Very Slow Time Capsule WiFi Speeds - Disappointing

Hi,

I've read a lot about this in the TC posts, but have yet to see a solution. The wireless speeds on my 1TB TC is solidly slower than my old Linksys router. Whereas my Linksys can manage speeds greater than 12,000kb/s, the TC can only manage around 6 max. Most of the time, it's much slower. I've disabled backups, and nothing is different other than removing the Linksys, and replacing it with the TC. Needless to say, this is very troubling. And yes, I've applied the recent airport update to my mac, and the system update to the TC.

Has anyone found a solution for this, and if not, has Apple confirmed this as an issue.

Help!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Mar 21, 2008 4:55 PM

Reply
20 replies

Mar 22, 2008 10:45 AM in response to susanlschultz

I'm using 1TB TC as my router hooked to my Comcast cable modem and the USB-to-Ethernet dongle on my MacBook Air.

With AirPort disabled on the MacBook Air so to force internet traffic across the ethernet dongle and using the speed test at http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

I'm seeing

Download: 22608 kbps
Upload: 1531 kbps

I did this again with just WiFi (ethernet disconnected) to my 802.11n Apple Time Capsule and I'm seeing

Download: 10360 kbps
Upload: 1513 kbps

From this I conclude my ethernet dongle gives me 2x that for WiFi on downloads and no issues with my 1TB TC.

Mar 23, 2008 6:47 AM in response to susanlschultz

I have a 10Meg down and 1Meg up internet connection. I have noticed that since I put my 1TB Time Capsule in the wireless has been slower than what I have been used to on my old Linksys WRT54G router.

This morning I decided to run some tests and have seen something really weird, when I directly wire into the TC, my test results are 10.XXMeg down and 1.00Meg up, but when I run the same test on a wireless connection to the TC, I get 1.XXMeg up, but only about 300K down, yes, that's K and it's consistent.

For grins, I am going to go back to the linksys and try the wireless test again.

I am running the tests from a C2D MBP 2.33 and am using www.speedtest.charter.com as the benchmarking tool.

Mar 23, 2008 7:39 AM in response to susanlschultz

Here are my results using speedtest.net to their recommended server for me.
Using Linksys CM100 cable modem for connection to ISP, 100MB ethernet from modem to TC WAN port.

First the iMac via TC gbit ethernet...

!http://homepage.mac.com/th3_r3n3g4d3/.Pictures/iMac-gbit.png!

Next the macbook connect via TC wireless n...

!http://homepage.mac.com/th3_r3n3g4d3/.Pictures/mac-n.png!

As expected, not much difference at all, the bottleneck is my ISP link speed.

Had almost identical results using a Linksys WRT-54G prior to swapping it with a 1TB TC.

As for LAN transfers, I have posted about speeds previously, all were at pretty much maximum.

Mar 23, 2008 8:12 AM in response to th3_r3n3g4d3

Used same speedtest.net today at approx 8am PDT and here are my results using the Seattle server, ISP Comcast cable and 1TB TC as router

PM G5 (June 2004 model) running 10.5.2 using direct GbE ethernet to TC
Download 33153 kb/s
Upload 1558 kb/s


PM G5 (June 2004 model) running 10.5.2 using its AirPort 802.11g card to the TC
Download 21161 kb/s
Upload 1522 kb/s


MacBook Air w/SSD, 1.8 GHz running 10.5.2 using its USB2-to-Ethernet 10/100 dongle connected to the TC
Download 33598 kb/s
Upload 1573 kb/s


MacBook Air w/SSD, 1.8 GHz running 10.5.2 using its AirPort 802.11n card to the TC
Download 21468 kb/s
Upload 1554 kb/s

Mar 23, 2008 9:08 AM in response to imagine engine

OK, I'm not sure about this, it's just speculation, but I have an idea. The problem with AEBS, and why it couldn't be used to backup to USB drives reliably, is that the data being sent there was not acknowledged, i.e. there was no receipt from Airport saying, "I successfully received that data." I would imagine lots of wireless routers don't bother acknowledging - if the data gets lost, another request will surely get sent again. ACKs tend to slow things down - satellite cable modems even pre-acknowledge packets due to TCP's problem with ACK latency. TCP requires decent timing and ACKs to perform well. But you can't have that on a backup solution. You need to ACK the data. So the TC (and now with the firmware upgrade, AirDisk) have to ACK the data, which slows things down, which makes your wireless seem slower. Again, this is all just speculation, but I think it's a reasonable theory.

Mar 23, 2008 4:24 PM in response to RJBSMPLS

I went back and connected my TC, reran the test at speedtest.charter.com and got 10Meg down and 1Meg up and thought maybe it needed a restart. I have left it alone all day and came back a little while ago and was seeing 3Meg down and 1Meg up. I came back here and saw the test results some of you have achieved and decided to switch for consistency.

When I am on a wired connection between the TC ad my MBP I get this:

User uploaded file

When I am on a wireless connection, I get this:

User uploaded file

Strange?

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Very Slow Time Capsule WiFi Speeds - Disappointing

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