Time-Capsule Network Speed slows down

I know it should do that when I start or wake up the computer, but it *keeps doing it* -- for example, I have been working on my laptop for 45 minutes (doing online activities, verrrry slowly since the network is sluggish again) and it is scanning right now.

You don't understand.

*Every time you click on the icon it will report it is "scanning."*

That has nothing to do with your "sluggishness," and your card is not "scanning" except when you force it to by clicking in the AirPort menu icon.

So quite likely I'm wrong about this but the network connection seems to be slower when it's scanning for networks--but as I said the two issues may be unrelated. Whatever it is, it's really frustrating.

Thanks for your patient explanation.

If you open Airport Utility, select the device e.g. Time Capsule, you can se the "Channel".

If you select "Wireless"in the menu you also can see the channel, and if you click on it you will se a list of possible channels (mine shows 1-13).

In other user forums it has been suggested that it is preferred that channels are separated by 5 - e.g. that if your neighbors uses channel 8, you should use either channel 3 or 13, and so on. IN this was the theory is that possible interference between the networks should be reduced.

Thank you, this is very helpful. I can see my Channel, which is chosen automatically. If you'll bear with me for one more question: how would I know what my neighbours' channels are?

There are some applications around that can help you do that. I have found some in the Utilities folder in the Downloads area on the Apple site. I use these two, but there are many more to be found:

MacWireless.com has "Network scanner" for Dashboard, and on the iPhone there are e.g. WifiTrak.

Thanks! very helpful.

Download iStumbler.

I've written about this months ago and I firmly believe that the TC is a flawed device. I had a Airport Extreme n which I sold (bad mistake) to upgrade to the TC. The AEn was excellent and the network speed always fast. If you use WDS with another AEX device, the wireless network slows to a crawl. I eventually disabled this as it was just unacceptable.

I've asked the question before and I don't think it is as bizarre - though nobody has been able to answer it. The Airport Extreme has a separate power supply and the TC has it built in. Consequently the TC gets much hotter. I would like to know if the temp has anything to do with the drop in speed as it seems to start when the device gets hot (though some people only perceive the problem after a week).

The other area the TC is flawed is on wireless TM backups. I always do the backups wired and turn TM off, resorting to weekly wired backups. If I leave it on wireless, it starts to hang after 1 week.

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Sorry about your bad experiences. We have one TC used for providing fast speed acess and another device providing slower acess. Works fine. All 4 or 5 users are happyand the backup of two computers normally works fine. Anti-virus apps have been a challenge.

This article might be helpful:
http://installingcats.com/2008/06/06/airport-wireless-connection-drops-on-leopar d-10-5-2/

Thanks for the link.

The real issue for me is not this, but that the TC does not perform as well as the AEBn in WDS. I've since disabled it. Also with the AEBn, the link to my PS3 was always much better and streaming video was fine even with WDS. With the TC, at WDS does not allow video streaming. I had to disable the WDS for it to work.

I maintain the TC is flawed. I have tried it with the AEBn in the same config and it is not as good.

Apple needs to acknowledge it but I have accepted that this wil not be the case and I will live with the dud.

And guess what; Got the same problem!