I'm debugging reoccurring problems with our villa installations and found a
problem related to the number of units in the building. We are using 11
units, a mixture of SliMP3 and squeexebox, on a wired lan in Villa 3. There
are three villas in total and about 20 units overall.

As most of the units are mounted in the wall, the only way to reset them in
the event of a problem has been to connect all the power to one breaker on
the master electrical panel. In Villa 3, this means 10 units will come on
simultaneouly and braodcast for DHCP and a slimserver.

I found that this overloaded the Linksys router's ability to serve the DHCP
requests, so I moved DHCP to a linux server which can handle the request.

Then I found the units broadcast for the Slimserver, and that overloads the
server's ability to handle all the clients, especially of there are other
units playing music at the time. Some of the units will get serviced OK, and
some will hang. As the only way to reset is a total power down, the same
cycle repeats and there is no way to get them all online.

What is needed, I believe, is some code in the firmware that randomizes the
delay before broadcasts for DHCP and to locate the Slimserver, and some kind
of backoff delay so that the unit waits to be serviced, rather than hanging
up. It would also be extremenly useful if there was a way to reset the unit
without a power down.

Is there a way these suggestions can be adopted? I don�t know how the
firmware code is developed.

Chris Mason
masonc@masonc.com
Box 340, The Valley, Anguilla, British West Indies
Tel. (264) 497-5670 - Cell: (264) 235-5670 - Also (305)-735-3483   
Fax: (264) 497-8463 - US Fax (815)301-9759
Yahoo IM: netconcepts_anguilla@yahoo.com
Skype ID: netconcepts