and has less bandwidth.

  Bandwidth over wifi may be an issue, also it does not matter if they are top of the range two years ago, or yesterday. My BDP-S790 Blu-ray is 3 years old as is my Sony HX853 TV and they both stream youtube netflicks etc fine with no buffering at 1080P, but that was only after I invested in more bandwidth (fibre) as my old line was a mess (remember the dropouts I had) and I got a better router with things like Airtime Fairness, also since I have 802.11ac devices the router has helped my older 802.11n hardware the newer ac routers give legacy 802n devices a bit of a boot up the backside compared with some 802.n routers. Best way though is to wire the whole lot up with Ethernet Cat 5e and switches because no matter what, wifi is pants compared with cabled networks.

Sorry, Gary, but half of that may as well be in Chinese to me.  I've no idea what 802.11g, or 802.11n is, or how to find out what the devices are using, or what frequency they are on.  It's a Billion 7800DXL, so not a cheapo model, and it has more settings on it that I don't understand than those that I do.  I would have thought something like this would be a simple 'plug and play' type set up, and I can't see how I can watch a YouTube video on an iPad (wirelessly), perfectly, but the same video won't play on a wired connection to another device.  I'll see what happens when the new cable arrives, and take things from there.

[pctech]

The iPad will be a different video format and thus data rate than that requested by the PVR/Blu Ray box Simon.

If they are requesting full HD you will need a minimum speed of 4-4.5 Meg otherwise it will buffer horrendously.

What does the ThinkBroadband test show your connection as running at at the moment?

[Simon]

It's about 11Mb, Mitch. 

[pctech]

Something strange definitely occuring then.

[Simon]

Hopefully the new cable will arrive on Tuesday. 

[Simon]

Well, the Cat 6 cable arrived today, and there's still an orange light on the router and YouTube won't play.  So, I give up.  I now empathise with my friends and family, most of whom are even less technical than me, when they say, "Why can't it just bloody work?".   

[zappaDPJ]

And you think having technical knowledge will help get it to work?

[Simon]

There's probably some secret setting on the router that only the maker could possibly know where or what it is, given that most of the settings seem to just be incomprehensible random letters and numbers.   

[Steve]

If you connect your PC to these other ports what connection speed does it negotiate , i.e. if this was a router issue it would stay orange unlike the green light you get on your usual PC router port.

[zappaDPJ]

If you Google this problem it seems to be quite a common issue. I can't say I've seen much in the way of a fix though.