Odd slow internet problem

Question

Odd slow internet problem

I'm visiting my mother, who has a Mac Mini, running 10.4.11. Her internet provider is digis.net. She lives in a very rural area, and apparently it's sent by a wifi connection sent from a tower on a hill a few miles away to an antenna on her house, then an ethernet cable comes in from the antenna to the computer. When it was first installed, a couple of years ago, it was through a different ISP, which was then purchased by digis.net. It worked fairly well then, but is extremely slow now. The odd thing is that when I visit, I turn on Sharing so that I can use the internet through the airport on my iBook. My husband's also using a Windows laptop with through that signal. Both of us get very, very good internet speed, but if we actually use her computer, either Safari or Firefox, it's very, very slow. I've called digis, but got no help there. Is there something that could be set wrong on her computer that would be making her computer run more slowly? The mini is only about 2 years old, 3 at the most.

Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Jan 2, 2009 7:40 PM

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Answer 1

CMCSK

Level 6

11,452 points

Jan 2, 2009 8:21 PM in response to Paula Goodfellow

How much hard drive space does your mother have left? Clear out both browsers caches & history. From the install disc try the repair disk setting. To use the Install Mac OS X disc, insert the disc, and restart your computer while holding down the C key as it starts up.
Select your language.
Once on the desktop, select Utility in the menu bar.
Select Disk Utility.

Select the disk or volume in the list of disks and volumes, and then click First Aid.
Click Repair Disk.
Afterwards repair permissions.
Restart your computer.

I've called digis, but got no help there.

Why not? What did they say?

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Answer 2

rccharles

Level 6

13,037 points

Jan 2, 2009 8:34 PM in response to Paula Goodfellow

The odd thing is that when I visit, I turn on Sharing so that I can use the internet through the airport on my iBook.

what do you mean by this? how are you accessing an Internet? Does she have a router? Are you saying you're using her airport to connect through her computer into the Internet?

I would run network utility and look at info and netstat. Look for errors.
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Network Utility

check out activity monitor and see if there are any obvious performance issues.
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Activity Monitor

does the Internet come to your mother's computer through an Ethernet cable? Plug into the cable with your computer and see what the Internet is like.

Robert

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Answer 3

Jan 2, 2009 9:14 PM in response to rccharles

I should have been more clear about how I connect. I turn on internet sharing on her computer and her airport, then use the airport on my computer to get the signal. I tried both of your suggestions, but didn't find any error messages, or anything odd about the activity monitor. I tried plugging the ethernet cable that goes into her computer into my computer directly, and couldn't get any internet at all.

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Answer 4

Jan 2, 2009 9:19 PM in response to CMCSK

Thanks, I'll have to wait till morning to try most of this since she's gone to bed, and I can't find the installdisc. When I called Digis, they basically said that they didn't know much about Macs, but it must be a problem with the computer, not them.Her hard drive has 36 GB space unused, with only 19 GB used. (It's a lonely Mac, used mostly for reading forwarded email jokes.)

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Answer 5

CMCSK

Level 6

11,452 points

Jan 2, 2009 9:37 PM in response to Paula Goodfellow

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1853

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Answer 6

BDAqua

Level 10

250,409 points

Jan 2, 2009 10:20 PM in response to Paula Goodfellow

I tried plugging the ethernet cable that goes into her computer into my computer directly, and couldn't get any internet at all.

If that Cable goes to a Modem instead of a Router, then you'd need to completely power down the Modem for 5 minutes... they only remember/talk to... the last device it was connected to.

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Answer 7

rccharles

Level 6

13,037 points

Jan 3, 2009 1:24 PM in response to Paula Goodfellow

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Answer 8

Jan 3, 2009 8:24 PM in response to rccharles

I haven't had time to try everything listed here, but did run disc utility and repaired the drive and permissions, and emptied the cache of both browsers. Still slow internet here. The antenna for her internet connection is outside, then an ethernet cable comes through the wall, and there's a cord with a small (like about 1 inch by inch) splitting off from it to a power cable. I unplugged the power cable, and let it stay off for ten minutes, then plugged it into my computer and restarted. Still didn't get internet. Called Digis, but didn't have time to stay on hold to talk to someone.

Pageouts are also 0 for me. That's as far as I got today. I've looked Activity monitor a few times, and there is always free memory, and I can't see anything odd about it. My own laptop occasionally gets some program or other running excessively so I know what that looks like. I'll keep working through the list tomorrow.

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Answer 9

John Galt

Level 10

156,728 points

Jan 4, 2009 7:23 AM in response to Paula Goodfellow

Paula, I am familiar with the wireless ISP that you're describing. For others, here's a synopsis:

http://www.digis.net/faqs/installation/typintinstall.html

It's not dialup and there is no router. The little box you unplugged is a Power Over Ethernet supply, which supplies power to the Motorola Canopy radio. You did good to power cycle it.

Before you get too involved with trying to debug the Mini, do this:

rccharles wrote:
Plug into the cable with your computer and see what the Internet is like.

That will ensure the problem is isolated to the Mini.

Post back.

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Answer 10

John Galt

Level 10

156,728 points

Jan 4, 2009 7:53 AM in response to John Galt

Paula I left out an important detail: before connecting your iBook, unplug the power from the Power Over Ethernet supply. Connect your iBook and then reconnect the PoE.

You couldn't connect before because the Motorola radio had "associated" itself with the Mini. Powering it up with the iBook connected will fix that and it should work. When you connect the Mini again you'll have to do the same thing.

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Answer 11

Jan 4, 2009 7:52 AM in response to John Galt

Thanks John, I can't get my computer to connect to the internet when I plug it directly into the ethernet cable. I was trying to talk to Digis about that yesterday, but the wait was too long for a customer service person and I had to leave.

Last night I looked at the console logs. There were two things that seem as though they might be odd. Here's one message from this morning:
Jan 4 03:17:05 jpjs-computer cp: error processing extended attributes: Operation not permitted That's from the system.log

Also last night in console.log, I got this message:
Mac OS X Version 10.4.11 (Build 8S2167)
2009-01-03 15:35:38 -0700
2009-01-03 15:35:42.794 SystemUIServer[178] lang is:en
2009-01-03 15:39:45.024 SyndicationAgent[219] WARNING: BestCalendarDateFromString - can't interpret: 'Sat 03 Jan 2009 11:16:43 -800'
The last line of the message is repeated many times.

This morning when I try to reload it, it just shows last night's messages, but the internet is still slow.

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Answer 12

John Galt

Level 10

156,728 points

Jan 4, 2009 8:04 AM in response to Paula Goodfellow

Paula Goodfellow wrote:
Thanks John, I can't get my computer to connect to the internet when I plug it directly into the ethernet cable.

Yup. See my simultaneously posted post, posted above your post 🙂

Also last night in console.log, I got this message:
Mac OS X Version 10.4.11 (Build 8S2167)
2009-01-03 15:35:38 -0700
2009-01-03 15:35:42.794 SystemUIServer[178] lang is:en
2009-01-03 15:39:45.024 SyndicationAgent[219] WARNING: BestCalendarDateFromString - can't interpret: 'Sat 03 Jan 2009 11:16:43 -800'

This message from SyndicationAgent is caused by Safari's RSS Feed and is unrelated. I don't believe the extended attributes messages are related either.

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Answer 13

Jan 4, 2009 8:29 AM in response to John Galt

Thank you-- I saw your message just after I posted that one. I'll unplug it for few minutes and try it again.

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Answer 14

Jan 4, 2009 5:38 PM in response to Paula Goodfellow

I've tried a few more things-- using terminal, and trying a few different ways to get my computer to attach directly to the ethernet cable, but I can't get any internet at all, even when I've left her ethernet unplugged for half an hour and shut my computer totally down. I'm going to go back home tomorrow, and will have to give up on it till then. I'll probably be back to visit in another six weeks or so and will try to figure out more then. She mostly uses it for farm records, and email, and only some internet, so she's less concerned that I am-- thanks to everyone for the help so far.

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Answer 15

rccharles

Level 6

13,037 points

Jan 4, 2009 8:24 PM in response to Paula Goodfellow

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