Windows 7 Back to investigating network discrepancy

[RodBarnes]

I'm trying to figure out why my htpc is suffering at streaming videos from the net. htpc is running Windows 7 SP1 with all the patches etc., except the annoying Windows 10 stuff. (I've not upgraded this to 10 nor do I plan to as it is an htpc using MediaCenter.)

htpc Configuration
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium x64
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H, 2.6GHz
BIOS: Award FE, 09/30/2010
Chipset: AMD 890GX
CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 600e, 2.2GHz, AM3
RAM - 8 GB:

• Patriot DDR3, 2GB, PC3-8500F, 533MHz (x2)
• Crucial DDR3, 2GB, PC3-10700H, 667MHz (x2)

Video - HDMI

• AMD Radeon HD 6850, 1GB GDDR5, 1GHz

Drives:

• 2TB Western Digital HDD SATA 2 (WD20EARS-00S8B1)
• RAID 0, 1TB Seagate SATA 2 (SG31000538AS)

TV Tuner:

• Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 dual-tuner ATSC

Another computer to which I've been comparing it (brawn) has since been upgraded to Windows 10 but even when brawn was running Windows 7 SP1, it never exhibited any issues with lag or bandwidth.

brawn Configuration
OS: Windows 10 Pro x64
Motherboard: Asrock Z97 Extreme6
BIOS: American Megatrends P1.70 12/17/2014
Chipset: Intel Z97
CPU: Intel i7-4790 3.6GHz LGA 1150
RAM - 8 GB:

• G.Skill DDR3 4GB PC14900 800MHz (x2) [F3-14900CL9D-8GBSR]

Video - DVI/VGA, dual monitor

• Zodac (Nvidia) GeForce GT 640

Drives - C: 240GB NTFS; D: - 465GB NTFS; I: - 465GB ReFS; J: - 700GB ReFS; K: - 700GB NTFS:

• 250GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO SATA 3
• 500GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO SATA 3 (x3)
• 750GB Samsung HDD 753LJ SATA 2 (x3)

I recognize that brawn is a more powerful computer but I don't think the processing power difference accounts for what I am seeing in the network results -- read on...

I did a test with htpc sitting in the same room as the router and brawn. I ran BitMeterOS to monitor bandwidth and streamed the same movie from Amazon prime (Maggie). I ran the tests with htpc over both WiFi (5Ghz) and the ethernet and the results/bandwidth was comparable, really no significant difference -- lagging occurs in both cases.

On brawn, results were smooth with zero lag. On htpc, it lagged periodically -- a skip about every 10 seconds. Looking at the attached files, it shows brawn averaging 351 kB/s with consistent 1 MB/s spikes while htpc is averaging 1.68 MB/s with inconsistent 4-6 MB/s spikes.

Questions
Can you help me understand why htpc is apparently pulling down more data for the same movie as brawn?
Can you help me understand why, despite this, htpc is lagging but brawn is not?

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Bottom line: older computer, slower performance. The i7 CPU is WAY more powerful than any Athlon CPU. that's 6th gen Intel So I chip. Chipset and onboard Mobo busses have icreased transfer speeds, larger on-chip cache sizes, faster DMA transfers between RAM and CPU, GPU, etc.

BIGBEARJEDI

Sent from my VS986 using Windows Forums mobile app

 

[RodBarnes]

As noted, I recognize the significant difference in overall performance between the two systems. I can see how it might be reflected in the lagging. But how would that explain the discrepancy in bandwidth; i.e., htpc is showing MORE bytes downloaded for the same movie stream?

 

[Neemobeer]

If the data received on the htpc is being corrupted by a hardware problem then the data would get re-sent which would result in what appears to be "more data" and because of the corruption you get skips.


A wireshark capture could confirm this.