I have a new livewire in a 1960 house with substandard grounding. I installed a new circuit for the SOHO office, and used that circuit for the initial testing. I plugged both units in and they instantly found eachother and all was well, no syncing, nothing. WD software reported 130Mb/s, I’m pretty happy.
I then sent a 500MB file over the ‘wire’ (using Total Commander file manager) and got a throughput of 13-1500KB/s, about two-thirds what I get from the wifi that caused me to pursue this in the first place. grr.
I then put it in place where it would actually be used, servicing a WD Live plus. using the laptop again, I LW util’d the connection again, my speed had dropped to 60-70Mb/s, about what I expected, leaving connecting on only the ‘good’ circuit and joining the older wiring. I then transferred the same 500MB file to and from a networked computer, and voila`, 13-1500KB/s transfer rate. hm…
I used the laptop for hours and determined that all connections were Much snappier and more consistent than my wifi ever thought about being, and excepting huge sustained transfers, I like it MUCH better, netflix on the lappy is drop-free currently, just plain better all around.
The utility also just came apart after 2 hours of usage, reported that it couldn’t find any HomePlug devices, ouch.
Went thru all the steps you’ve seen elsewhere and No Luck, no HomePlug devices found. (you’re gonna love this) as I completely gave up my hand hit the top of the lappy keyboard, hitting F5 and the browser was on top… yep, browser refreshed and I am actually connected to the network, though the utility says I’m not. Send huge file, throughput the same.
Rebooted computer and all was fine when util restarted, no fails in last 12 hours, but doubt I would pay attention if the utility said there was.
EDIT: Whoops, there it went ‘HomePlug Adapter NOT DETECTED’… bummer, I’m gonna have to wait until my currently transferring at full speed copy to the WD TV USB drive over the HomePlug network completes before I can reboot to convince the WD utility software that the network is operating just fine, thanx.
Transfers -TO- WD TV live plus are abysmal, -from- are pretty good – too bad that one-step ripping to the WD TV-attached USB drive was one of the primary missions in buying this combo. That said, I believe this is Samba? and it is notoriously slow in all consumer applications that I have read reviews of, no slam on WD there (the O!Play I am graduating from cannot do it at all without a user hack). I think that is why the WD TV Live with internal hard drive is kinda’ expensive, there is file handling improvements that make net writes better, but have not used it as a 1TB drive would insta-fill here and they didn’t see fit to offer a PILE of USB connections for it (if they Had, I’d have been on it like white on rice… basically add FIVE 2.0 or better USBs and we have a deal, I’d use the int HD as swap for the OS, lol. We’d FINALLY have room for a visualizations for music and stop melting the plasmas with 5 minutes wait for a TRULY, DEFINITIVELY BORING WD screensaver, hehe).
Anyway, hope there is some useful info here, mainly connection speed reported by WD LW utility software? who cares? if you are getting better than 1500KB/s in a huge file transfer, call it gravy. I get no noticeable difference in -actual- speed from 48-130Mbs.
One last thing, if you have a touch-controlled lamp on the circuit it will cycle throughout your usage of the Livewire. It is durrned comical - turn ON low, count five, medium, count five, high, count five, turn OFF. repeat forever.
I’m buying two more of them (another kit) so clearly the oddities haven’t chased me away.
I’m also buying a WD TV live plus for everyone in mmy family, best durrned $99 I ever spent, just for Pandora. I hope Pandora premium works with WD TV, but regardless, $36/year is WAY cheap for music perfectly suited to you (think Netflix recommendations based upon your ratings? Pandora does that with music, I’ve hit ‘don’t like’ Twice in 24 hours of usage and those were songs that were favorites of my first wife, ROFL. I would much prefer this to any XM).
Perfect entertainment appliance.
(no I am not rich if you are thinking so, it is seldom that you get to give a present this good that everyone including toddlers can figure out how to use, so i am debting).
