Kodi Community Forum

Hey all,

Long time XBMC for Windows user, first time live user.

I recently bought a Zotec A-U board (the one with the Wifi Daughter Card) and installed XBMC to a USB stick using the live CD iso and off I went!

I modified my /etc/network/interfaces and did an iwconfig to bring up the wifi and it worked (to my surprise). XBMC was easily able to connect over WIFI to my SMB shares and stream content.

But what I found was, it didn't last long. After a few minutes of heavy traffic the box would drop off the network. Damn, so close... I repeated this a few times and it kept happening. I'm pretty sure the router isn't the cause since it manages to maintain a connection with my desktop, 3 laptops and 2 iphones and a wii without a problem. (None of which were file sharing during this test to rule out a bogged down network)

I tried the customized live CD iso from xbmcfreaks, specifically modified for zotec board with nvidia chipsets, but... same issue.

So I decided to see if the system could maintain a network connection. I pinged the box for what seemed like infinity from another system, and it stayed up. The minute I tried any bandwidth intensive tasks it crapped out.

Anyone else on the board have similar experiences, and if so, did you find a work around? I'd hate to have to hard wire in this box as I specifically bought it so I could use the wifi.

I have 2 of the Zotac A-U's and both have horrible connections through wifi with XBMC. If I use windows the connection is great, so I'm guessing it's the drivers. I bought an airport express for one of them. It's not the solution I wanted, but it works. I heard there is a way to use the windows drivers on Linux, but I'm not that savvy with Linux yet

I was using windows 7 with this board and the wireless worked great as well. Now I'm running XBMCbuntu and the wireless is exactly the same as you described. I am just holding off until I can run enet or powerline adapters.

That gave me an idea! Thanks liq456! The way to load windows drivers in to linux is through a module called ndiswrapper which is pretty easy to install and configure.

When I get home from work I'll install ndiswrapper, load the drivers and let you know what happens. If all goes well I'll post instructions on the forum on how to do this.

You should see something late tonight.

ironicsky Wrote:That gave me an idea! Thanks liq456! The way to load windows drivers in to linux is through a module called ndiswrapper which is pretty easy to install and configure.

When I get home from work I'll install ndiswrapper, load the drivers and let you know what happens. If all goes well I'll post instructions on the forum on how to do this.

You should see something late tonight.

Any luck?

Sorry for the delay Smile

I managed to get everything working...

I got pissed off trying to create a permanent storage on the USB stick, because no matter how many ways I went about it, it failed.

So I ended up burning Ubuntu Live installer to a CD and booting to the CD and installing Ubduntu Live on the USB stick, which DOES retain the settings fine.

So the issues I had were
-Poor WIFI performance (Crashing/Locking up)
-No Audio over HDMI
-No Video over HDMI

The steps I took to fix it can be found by doing the following (All steps to be done as root)
Fix Wifi first

Download the Windows WIFI Drivers, Click here
Extract the contents to a folder, for example /ndis_drivers
Open a command shell and do the next commands through sudo, or su to root
apt-get update
apt-get install ndisgtk
echo -e "blacklist bcm43xx\nblacklist b43\nblacklist b43legacy\nblacklist ssb" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
In Gnome, click System > Admin > Windows Wireless Drivers
Point it to /ndis_drivers/Atheros_XP/ndis5x/netathw.inf
On Shell, ndiswrapper -l
depmod -a
modprobe ndiswrapper
Reboot

That should get your WIFI stable... That is important, because if you try to do anything else first, your gonna get pissed off when your wifi keeps crapping out.

Fix HDMI Audio

apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 71609D4D2F1518FA9C5DC0FB1DABDBB4CEC06767
apt-get update
apt-get install linux-headers-generic nvidia-glx-185
Reboot
Increase the video ram in BIOS to at least 512Mb (Under south bridge settings)
On Command, Shell (or in your fav text editor), gedit /etc/asoundrc.conf
Paste the code below in to the file and save it...
On command shell, open alsamixer
Navigate with the left/right arrows and look for IEC958 is there
Make sure that IEC958 is unmuted by pressing the letter "m" without quotes with it highlighted
Reboot

Fix HDMI Video (If you have to do this, do it through DVI or RGB)

apt-get install nvidia-190-modaliases nvidia-glx-190 nvidia-settings-190
nvidia-xconfig
reboot

When the ubuntu is loading, you WILL most likely see a black screen for the majority of the boot over HDMI... be patient. Once it boots you will be brought to your login screen, or desktop depending on your setup.

Then, after all this, install XBMC and set the audio to HDMI and passthrough to HDMI. Should be good to go at this point.

Hope this helps, at least someone :-) Took me a day to get this working with, about an hour of which was doing the steps above, the rest was finding them :-)

asoundrc.conf

Code:
pcm.dmixer {

type dmix

ipc_key 1024

ipc_key_add_uid false

ipc_perm 0660

slave {

pcm "hw:0,3"

rate 48000

channels 2

period_time 0

period_size 1024

buffer_time 0

buffer_size 4096

}

}

pcm.!default {

type plug

slave.pcm "dmixer"

}

Thanks to these doc's for making this information possible
WIFI: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDo...diswrapper
HDMI Audio: http://imadethisdesign.blogspot.com/2009...1080p.html
HDMI Video: http://www.ubuntugeek.com/install-nvidia...#more-2454

ironicsky

liq456

splnuts

ironicsky

liq456

ironicsky