I got an Apple TV 2 at Christmas and have had some interesting and frustrating times playing with it. I now have it stable and operating consistently and reliably for the last two weeks with no issues whatsoever. I thought it might be useful to other to document the various steps and options I tried in case they apply to and work for others.
I have a couple of PCs (but one acting as the main storage location and therefore iTunes "server" of all of the movies, TV shows etc I have. I also have a very nice MacBook Air, plus a myriad of phones, games consoles etc, all of which are connected to a Linksys WAG160N modem router. The router before I started playing with the ATV2 was using WPA2Personal and only selected MAC addresses permitted to acess the network.
Step One:
Use WPA2P. Also made sure all Network and Sharing set-up on Windows 7 PC. All connected okay but would drop out consistently every 15-30 minutes of non-use and seemingly slightly longer during use.
Step Two:
Use no Wireless Security but still only permitted MAC addresses. Works better but would still drop out occasionally - well enough to annoy me. Not hysterically comfortable without wireless security but willing to experiment.
Step Three:
Adjust ethernet card settings on ITunes PC to disable sleep conditions and similar (depends on your ethernet or gig ethernet card). No real discernable improvement. Especially disable "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power"is disable in the Power Management tab of the Configuration of the network card.
Step Four:
Adjust network settings Norton's Internet Security network settings to recognise ATV2 and trusted device. Re-establish WPA2P wireless security. Bingo! Stability and Security achieved.
Might now get a couple more of these devices for serving the video around the house 🙂 Mind you, I am thing ATV3 with apps like TuneIn or ShoutCast (for my radio choices) and weather apps would be a good leap forward too.
Hope the experiences above help.
R
