Airport Time Capsule slowing down internet

For starters, am I "creating a new network" or "adding to an existing network"? Do I connect the ethernet cable to the Spectrum router and then put in Bridge mode? Do I keep wireless in TC settings enabled?

Reset the TC to factory.

Plug the WAN port by ethernet to the Spectrum Router.

Log back in and allow the airport utility to run the setup. Don't worry too much how it is configured as we can fix it on the second pass.

I do recommend you set all names short, no spaces and pure alphanumerics. Passwords same rules but 8-20 characters.

Once you have it basically running.. make sure the following are set.

Internet tab.. it will look somewhat different numbers.. but same sort of private IP setup.

Change to Static. The IP address will carry over.

It might need you to set DNS. I just use the following public ones.

Now go to Internet options and set IPv6 to link-local only.

Save the setting and it will return you to internet tab.

Go to wireless tab.. turn it off.

Go to the Network tab and use bridge

You now have the TC setup as best as you can to continue backups. Post back if you have issues.

By the way, perhaps not directly relevant, but I noticed I could choose the Airport Capsule in the wifi menu, connect to it, and still appear to access the internet, which surprised me since I had disabled it as a router...

Always good to come back to things with a clear head and full coffee cup (after one or two prior). I made a comment above on this sentence.. and almost put two and two together.

Your TC is located in a better spot and is giving you much faster speeds than the Spectrum modem router they supplied you.

Clearly you swapped wireless to do the tests with the backup and copying files.. which is great because it shows us the TC is actually working well. Since the TC is setup correctly in bridge and you have internet.. then use TC wireless not the spectrum router wireless all the time and I think it will fix the problem.

The holy grail in this case is getting full speed wireless link. i.e. 1300Mbps with MCS of 9 as Tesserax posted.

I am not sure what speed the TC is giving you but suspect it is hugely better than Spectrum.

I am a bit anal about reaching Max Link Speed. Went to some trouble and expense to get there.. in real world getting full 1300Mbps without sitting on top of the wireless router is unlikely.. my speed varies as all wireless is expected to do.

It sits somewhere between 870-1300Mbps.

Right now it is a bit slower than the previous screenshot I gave you.

The idea though is to get signal as high as possible where you normally use the laptop or other wireless devices. If that means throughout your new home then you need to invest in better wireless routers, mesh or Access Point (AP) than the Spectrum and possibly the TC. AND/OR install and use ethernet.. which of course is not a simple easy option on the latest MBP. But you can plug multiple AP or mesh units into ethernet and get far superior wireless coverage.

Single point routers have gone off the boil in the last few years as wireless becomes ubiquitous. (great and very ancient word in vogue again. Cunningly used by one of our favourite router/wireless AP manufacturers Ubiquiti)

People want excellent speedy coverage over the whole house which is near impossible to achieve from a single point.. unless you live in a single room. It is far better to use multiple AP which can be cheap small units albeit the whole system is going to cost you $$$$.

Edit runs out really quick here.. 10min or less.

The numbers were off so I did request clarification.

For transferring in Finder a large file, it seemed to average sending at around 30 mb/s.

Your data speed here is far better than your Time Machine backup. So this is simple transfer using Finder to the TC.

I am a bit lost with the actual wireless connection though.

Please explain clearly.

Are you using TC wireless or is it off?

If you are using the TC wireless does it have a different name to the spectrum wireless router SSID?

Can you please do the first link test again.. but this time do it for both TC and Spectrum routers. Post the screenshots.

A 5 year old TC is definitely due replacement. For now I just want to sort out what is actually happening.

At 15-20ft and hopefully no more than one or two hollow walls speed should be great.

Can you setup laptop in the room with the router.. say 6' away.. nothing blocking in between.. and do it again..

Something is crazy that at 15-20' the loss is so high.. unless you have walls made out of concrete and bricks in between .. ??

Or steel inserts or metallized foil insulation or something that is actually blocking the signal.

The TC is equally bad with the Spectrum router. Signal is too low to give consistent speed.

How you managed the high speed file transfer at all I don't know but that result has thrown me off the scent. If you get consistently bad results on two different routers something else is at play.

I just thought I'd add a bit to LaPastenague's excellent comments. Please note the values you got for MCS Index, NSS, & Tx Rate.

NSS = number of spatial streams. (Note: This value was added to the drop-down with Catalina.) This would indicate that your new notebook and your wireless router are connected with the maximum number of streams possible ... at least for your new notebook. It would be reasonable to believe it hold true for your wireless router.

MCS Index = think of this as the real-time connection type/quality. Connecting to an 802.11ac network, the maximum value would be 9. Think of the "9" as "hitting on all cylinders." (I know it would have made more sense if that value would have been 8, but that is what we have to work with.) With an MCS Index of 9, your notebook should be able to connect with a maximum Tx Rate of 1300 Mbps, not the paltry 175 you are getting now.

NSS = number of spatial streams. (Note: This value was added to the drop-down with Catalina.)

That is actually really helpful number. Nice to know Apple added that .. although it does not make me wish to run Catalina.

1 Some of what you have done on the network matters.

Catalina is definitely an issue. Loads of people are having issues with it.

3 Your Time Capsule maybe suffering old age.

That can affect a number of things.

But the chief one is this..

2 I moved homes and therefore internet setups (although with the same ISP). After testing and finding the wifi connection with the new ISP-router to be better than the Airport, I no longer use the Airport as my router (as I've done for years). I disabled it as the router by switching it to bridge mode.

There is a ratio of speed used by LAN and WAN. Lets say the old connection to the TC in previous house you had 20Mbps internet speed and a true network throughput on local LAN of 300Mbps. When you backup you will average about 200Mbps in the backup, and still have full 20Mbps for internet access.

Lets say in the new house you have lower throughput due to greater distance.. So 150Mbps which is plenty for your internet. You will not notice any great slow down between your two houses.. but when the backup starts and it fully saturating your 150Mbps then you have no more capacity for internet..

Plus a different router is now controlling the connection. WMM which is QoS for wireless.. something you never saw in your TC setup but was there.. controlled internet giving more priority to internet than bulk backup which should be low priority.

This is just one scenario.. I can make up as many fictions as average Star Wars novelist.

What you need to do is put hard number to setup..

So I need you to do a few tests and report the results

1 What is your link speed to the Router?

You can do this with holding down the Option key.. click the wireless fan and check the link.

The screenshot helps me to see.

2 Ookla speedtest to a close ISP to get your best internet speed. Post the details.

3 With internet not running.. just disconnect in the main router from your WAN.

Run a backup to the TC and give me average speed.

Activity monitor on the Network tab will give you a good idea.

Now I also suggest you do a couple of simple file transfers to the TC in Finder.

I use 6 video file of 1GB, you want large files to max out the transfer speed rather than measuring how poor the disk in the TC is.. it is pretty poor.

You should get something like this.

It does bounce up and down a fair bit but you can time it and calculate the average or do engineers aprox with picking the speed that is around average.. in my case around 22MByte/s

It might also be worth looking in activity monitor at free memory and processor usage.. things go wrong and it can be processor issues due to something not envisaged.

Pass me all that info and I can work away at what is happening.

Thanks for the effort to give me the results..

So going through in order.

Your wireless signal to the MacBook Pro is very poor.

-71dBm is no where near enough signal to get stable operation. And the consequence is slow operation and poor speeds.

What are you using for your main router.. make and model?

Are you using its' wireless from your main router or the TC?

If the TC is a few rooms away you need a better wireless router.. maybe in combination with the TC and if you are in the same room as the TC or just one wall away your TC is definitely suffering old age and needs replacement.

Look at mine.. I have signal at -41dBm.. remember negative numbers the bigger the number the lower the signal.. best signal is 0db.. it is a log scale. every 3db represents double the power.. so every -3db represents half the power.. figure out the difference between -41 to -71dBm.. that is a LOT LESS RF POWER.

2 Your speed test is in stark contrast to the wireless speed.. that must have been at a point when the speed was good.. I almost cannot believe it.. since wireless link speed you got is 175Mbps and download is 233Mbps.. really strange.

Wireless link speeds are usually divide by 2 for real throughput so you should not be getting much over 100Mbps.

Tell me how you get that speed.. on a different computer,, connected by ethernet perhaps.

3 I am having trouble with your stated speed of 500mbps and the graphs I am seeing. As well as the link speed.

Just to be clear. Files transfer speed is measured in Mbytes.. Not Mbits per second.. so 30MB in direct transfer is x8 in bits.. 240Mbps (use B Bytes and b bits) But with wireless this is more like 300Mbps due to overheads and inefficiency so that is pretty good.

That looks very good to me and I would say the issue is actually Time Machine backup is so poor and inefficient in Catalina that could be causing major issues.

May I recommend Carbon Copy Cloner.. download it to the Mac and you can run it free for a month. Do a backup to TC over wireless.. I will give you far superior performance cf Time Machine.. I think!!

By the way, perhaps not directly relevant, but I noticed I could choose the Airport Capsule in the wifi menu, connect to it, and still appear to access the internet, which surprised me since I had disabled it as a router...

If the TC is setup correctly in bridge to main router it will perform as switch and Access Point.. and internet is still allowed over the network.

Help me understand your poor link speed the first screenshot is showing. vs your far better tests with file transfers. Are you connected to different wireless routers.. first to the Main Router second to the TC or visa versa.

Something is a bit out of whack so perhaps fill that in.

Sorry there are some things that I cannot tell from the screenshots.. I cannot tell what mode the Time Capsule is in for example.

I believe you are now asking that I remove the TC from bridge mode and use as a router, comparing to the Spectrum router. I had done this when I moved into my new home and also received a brand new Spectrum router, and data was showing better for the Spectrum router, so I decided to pay the extra $5/month and keep the new router (and put TC in bridge mode).

You should not need to change TC operation at all. It can stay bridged as is.. but it does seem to be working better at least on your local LAN than the spectrum router.

However, once I realized the TC was consistently causing issues, I had actually had it unplugged for awhile, and yet I have still been experiencing issues with wifi reliability (not consistently, but sporadically throughout the day) over the past couple of weeks.

So you are having issues regardless of the TC configuration.

Certainly your first screenshot shows me very poor signal and connection speed. Just to remind you this part is crucial.

For the distance from the router and setup I would expect link speeds up around 800Mbps.

A link speed of 175 is not going to give you real throughput higher than 80Mbps and likely a lot less.

They also said they could replace the router if I brought it in.

I would definitely do that. Whether it fixes the problem or not.. at least it replaces one element of the puzzle.

But my assumption is that this new internet issue, which has been noticeable the past 2 weeks, is distinct and not directly related to the Time Machine / TC issue, which I had actually unplugged for over a month. That issue has gone back further; I believe more related to my new MBP and possibly moving to a new home (but not sure).

Yes, let's work on basis you have two different problems.

Even if the lockdown is causing too much bandwidth consumption on the internet provider, your wireless should perform a whole lot better than it is.

Let's also just say fan noise and age makes the TC at the point where replacement is required. We can do a test with it but it does not have a whole lotta time left.

You need to figure out why wireless performance is so poor. And you need to find a suitable replacement or fix for the TC to run backups.

I do not want to cause greater confusion.. but could you please turn off the wireless in the spectrum router. I am not sure of the controls you have accessible but it should not be difficult to turn off. Use just the TC for now to do wireless connections and tell me how that goes. Please do another screenshot from the Mac wifi of the connection to TC wireless like your previous one. So I can see the actual signal and link speed.