Internet radio dropouts

Whats the switch, whats the router.

If you say home hub anywhere in there we get to laugh at you

Hi Peter, have you swapped the LAN cable  between your Internet router and your switch  as well (you only mention switch to NDX). As Gary says describe what router and switch you have, but if you do have a recent homehub 3 it should be ok, as I hear they are very much improved over earlier versions. If you run a upnp server and connect to your switch, or a switch port on your router does that work well, especially interested in the last option.

Simon

I have a Homehub 3 and have had no issues with internet radio on ND5.

The switch is a D-Link DES-108A. The router is Belkin N wireless F5D8233-4.

I just tried changing the modem-router cable and the switch-router cable. I even tried connecting the NDX directly to the Belkin, but the buffer level still cycles 100% > 90 > 70 > 50 > 30 > 0 > 30 > 50 > 70 .......

What baffles me is that there are no dropouts when the NDX is connected to the network wirelessly, so the network is capable of handling 320kbps radio.

It sounds like the switch port onuour Belkin is suspect. Try swapping the Internet router for something else. Just out of interest when you connect the NDX directly can you see  the config on the Belkin on a web browser or similar. Does it say 100Mbps full duplex on the port connected to the NDX. Try hardwiring these settings if you can and see if there is any difference.

Simon

I also face this problem, the buffer will drop in 320kbp iRadio when use the wire network but nothing any problem on wireless network, what a strange

Can naim investigate on this issue? I don't think it is the home network issue.

Cheers,

marcobb

Hi Marco,

If you or Peter want to send us over your specific router then we can check it but we don't have a problem with the Uniti / ND products on wired Ethernet - these kinds of issues have ALWAYS (so far) come down to router or network implementation / topology issues issues.

Cheers

Phil

Hi Phil,

I can confirm the router is no problem because i tried to bypass the router and directly connect to the boardband modem, the problem still appear on the NDX.

I also used the wired PC that connected to the router and tested the 320kbps iRadio, it is no problem.

Please kindly help to investigate this problem, because it is so strange why use the wireless connection is fine and not work on the wired connection, it is not make sense.

Will the network card chipset or driver issue ?

Cheers,

marcobb

Marco, have you looked at what I suggested above? What did you find?

Cheers

Simon

Hi Marco,

Given that it only happens on your wired connection then you'll need to get hold of a 100mbit network hub (not switch) into which you'll need to plug a PC, your router and your NDX.

Run a program called Wireshark on your PC and take a grab of all the network traffic that the PC sees whilst your product is playing internet radio and exhibiting the issue - then send that log to us.

Then we can get an idea of what your problem is.

Alternatively as your wireless is fine then use that...

(Oh - and is your unit fully up to date regarding firmware?)

Cheers

Phil

Hi Phil,

Thanks for your suggestion but i don't have a 100mbit network hub for packet sniffer.

I prefer use wired network more than wireless because i need stream the best quality music from my NAS.

My unit is the latest firmware and do you have other advise on this case ?

Cheers,

Marco

Not really a lot I can help you with if we can't see what's going on on your network Marco...

Phil

Hi Phil,

I just send the sniffer log to you, please kindly help to check it.

Cheers,

Marco

Does your wired network work with 24/192 streamed from your NAS? You have only said that there is an issue with Internet Radio over wired - you haven't mentioned any issues with streaming before.

Who is your dealer - they should be your first port of call.

Phil

How did you get the log if you don't have a hub?

Phil

OK - I'll get the guys to take a look when I'm back in the office and see if we can sort out what's going on.

Cheers

Phil

Hi Marco (Phil), if this is only happening on a wired connection (and still don't know whether this web radio only or also upnp), but assuming its both, I had  similar issues recently with clients, albeit not with Naim, where the link layer auto negotiation was failing through network interface chipset incompatibility and so there was a duplex mis match between switch and device.(I am seeing this more with the rise of 'gigabit' switches.)  Clearly TCP still works and IP addresses work etc, but throughput is severely impacted with nearly every other frame discarded. (if uyou had a managed switch uou could see this   )

Now a hub wouldn't show this up as it forces half duplex through physical links as opposed to link negotiation (hubs can only ever be half duplex, swiches can be half or full duplex and therefore negotiate), but it would show whether there was an issue with TCP windows via sniffing a hubbed port..Possible but unlikely, or you could put a hub between between the switch / router switchport and NDX and see if the throughput increases by eliminating the possibility of a duplex mismatch by physically forcing half duplex by having the hub in the path.

If Phil could confirm whether there was a way to force duplex / link speed settings on the NDX one could eliminate this as a possibility by brute force.

Simon

PS For those who are not familiar with the terms. 

• Full duplex link: acts like a dual carriageway road, traffic freely flowing in both directions
• Half duplex link: acts like a single track road with passing places, traffic can only travel in one direction  at once and you have to wait for the road to be clear before you can use it.

If there a mismatch there would be lots of crashes on the road and smahed cars (frames) and they would be discarded, as the contents in the car would also be assumed damaged.

PPS

Marco, could you confirm router / hub type. True hubs are very rare now in the consumer space, so be interested on what it is. If it turns out to be a true hub, the check is to makecsure the NDX is also in half duplex mode as per my request to Phil. An alternate would be to put a switch in the path of your hub and NDX and see what happens. If you can see the traffic, are you seeing lots of TCP resend, or small window sizes.

Thanks for your replies, Simon and Phil. This is getting very technical and I haven't a clue what to do next. I have given up and settle with max 180kbps radio. Life is too short to iron out all wrinkles.

marcobb, if you manage to find a solution, please let me know. Thanks.

Peter W,

I will waiting the resolution from naim, i also want to know the root cause.

Cheers,

Marco

Hi Marco,

The information that Simon has requested is very sensible and there will likely be pretty much the same request (plus a few others) in an email from me to you on Monday morning - forums are a terrible way to do problem solving as you get so much additional "chatter" that it becomes difficult to keep tabs on what's going on - this is why we say at the top of *EVERY* forum that if you want support from Naim then email support@naimaudio.com ... this way we can actually properly log and keep track of a problem through to resolution.

I haven't looked at your file that you've sent (I'm not in the office til Monday) but please don't expect a resolution on Monday - and at this time (from experience) I do expect it to be an issue external to the NDS.

(Simon - there's no way to manually force the NDX to half duplex.)

Phil

Hi Phil,

Thanks for your effort.

I will send enquiry to your mentioned email and waiting your update later.

Cheers,

Marco

Thanks for confirming Phil.

Peter is it possible to try an alternate internet router and plug the NDX directly in and see if the problem goes?

On reading the web it appears that several users have had throughput issues using the wired connections on the Belkin device, but wireless seems more consistent. Also there appears to be advice to make sure you are using the latest Belknin Firmware, but that hasn't fixed everybodies issues. Hence why it might better to try am alternate device - it just might be a bad design.

Simon