[1000cleverlines]

I am having the worst time trying to get my upstairs computer to get wireless working. Before I put xbmcbuntu on it, the wireless worked fine in Windows on my Dell Latitude 5500. Now I have wiped the hard drive and put Xbmcbuntu on it. I fiddled with it for awhile, read around on some forums for answers, couldn't find anything to get it connected besides a wired connection. Well, a wired connection would be nice if I could get one to reach from my router to the media PC, but that's quite a distance (and I don't want to be drilling holes just to get one up here).

So, I tried to us OpenELEC and had worse luck. Whenever it displayed on my TV, it only showed the top left corner of the image. I tried to mess with resolution, but it just crashed. I would prefer to use Xbmcbuntu on it. If anyone has any clue how to get my wireless card to work without hooking up to a physical connection, that would be awesome. My main reason I can't just take it down to my router is the display on the Latitude 5500 doesn't have a backlight, making it almost impossible to see anything on it. Hopefully someone can walk me through this, thanks!

[1000cleverlines]

Any ideas on this? I'm going to try a fresh install tonight and see what happens. I'm guessing I just need to install drivers. Would hooking it up to a switch be ideal at this point (at least to pull updates/drivers)? Sorry, I'm very minimal knowledge when it comes to Ubuntu.

[Wozza_au]

Hi
You will need to google up some tuts on how to setup your wifi card/dongle under Ubuntu..it can be easy or a royal pain depending on type and brand of wifi your using..have you thought of Ethernet over power

[1000cleverlines]

I'll have to look into it this weekend when I have time. I found a few tutorials but all required a wired connection. I might just have to hijack a monitor and wire it up to setup wireless. Everything else works fine though, I love it so far.

[1000cleverlines]

I went and bought a Netgear POE kit. I have SOME connection (can see streaming updates), but the connection light is red and none of the internet features such as looking for add-ons are working.

[nickr]

I assume you mean powerline. If the connection light is red the PoWerline is not working properly. This is not an xbmc issue and smallnetbuilder.com is a good place to look for help.

However try unplugging and replugging.

[Wintersdark]

I went and bought a Netgear POE kit. I have SOME connection (can see streaming updates), but the connection light is red and none of the internet features such as looking for add-ons are working.

Aha, I can help here. I recently set up a Powerline kit (D-Link, but they're all the same really) and had some learning bumps involved.

First: Connect all the adapters to wall sockets in the same direction. Don't attach some facing up and others facing down - this results is grossly inferior performance.

Second: Under no circumstances ever connect a Powerline module to a power bar, surge surpressor, splitter, extension cord, or anything else of that ilk. ONLY connect them directly to the wall.

Third: Your whole Powerline network speed is capped at the slowest speed overall. This is only relevant if you use more than two modules, of course, but it's good to know. I have 4, and had a hell of a time figuring out why my first two modules were running so slow when they were all of 5 feet apart, when they had been pulling 80mbps when first installed. What had happened was I installed another pair of modules and connected them, and one was in my kitchen - near the (apparently very electrically noisy) refrigerator. This pulled all 4 modules from green to red intermittently, whenever the fridge started it's fan, my whole network would slow to ~3mpbs. Removed that module, and back up to 80mbps.

Fourth: As a corollary to the above, be aware of what's plugged in near each outlet. Electric motors are exceptionally bad for performance, and anything drawing substantial current will reduce performance as well.


Hope this helps. My setup is working great, driving a desktop and two HTPC's with no issues at all in media playback. Faster than Wireless N was in real world throughput for me.

[1000cleverlines]

I got a Powerline AV 200 Mini Set. The way things are setup, I did have them plugged in one up and one down. I switched that around (unfortunately they're both pointed up). Still getting a red connection light on both. Sometimes it's green, but mostly red. Both outlets do have power strips in the other plug BUT not attached to the Powerline. Any other suggestions? Might just try to pull the wireless driver using the connection I do have and then returning the Powerline for the $50 rather than wasting it on some shitty connection...

[Wintersdark]

Try resetting them and redoing the encryption. With my DLink AV500 Nano sets, holding down the sync button for 10 seconds factory resets them, then just clicking each in turn causes them to generate new encryption.

People have reported that helping.

Otherwise, try in other outlets around your house. You'll likely find that some outlets simply work better than others, and then there's other equipment to consider. Mostly, though, it depends a lot on the quality of your household wiring.

Don't try a faster kit - if you've got a poor link (red) now, you'll still have a poor link. While it'd be faster, it'd probably still be too slow.

Definitely just try moving them around your house to see if you can figure out a better configuration.

[fritsch]

30 meters lan cable is cheap ...

[Wintersdark]

If you aren't renting, or don't have a wife who objects to cables run everywhere

[1000cleverlines]

Think I'm returning the Powerline. I've tried everything. Think I might just go for an Ouya or WD TV. Haven't decided yet, but at least Ouya runs XBMC.

I tried to get wireless working with the wired connection + driver installs and it couldn't find any of the 5 networks around. Seems like a waste to keep putting time into it if the computer won't support what I want it to...