I recently installed Windows 7 on both my desktop machine, and my laptop, thinking it would be an improvement over XP, and wanting to skip Vista. I purchased versions including Windows Media Center, so that I could more effectively use my PCs to broadcast content to media extenders in my home (PS3, XBox 360). I've upgraded my network to wireless N, via a Linksys WRT610, which is upgraded to the latest firmware. I've always had occasional slowdowns in my network with respect to video streaming, since the XBox and PS3 were connecting at G speeds. However, about 6 weeks ago, I made two changes: 1-Upgraded both computers to Windows 7 2-Purchased a Dlink DAP-1522, and set it in bridge mode. I then connected both the PS3 and XBox 360 to it via cables, so that they would be connecting at N speeds instead of G. This new setup works fantastic in these scenarios. A) XBox is pulling content off the internet, through the router, and into the XBox. No stuttering, slowdowns, or anything. Runs silky smooth. B) PS3 is pulling content off the internet, through the router, and into the PS3. Similar to XBox performance. C) Either of my two PCs are watching content that is coming directly through the router from the internet, and into the PC. No slowdowns or stuttering. However....this is where things get dicey. Any time that I try to stream content off one of the PCs to the XBox or PS3, or from the desktop to the laptop, I get stuttering in the video. I'm using some network meter gadgets that are showing that when I'm trying to stream a video, the content will be downloading from my desktop to my laptop in bursts of 2.5 MBit/s. That's faster than my Internet connection (2.1 Mbps), yet it stutters this way, whereas if I'm pulling the same video off a website, there will be no stuttering. That having been said, wireless N should be capable of far greater speeds. As far as I understand it, I should be able to see speeds ranging from 15 - 37.5 MBit/s. I've never gained anything like that under Windows 7. I've also tested with plain file downloads....moving a large file from my desktop to my laptop over the wireless. When I first set up this network, about 1.5 years ago, I tested with my WinXP machine, streaming to a friend's WinXP laptop, which had a USB Wireless N NIC. I was able to move a 1 GB zip file from my desktop to the laptop in about 8.5 minutes. So, now, with my laptop running wireless N and Win7 64, and my desktop running wireless N and Win7 64, I've tried moving a 3.3 GB file. I used it with regular Copy/Paste...I put the file into the documents folder in my Homegroup, and then, from the laptop, grabbed it, and tried to move it to the C drive. The Copy dialogue box opened, and shows that this will take *3 and a half hours*. The file is moving at 356 KB/s. This can't be right. This is orders of magnitude slower than XP was for moving files. I look at that, and wonder if the video stuttering is a related problem. Here are the steps I've taken to troubleshoot. 1-Turn off both PCs, then turn off router, modem, and bridge. Leave them all off. Turn modem back on, wait 90 seconds. Turn router back on, wait 90 seconds. Turn bridge back on, wait 90 seconds. Turn both PCs back on. Problem persisted. 2-Now, thinking that maybe the issue was with the bridge, as that was the most recent component I added (I purchased it the same week I upgraded my PCs to Win7), I tried connecting the laptop wirelessly to the router, and still experienced slowdowns. I then plugged the laptop into the bridge via a cable, and saw speeds of 4.5 MBit/sec....yet video still stutters. 4.5 still seemed slow, so I tried downloading Wireshark to see if something was going on in the network, and noticed that while Wireshark was downloading at the same time as I was downloading the 3.3 GB zip file, my speed went up to 7.2 MBit/s. But as soon as the Wireshark file finished downloading, my speed dropped to 4.5 MBit/s again. 3-Next I started reading about problems with Windows Media Player streaming content......so I read up, went into options, and turned off RTSP/UDP. I did that on both the laptop and the desktop. The problem persisted. 4-I've tried using Tversity and PS3 Media Server, to see if they would stream content more effectively, but they don't really see the files in the directories I'm trying to stream between devices, so I have no way to test them. 5-I've also gone into the Performance tab in Windows Media Player, and changed Network Buffering from "Use default buffering" to "Buffer 60 seconds". That also didn't help. 6-I've shut off my Windows Firewall on both PCs as well. 7-My router does not have QoS activated (nor does my bridge). 8-Signal strength from my desktop to my router is 40%. Signal strength from my router to my bridge is 98%. I can't for the life of me figure out what is going on. It makes no sense. Everything works fine when I'm streaming off the Internet...but the Internet is theoretically the slowest link in my chain, given I have high speed light. I should be able to move files between machines in my network at much higher speeds than I can get them off the Internet....yet this is not proving to be the case. Proper streaming is something I've really been looking forward to being able to do...yet I can't. This is getting really frustrating. I'm fairly computer literate for a lay user, but I'm by no means an MCSE or network engineer. Am I losing it? Is this a problem with Windows 7's ability to stream content and move files? Or is it some kind of compatibility thing between some of the devices I have, and Windows 7? I *know* this network was faster under XP.....at least between PCs. Hopefully someone has some ideas about what I should try next. Thanks, PLROAD

I've done further testing, and it appears that some videos stream ok, and others do not. They might all be in WMV format, but one is 120 mb in size, and another is 30 mb in size, for instance. The 120 mb one stutters, the 30 mb one plays fine. Is it possible that some videos are just encoded in a way that they don't stream very well? Or could it be a file size problem? I tried unplugging the PS3 from the bridge, and connecting wirelessly. The same videos that don't play well through the bridge still didn't play well, and the ones that did play well through the bridge still played well wirelessly. There was no difference in file transfer speed, regardless of whether I was doing it wirelessly or through the bridge. Even connecting the laptop to the bridge, I was still only getting 3.4 MBit/s, and it was expecting to take 2.5 hours to move the 3.3 GB file. PLROAD

Hi PLROAD, I know its been over 8 months since you last posted - I'm just running out of answers. I have my PS3 downstairs connected (wired) to a router with that connected to a 'home network plug' to upstairs with another router (in switch mode, so it doesn't to any routing) connecting two PC's. (after reading that I realise it sounds confusing sorry). I am recieving basically the same issues as yourself and I am wondering if you found the problem? thanks cojamistil

Hi people, i've observed a similar behavior, in a different setup. I have 1 machine with Win7 and/or Win2k8 R2. I have 1 XBox360 and 1 Xtreamer. Now, my Internet speed clocks at 60MBit/s, or a download speed of ~7MByte/sec. When copying a file of any size from my windows box down to the Xtreamer via Windows networking, the most i get is ~3MByte/sec. If i try the same thing via FTP, it also caps at 3MByte/sec. I really wonder WTF is going on with the networking.