Constant buffering when trying to play file on 360

Plex Players Gaming Consoles
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Hello I am new to Plex and having lots of problems. I have an old Gateway computer that I decided to repurpose for Plex. I started fresh by doing a brand new install of Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. The computer has an i5 750 processor and 8 GB of memory so it should have plenty of horsepower. I haven’t put any other programs on yet



I installed Plex Media Server and scanned all my media. The media is on a Synology DS1513+. The network is all wired Gbit. I mapped all the folders of the Synology to Windows 7 and then point PMS to the correct folders


I payed for the Plex Pass so I could put the app on my Xbox 360 and last night I tried to play a file and it buffered every few seconds. The file was Boardwalk Empire 720p MKV. The Xbox said it was playing it at 720p 3Mbps and DD5.1 sound. The computer with PMS said the CPU was using 15-25% resources only. Today I checked the log file and the speed lines show all less than 1.0 (0.3-0.8). Something must be causing Plex to not be using my CPU properly as it should have plenty of grunt to transcode that file. I’m needing help to figure this out as I don’t know where to start


Here’s a link to a similar thread I started in the Windows forum as that is what’s running on the PMS machine. It has a log file and a copy of the XML from the file I was trying to play

https://forums.plex.tv/topic/141692-constant-buffering-with-i5-750/

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If you try to play the video inside a browser with the plex/web interface on the machine that runs PMS does it play without buffering?

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edit: I thought it was playing files well, but I must not have tried. When I tried later I couldn’t get anything but 480p to play well. See post below

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I tried this and other files and it buffers there too. Seems the problem is in PMS. CPU usage never went above 25% and was usually between 10-15. It’s like Plex thinks it’s a lot weaker processor than it really is. I posted a log again on the linked thread above

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Figured it out.  I put Plex on my main computer (i5 3570 CPU) and Plex works like a charm.  So something is wrong with the CPU in my old computer.  It never wanted to go above 20%.  I put many parts in and out of that thing when I built my new one (I took some upgrades out of it to use in my new computer) and I wonder if the CPU cooler might be unplugged.  I'm going to rip it apart and see if I can find the cause.  If not I might just get a new Mobo and CPU for it.   

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