I’m on my second WDTV Live Plus. (My first came basically DOA and although I was able to eventually fire it up and update the firmware, it still would regularly freeze and fail). Time to get WiFi streaming to work.
I’ve read all I could find on this forum regarding the various WiFi adapters for the Live Plus. I have read/reviewed the list on the WD support site regarding the “devices that have been tested and are known to be compatible with” my WD TV Live Plus Media Player (which is indeed running firmware 1.06.16_B). I have a D-Link DIR-625, which is one of the approved routers.
I’m looking for recommendations from this community regarding WiFi adapters that you folks =KNOW= will work based on your =first-hand experience=. I.E., you bought it (from where? That’s important); you could determine that it was the correct Model and Version/Revision; it arrived; you plugged it in and it worked (and continues to work), streaming flawlessly.
(I have the troublesome Airlink 101 Golden 150 AWLL5077. It works in every other device – laptop or desktop – that I have ever plugged it into. It does =not= work in the WD TV Live Plus. Every time, after typing in the WiFi password, the WD says “can’t connect – limited or no connectivity” or whatever that error message is. And this is 6 feet from the router with a line-of-sight view. I have know idea what “Version/Revision” it is because that info is not on the dongle and not on the packaging. Heck, I even opened a trouble-ticket with Airlink and they couldn’t tell me how to determine the “Version/Revision” and whether it was possible to upgrade it to “REV 0200”).
I can tell you that it is not possible to upgrade an adapter to a higher revision no matter what brand it is. The revision numbers in the WD chart are the hardware revision level of the adapter. There is no way that you can change the hardware to a different revision level. When the revision level changes, the adapter usually uses a different chipset that requires a different driver. Since there is no way to install drivers in the WD box, the WD firmware has to include drivers for all of the adapters that it supports. That is why you have to stick to WD’s list of approved adapters.
I can sympathize with what you are saying…sometimes it is very difficult to tell what version an adapter is by looking at the box, and it is even worse if you buy one online. I have been using a Cisco/Linksys WUSB600N V2 adapter and it has been working very well for me. (I purchased that one because I wanted to use the 5 GHz band). I just looked at the box and there is no version number listed anywhere. I remember when I bought it that I had to look at the picture of it on the retailer’s website and compare that to the pictures of the devices on the manufacturer’s website. Fortunately, the V1 and V2 adapters looked different enough that I could tell which one that I was buying.
Your problem has affected many users. That is why WD has WiFi built in to their new Streaming Media Player. With that box no one has to worry about which adapter will be compatible.
Thanks for your reply, and for providing one important bit of info that I had not gotten elsewhere: that the reference to “version/revision” is to a hardware level. I – and I think many others – may have thought it to refer to a firmware load, which of course might be changeable.
I got the Live Plus before I was even aware that WD had a newer device – the streaming media player. Good idea to integrate the WiFI (and compete beter with Roku), but that doesn’t solve the problem for everyone with the older machine.
But: I’ve made progress, and may have licked the problem. I’ll verify and write it up.
