Apple TV 1st Gen and syncing problem

I have owned and used my ATV 1G for several years now. Over the last year or so the sync speed has become slower than death. I have the latest ATV update (3.02) and am running iTunes 10.5, OS X, v. 10.6.8 on MacBook Pro. Any ideas on how I can regain reasonable sync speeds? The ATV 1G works fine with loaded content and downloading/renting content via my Apple Extreme Airport. Also, iTunes plays well on my laptop. It just doesn't want to sync.

Whats the signal meter on the ATV look like, decent signal strength? Have you tried changing channel, might have some interference going on. If you can, try running an Ethernet cable to the ATV to see if the problem remains, if you still have problems then you know its not the wireless.

Signal meter is strong for the ATV. Tried the Ethernet cable but it didn't solve the problem unfortunately. Again, I can sync things from my laptop to my ATV, it's just deathly slow.