Network performance was great with XP, poor with 7

horseflesh · July 11, 2012, 3:06pm

A couple of days ago I had my WD TV happily playing HD files over SMB. The file server was a Windows XP system.

I upgraded the system to Windows 7 and the trouble started.

Shares were not visible (fixed by a registry tweak seen here http://wdtvhd.com/index.php?s=b5c3e23cd3624a105d5e5aa01ea5e6c3&showtopic=16801&view=findpost&p=32194))
Once the share was usable, performance was very poor. This was not limited to the WD TV client, and the internets are full of other people with slow Win 7 file sharing. Performance is so bad that I navigating the share is slow and playing any kind of file is not possible.

If anyone has solved this problem I would love to hear how you did it.

I can provide network hardware details, but since the XP system worked fine there’s clearly no major problem like a chewed up cable or dying switch. Sadly the problem is going to be a lot more subtle… I don’t want to throw money at it by buying new networking gear and hoping for the best but that may be my only option!

Wizer · July 13, 2012, 6:30pm

Have you tested both wired and wireless ?

Try to check the network performance when the WD TV is not connected and see if any difference

horseflesh · July 14, 2012, 6:05am

I did not break up the network to test wired vs wireless. I did keep playing with Windows 7 networking toggles for a while, flipping them off and on based on forum posts I found. Eventually I hit on a combination that allowed the file sharing speed between the Win 7 box and the WD TV to return to normal, or close enough to normal that hi def files would play without skipping. I can’t even say what I did; by the end of the long night I was trying anything!

I’ll try to dump my Win 7 settings and follow up here in case it helps someone else.