Hi,
I just bought a WD TV Live to use strictly for playing video at trade shows - don’t need the WiFi. Can it be turned off?
Thanks.
Not sure this is “turning it off”, but you can just not connect to a network. One option would be to choose “wired” as your connection, and then not plug in an ethernet cable.
-P
pearl wrote:
One option would be to choose “wired” as your connection, and then not plug in an ethernet cable.
Hi, Pearl
I’m not sure that will work
Raphael_C on 03-11-2011 03:11 PM
When the wired connection is active, the WD TV Live streaming does not broadcast any 802.11 probe requests.
http://community.wd.com/t5/ideas/v1/ideapage/blog-id/streaming_ideas/article-id/47/page/1#comments
JoeySmyth wrote:> Hi, Pearl> I’m not sure that will work
When the wired connection is active, the WD TV Live streaming does not broadcast any 802.11 probe requests.
http://community.wd.com/t5/ideas/v1/ideapage/blog-id/streaming_ideas/article-id/47/page/1#comments
Wow, that’s a nasty little problem. Doesn’t seem like to much of a security issue since it’s just a discovery request, but it does use power and add network traffc.
I can think of a few ways to prevent the probe requests (connect to a small battery powered WiFi drive etc) but that’s probably overkill and you are still using the WiFi adapter.
It’s the little things that kill…
-P
However on page 2 of that request.
http://community.wd.com/t5/ideas/v1/ideapage/blog-id/streaming_ideas/article-id/47/page/2
WD Response
Thank you for your reply. The TV Live built-in wireless feature give the convenience to connect to your network wirelessly. Not entering network settings for connecting would then bring the wireless component into disuse. If it isn’t connected to the wireless network it is disabled and no data transfer takes place. If you have any further questions, reply to this email and we will be happy to assist you.
Sincerely,
XXXXXXX
Western Digital Service and Support
As users have said its not a router so it cannot be connected to by another device even if the wifi was on. Network connection is the reason its called a live, WD envisaged that it would connecting to a network somehow.
You could potentially use a network loopback plug which will fool it into activating the wired connection and disable the radio interface.
Can you open the WD TV Live and remove the WiFi? On laptop computers you can unplug the WiFi from the motherboard. Is it the same way in the WD box or is the WiFi soldered to the the board?
It’s all soldered.
Not a good idea to remove the antenna from any wireless transmitter.
The transmitter stage (which is basically a special type of amplifier) is designed to drive a specific impedance.
Removing the antenna could potentially damage the transmitter or (even worse) introduce a lot of electro-magnetic interference.
Regards
slip
Buy a discontinued WDTV Live Hub … it doesn’t have Wi-Fi (unless you use a wireless dongle / adaptor)
I found a good picture of the board. The wireless module appears detached from the board, there is one screw behind the power holding it in place, and there is one cable attached to the board.
My question is, is this wireless module self contained? Or is the transmitter or any other wireless parts on the main board?
Thank you for the previous suggestions and tips. I’m just curious about how it works.
before trying to remove the physical wireless module
I would take a look at custom firmware
it’s beta only, and runs off a usb stick
you’d also have to do the system edits yourself
WARNING, WARNING
if you do this and mess it up your device will not boot
edit /init file to remove the networking bits
this file is responsible for all primary boot functions
it does 2 things related to networking
1. it inserts the kernel module needed for the wireless module to function.
you can remove or commend out that section so the module is never loaded
2. it starts all networking services, which could also be commented out or removed
either way physically opening the device or modifying the /init script
neither one of them is an ideal solution
the one safeguard you have of using custom firmware
all your edits reside on a usb thumbdrive
simply removing the thumbdrive, will allow the device to boot to a stock unchanged firmware
