WDTV Live Ethernet and Wifi issue

Community Archives WD TV Live Networking
1

HI, 

I am using WDTV Live for past 1 year. Surely it’s a geat device to have in Living room. I have couple of questions here:- 

  1. Whati is actual speed of inbuilt ethernet in WDTV Live. (AS i feel data transfer is better on Wifi than using Ethernet/LANport).  Router is E3000. I play movie falwless using wifi. 

  2. I am using Wifi Adapter D-Link Wireless N150 USB Adapter(DWA-125/ IEEE802.11b/g/n). Still wdtv  is not able to see 5GHz (300MBPS Wireless N) wifi signal. It always see normal 2.4GHz (Wireless B/G) std. 

Can i expect answer from WDTV or expert on this? 

Device:- WDTV Live

Router :-Linksys E3000

USB Adapter:- D-Link Wireless N 150 USB Adapter (DWA-125).

2

Forgot to update WDTV Firmare: 1.06.15_V 

3

I can confirm now that WDTV LIve LAN is 10/100 MB Port. As per Linksys : :- 

The LED lights up green when the port is
connected to a gigabit port or blue when the
port is connected to a 10/100 port.

4

 Still wdtv  is not able to see 5GHz

The DWA-125 isn’t dual-band, is it?

5

It works only on B/G network. So it will not connect to 5 GHZ. 

Standards   IEEE 802.11g
IEEE 802.11b
USB 2.0
Frequency Range  

2.4GHz to 2.4835GHz

 

 
6

So, does that answer your question?

7

I have got answer for 2nd , what about First., I feel Wifi is still better than LAN … Any advice on that. 

8

Regardless of what speeds are possible between the wifi points, any USB adaptor will be limited by the USB2 speed.

The USB2 has a maximum of 480 Mbit/sec, but you’ll rarely encounter that burst rate.  Sustained USB2 speeds tend to be closer to 120-180 Mbit/sec, from what I can gather, and in my experience.

Obviously, if a 120Mbit/sec throughput can be maintained, then that will exceed the max of a 10/100 network.

But, there can be conditions where the USB throughput can be even lower (as also can the 10/100 network – even with just the header information, you’ll never quite see the 100 Mbit/sec max), so there’s no “guarantee” that a wifi USB connection will always be faster.

ETA:

If your wireless N can work at the max N speed, it’d exceed the USB throughput.  But most N connections are far below the max.  What actual speed you get will also “decide” whether N can be faster than wired, or not.  AFAIK, most N connections top out closer to 130 Mbit/sec, unless you use bonded channels.

9

Many Thanks . 

10

You’re welcome.

Although you replied to thank me, while I was editing my answer, to include the fact that the wirelessN speed will also come into play.

As I said, if you can get 130 Mbit/sec out of a single channel (or if you can bond the connection to use 2 channels and double your bitrate), then that’d be right in the USB2 happy spot, and would exceed the 10/100 max speed.

But, if your wireless N connects at lower speeds, then the 10/100 can be faster.

But, even if one is faster than the other, it’s generally not by a whole lot, unless there’s something seriously wrong.

Obviously if your wireless is only getting 15 Mbit/sec then the LAN will be significantly faster.

But, if you do manage 120-130 for wireless N, and 90-ish for LAN, obviously the wifi  is faster, but it’s not like it’s 10 times as fast, or anything.  33% faster is still an improvement, of course.