Bpasdar

Q: Macbook Air Extremely Slow Wireless

Hello All,

Got my brand new MB-Air and from the get-go noticed extremely slow wireless performance. I did a bit of digging and here is what I found.

The MB-Air works OK with cheap (consumer) wireless APs, however when used in conjunction with the commercial APs most of which use the Atheros chipset the performance is horrible. I found that when connecting to APs that use Atheros' commercial chipset, the MB-Air connects with 802.11 G specs instead of N even when the signal metrics are excellent such as -39 RSSI.

Moreover, even With the 802.11 G connection at 54Mbps the performance is both sluggish and latent. Small file transfers have a 50/50 shot at working and large file transfers seem to die reliably. Albeit this could be an issue with Apple's implementation of SMB / Samba which is rather poor.

I have tried to turn off Bluetooth to see if my experience is different. We'll see.

I would be interested in feedback from people who are also experiencing the same poor wireless performance to learn the chipset of the AP they are having issues with.

By-the-way -- I will take a fix, if someone has come up with one. However my guess is that this is an engineering issue that Apple has to fix.

BP

Macbook Air Late 2010, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Nov 6, 2010 4:14 AM

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Q: Macbook Air Extremely Slow Wireless

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  • by William Kucharski,

    William Kucharski William Kucharski Jul 16, 2012 4:04 PM in response to _harshaw_
    Level 6 (15,211 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 16, 2012 4:04 PM in response to _harshaw_

    _harshaw_ wrote:

     

    I just followed the trick on updating the drivers using http://thoughts.maayank.com/2011/08/wireless-problems-with-macbook-air-and.html.

     

    This appeared to solve my macbook air wifi issues.  Let's see what happens when Mountain Lion comes out.

     

    Please remember this is dangerous, can reopen security holes, and very likely will cause any future upgrades to Mac OS X to not apply properly to the point where you may need to reinstall Mac OS as a whole.

     

    Just be aware that this is a completely unsupported "solution."

  • by _harshaw_,

    _harshaw_ _harshaw_ Jul 16, 2012 4:20 PM in response to William Kucharski
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 16, 2012 4:20 PM in response to William Kucharski

    what's the alternative?  A laptop with non functional wifi is an expensive paperweight.  And when I say non functional, I mean that my fancy macbook air can't talk downstairs approximately 20 ft to an airport extreme.

     

    I suppose the alternative is to return a junky laptop but I am more of a mind to fix first.  Honestly, it's hard to imagine how the air got released with such useless wifi.  Maybe everyone in CA lives in open floor plan houses or something....

  • by William Kucharski,

    William Kucharski William Kucharski Jul 16, 2012 4:35 PM in response to _harshaw_
    Level 6 (15,211 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jul 16, 2012 4:35 PM in response to _harshaw_

    Get it fixed?

     

    Every MacBook Air can talk to the wireless routers in Apple Stores which are often more than 20 feet away.

     

    Either something in your MBA isn't functioning correctly or your AirPort Express isn't, though Wi-FI often is affected by differences in home construction; if you have plaster and lathe walls, you may be out of luck.

  • by Help I have my first apple,

    Help I have my first apple Help I have my first apple Aug 8, 2012 4:03 PM in response to Bpasdar
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 8, 2012 4:03 PM in response to Bpasdar

    Same issue here!

    I've never had an apple before and I've just like you the MB-A

    When I first bought this laptop, the internet was fine and stuf and then a couple of months later the internet went slower while the internet on the HP of my brother worked verry good.

    I thought this was impossible because I first had an ACER, not really a good one, and there were like 700 virusses on it and then it crashed. All my friends said that I should buy an apple because you don't have any trouble with virusses. So I bought, my first reaction I had with slow internet was: Oh no, a virus?? how is that possible? ( you have to know I don't know nothing about computers ) I don't have an anti-virus because the man in the store said that you don't need that with an apple. Than I thought it was the wireless internet, that I didn't had connection on my room. For a long time that seemed to be the probleme but now I have it everywhere in the house! and now I'm clueless! + sometimes the internet works just fine.

    Please help me!! also I'm from belgium so I don't really understand the technical stuff. I just wanted to know if you've found an answer yet.

    Thanks anyways for reading this and I really hope you can help me.

  • by ddeninger,

    ddeninger ddeninger Oct 15, 2012 5:34 AM in response to Richard Burrows
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 15, 2012 5:34 AM in response to Richard Burrows

    Proximity to the WiFi router and whether or not bluetooth is on both appear to be factors regarding this internet speed issue.  Come on Apple, throw us a bone here (update?).

     

    I have a MBA, MB Pro, iPad 2, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4.  I only have this internet speed issue on the MBA.

     

    I did not have this problem when I first got my MBA with Snow Leopard.  The problem started sometime after I upgraded to Lion and before I upgraded to Mountain Lion, so it was either the upgrade to Lion or an update before Mountain Lion that caused this issue.  Turning off bluetooth today definitelty made a difference for me.  My WiFi router (actually it is called a gateway, a common mis-nomer) is downstairs.  I have AT&T U-Verse, and I have the package that provides speeds up to 16 Mbps.  Here are my test results.

     

    Downstairs 1 foot from the router:

    Bluetooth on .. 8-10 Mbps

    Bluetooth off .. 14-16 Mbps

     

    Upstairs, about 30 feet from the router:

    Bluetooth on .. 2 to 6 Mbps

    Bluetooth off .. 12-14 Mbps

     

    Notice that the farther you are away from the router, the greater the bluetooth being on affects the speeds.

     

    My next step .. I am going to look at my router settings via the management interface to see if I can increase the power and/or distance settings.

     

    Thanks to all who provided the feedback that fingered bluetooth as the culprit.  I can use my MBA upstairs again! I don't use bluetooth for anything on my MBA so this is a good workaround for me.

  • by Apple_Naples,

    Apple_Naples Apple_Naples Nov 14, 2012 4:05 PM in response to Bpasdar
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 14, 2012 4:05 PM in response to Bpasdar

    I have the same problem of extremely slow wifi on the macbook air I purchased in mid-October 2012.  Disabling wifi help some, but performance still lags all my other devices considerably--including devices over four years old.  It is very disappointing because somewhere around 99.999% of my usage depends on good wifi.  I'm going to take the computer to the apple store and see what they can do.

  • by gualtiero.f,

    gualtiero.f gualtiero.f Dec 2, 2012 9:27 AM in response to Bpasdar
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Dec 2, 2012 9:27 AM in response to Bpasdar

    I had the same problem with a Cisco wi-fi router in the past days.

    Chaning the wi-fi channel worked for me, if I'll experience this speed issue again I'll try with my brother's Airport Extreme to see if the 5GHz frequency helps

  • by writerIP,

    writerIP writerIP Jan 4, 2013 9:04 AM in response to Bpasdar
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 4, 2013 9:04 AM in response to Bpasdar

    i had the same issue till today. the dude at iStore recommended me to Renew DHCP Lease (System Preferences -> network -> Advanced-> TCP/IP then click the "Renew DHCP Lease" button). and it REALLY WORKED. at least for me)

  • by RRsurfer,

    RRsurfer RRsurfer Jan 7, 2013 6:06 AM in response to William Kucharski
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 7, 2013 6:06 AM in response to William Kucharski

    Hello - can you provide any more detail on how to set the new wifi frequency.  I use BT for my trackpad and keyboard so would prefer not ot have to turn BT off to solve this issue.

    Thanks so much

    R

  • by husky1010,

    husky1010 husky1010 Jan 7, 2013 1:45 PM in response to Bpasdar
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 7, 2013 1:45 PM in response to Bpasdar

    I do not use Blootooth at all but still the same problems with MBA and wi-fi. Wi fi is ok, works well on all the other devices at home; frequency is set to high, chanelling ok. It is only MBA. I start regretting buying it ;/

  • by writerIP,

    writerIP writerIP Jan 7, 2013 1:53 PM in response to husky1010
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 7, 2013 1:53 PM in response to husky1010

    try to "Renew DHCP Lease" ( 1 post up)

  • by husky1010,

    husky1010 husky1010 Jan 8, 2013 2:09 AM in response to writerIP
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 8, 2013 2:09 AM in response to writerIP

    Done it, no change.

  • by sulyeiro,

    sulyeiro sulyeiro Mar 11, 2013 4:18 PM in response to Bpasdar
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 11, 2013 4:18 PM in response to Bpasdar

    I purchased a MBA-13' a few days ago, and I m also facing those wifi-issues.

     

    Is there already a proper solution?

    Has anyone tried to change the Macbook itself to get rid of the problem?

     

    Please help me

  • by Thedyingdandy,

    Thedyingdandy Thedyingdandy Mar 24, 2013 9:53 AM in response to Bpasdar
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mar 24, 2013 9:53 AM in response to Bpasdar

    For me the fix was to change to fixed channels in Airport express insted of automatic (using 5 Ghz band). Speed went from 3-4 mbsp to 70-80 mps instantly. I had also tried to shut off bluetooth. It helped but only for a short period and only had a limited effect on speed.

  • by Thedyingdandy,

    Thedyingdandy Thedyingdandy Mar 24, 2013 10:35 AM in response to Thedyingdandy
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mar 24, 2013 10:35 AM in response to Thedyingdandy

    UPDATE: The effect of choosing a fixed channel in the router is still valid, but the biggest difference was to move between floors. I live in a house with three floors. The router is at the middle floor. If I go up a floor the speed drops about 10 mbps. (from 90 to 80 mbps). On the same floor, I get about 80-97 mbps ( I have a 100/100 mbps connection). If I go down to the ground floor (the floor below the router) the speed drops to 10-20 mbps. In other words, there seems to be a bad idea to have the router on a floor above where you have your computer. I use Apple's Airport Extreme. The model has no external antenna. Maybe it causes the poor reception in the floor below?

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