Mac Studio 802.11ax Wifi speed capped at 500 up/down, why?

Question

Mac Studio 802.11ax Wifi speed capped at 500 up/down, why?

Mac Studio M2 Max, with 802.11ax, has everything updated software-wise.

We upgraded to optical internet with ATT Feb of 2024. I was happy with 500 up/down on my Mac Studio. The ATT technician came to clean the optical cables, and I mentioned how fast it is at 500 up/down now.

He was puzzled, asking me why I don't let it go to full speed at 1 gig up/down. I responded to the effect that wifi doesn't go that fast, ethernet does and I do not have ethernet connected. He knew Mac Studios and is an apple user, who also is qualified to do settings and all that. So he opened up the system report and showed me the type of card wifi it had, and the capability of it.

He changed some setting and this thing was blazing fast on uploads and download (>1g up and down).

What happened? Life happened. I have been using Macs since dirt was shiny, and I guess somewhere over the years of coming forward with settings, iTunes stuff, and who knows what, I couldn't get finder to open and all manor of random errors, freezes, iTunes was glitchy, etc. Even with the computer fully updated, it got to where I could not force a finder window to open.

I came on here to some part of the community, someone suggested a full wipe of the hard drive and just start over with fresh download on everything. I thought after 20+ years, why not? So I did.

So far, so good. Certainly a learning curve, but am getting everything downloaded over my 500 up/down wifi....

Ya, it reset the speed back down, throttling it for some reason. I know I could run an ethernet cable if I crawl through the attic, but don't feel up to that. Therefore, why doesn't it run on the Wifi 5G channel at 1g? I know it is capable of doing such.

I called Apple Support, they were very nice. They admitted the machine is capable of 1gig, but stated there was nothing they could do on their end. Yes they said it is capable of 1g, but that is a router issue, not a Mac issue. ??

We discussed for a while, how I am actively getting 1,338 mbps down and 1,2976 Mbps up to and from the router itself. The ATT guy showed me how to use the ATT home app to verify the optical network was moving quickly to the router itself. So I know the speed is reaching the router.

Apple says if the wifi is connected to 5g, which it is, that is all the support they offer. They will help troubleshoot a wifi connection in general, but not why it is throttling the speed down over wifi.

Wonder what the ATT guy knew? I am not that technical to know what he did, but it sure was at 1 gig up/down until I did the full wipe and redownload of everything.

Any ideas why my 802.11ax will not work at 1g speeds? It is designed that way, says so on the apple website. Apple says it is running at 500 up/down, which is all it should do.

I am confused. Did the ATT guy know some trick, some work around? Apple won't touch the issue. I am not unhappy with the speed, but since I am steadily downloading everything over again, the doubling of speed would be nice, especially since the computer is designed to run that fast. I sure paid enough for this nice toy, so it would be cool to run it at full capacity.

Thanks for reading, hope it made sense, and maybe someone will know how to make it work at 1g.

Mac Studio, macOS 15.1

Posted on Dec 18, 2024 11:45 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 18, 2024 4:45 PM in response to Texas_Man_Luvs_His_mac

<< They will help troubleshoot a wifi connection in general, but not why it is throttling the speed down over wifi. >>

your friends here on the Apple user-to-User Support Communities are willing to give you custom help with that.

By far the easiest way to cause poor performance, instability, overheating and crashing is to install ANY third-party speeder-uppers, Cleaners, Optimizers, or Virus scanners, Bit Torrent, or a VPN that you installed yourself.

are you running anything like that?

Hold down the Option key while you click on the Wi-Fi icon on the menubar to open up the tools for investigating and fixing Wi-Fi issues

First is "Open Wireless diagnostics", which opens the wireless diagnostics Assistant, but does not proceed.

There are about eight different things you can do from here, but the top-level is to choose Diagnostics off the Window menu, or simply click continue, to do a quick check for Gross misconfiguration or operating problems. Your Admin password will be required. If any recommendations are shown, you should consider then seriously.

Next is to hold down the Option key and click the Wi-Fi icon as before. The screen that opens shows operating parameters of your network. Screenshot, transcribe, or photograph the results and post back in a reply on the forums. Looks like this older one.

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Answer 2

Dec 20, 2024 1:25 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thank you for your reply!

I wiped my hard drive clean and did a full reinstall of just the OS recently. I have only added Scrivener, Logos, zoom, Backblaze for online backup, kindle, Logic Pro, and world of warcraft. I do have the steam client operating, but haven't really used it yet.

That is it. Nothing else running. I have no VPN, no type of viral software anything, etc. We suspect that using Bitdefender over the years is what might have caused eventual instability in my OS, hence the full wipe and reinstall. Deciding to go with no kind of virus or malware protection.

I followed your excellent instructions, here are the screenshots:

#1 - when I option click the wifi symbol, I see the following:

#2 - I "open wireless diagnostics" and got this:

When I clicked "continue," I got this:

I did the options for continue to summary, which eventually resulted in a wireless diagnostic, which I've tried to attach, but am having trouble doing so.

That is what I have right now, any further communication would be helpful.

Thanks!

Robert

[Edited by Moderator]

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Answer 3

Dec 20, 2024 2:48 PM in response to Texas_Man_Luvs_His_mac

The extremely badly-named diagnostic report is a huge DUMP of every setting in your Mac that could possibly influence the working of your Wi-Fi. It has no human-readble details, and is used only by Apple Network Engineers when fighting intractable problems. There is no point in making it available to anyone except an Apple Network Engineer.

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Answer 4

Dec 20, 2024 2:53 PM in response to Texas_Man_Luvs_His_mac

You have made an 80 MHz wide connection using 802.11ax rules on channel 100, avoiding the lower, busier channels.

Your very strong raw signal strength of -51 (where typical -40 is right next to the Router, and -70 is nearly unusable) but your noise is slightly high at -89.

you are using Both your two antennas to achieve the next-to highest transmit rate possible.

There is nothing wrong with your Wi-Fi hardware or your connection. That leaves software issues as the likely culprit.

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Answer 5

Dec 20, 2024 2:59 PM in response to Texas_Man_Luvs_His_mac

Consider downloading and running this little "discovery" utility, Etrecheck. It changes NOTHING. Etrecheck was developed by senior contributor here, and uses system calls to collect often-needed information.

it contains little tests for speeds of devices, CPU utilization, memory usage, energy usage and a digest of recent problems, in one easy to use package. it does not even need to be Installed. Because less can be learned when your Mac is running great, best time to run is when your problems are actually occurring, if possible.

if you follow the directions faithfully, its report (pre-laundered of all personally-identifiable information) can be "Shared" to the System ClipBoard, then Pasted into an ‘Additional Text’ window in a reply on the forums.

Use Etrecheck Pro for free:

http://Etrecheck.com

(continued)

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Answer 6

Dec 20, 2024 2:59 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

then click the 'additional text' Icon in the reply footer, and PASTE

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