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tasiv Author

Level 1

4 points

Apple devices extremely sluggish with Motorola SBG6580 modem

All of my Apple devices (2 iMacs, an iPad and 2 iPhones) when connected to a new Motorola modem SBG6580 Time Warner installed experience frequent slow-downs to dial-up speeds; at other times work fine. My iMacs are directly Ethernetted into the Time Capsule; the iPad and iPhones operate via my WiFi network created by the Time Capsule. Ironically, my ancient Windows-based laptop when connected directly to the modem experiences NO PROBLEM. I tried connecting my iMacs directly into the modem (bypassing the Time Capsule) but that does not cure the severe bottlenecks.

Has anyone else had this problem? The Motorola modems are new and are designed for ulta-highspeed broadband so there many not be many of you out there with this modem in use with your Apple products.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.5), See above

Posted on Dec 6, 2010 9:47 AM

40 replies

mrwogs

Level 1

0 points

Mar 11, 2011 8:11 AM in response to tasiv

Echoing the rest of the posts here, turning off the firewall on my SBG6580 fixed my connection problems on my mac 3,1. I was having frequent slow load times in Safari and Firefox and ftp uploads to certain servers were extremely slow.

I logged into my router and turned off the firewall protection and the IP flooding setting, and my issues are gone. Firefox is speedy again and my ftp uploads are back to normal.

Thanks guys!

jango7

Level 1

0 points

Apr 9, 2011 3:54 PM in response to tasiv

I was really pulling out my hair THANK YOU! I was convince that it was the modem.. but time warner kept saying "this is the only one that can handle the high speed" I was about to tell them to downgrade me to slower internet speed just to replace the Motorola sbg6580. And of course when they came over to check on it.. it ran so smooth on there PC's. I bought airport extreme thinking it could boost the worst internet of my life.. but nada. I cant belive firewall caused all of these problems for mac users with this modem.

Kinda feel like and idiot for not figuring this out sooner . Hope more people can find this thread and save them selfs as it did with me.

andswan

Level 1

0 points

Jul 3, 2011 2:59 PM in response to tasiv

Yeah, I've been having the same problem, called the TWC guy over and he replaced it with the same model, worked fine on his POS protecto PC, opened 5 youtube videos all fine; opened 5 youtube videos on mine and it slowed down to 56k. I knew right then it had to be the modem, how could they not test this ****? They're gonna end up losing a ton of money for house calls that won't solve the problem.

Is turning off the Firewall safe?

Jul 16, 2011 5:22 PM in response to andswan

I live in West Chester OH and my ISP is Time Warner Cable. A month ago I upgraded to what TWC calls Wideband RR service. They installed Motorola SBG 6580 and immediately my web access speed really bogged down. TWC in Cincinnati uses the 6580 as a cable modem only - no router.

By process of elimination I ruled out Cisco wireless router, cables, ...... In our house we have 2 macbooks, an iMac and a Dell running Windows 7. I rarely see the Dell - it's usually at school with my son. So when I was finally able to test it it ran like a scalded dog. Then I found your guys thread. So I called and and chatted online twice with TWC - I won't tell you my experience - I'm guessing this is a family show. They didn't even know what a cable modem is. WOW. So they were unable to turn off the firewall on the 6580. Can one of you guys help me on this? Thanks!

Jul 19, 2011 7:22 PM in response to tasiv

Just to add another voice to the collection...I was experiencing the same problem with my ISP (Time Warner Broadband) and turning off the firewall in the modem worked like a charm. I'm now getting 50 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up with no more stalling etc of the internet. thank you!!!

Jul 19, 2011 7:37 PM in response to Global Voyager

Ok. Just FYI - TWC technical support is pathetic. Anyway, with the help of all those posting before me and bouncing around in Motorola's website I found: 192.168.0.1 put me into the Cable Modem setup. Unchecked firewall and bursting, saved, reopened browser and BINGO! Pat

Aug 20, 2011 8:07 AM in response to tasiv

THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH! It is SOOO nice to actually find real solutions here!!!! Firewall be ******! I unchecked all the Firewall options and now my internet connection is a real high speed connection!

skaiser

Level 1

8 points

Sep 2, 2011 9:38 PM in response to tasiv

THANK YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything works great now.

What other router/modem settings should/could I change to get even better results? I have changed nothing besides the name of the router, the type of password, the password itself and now I have changed the firewall preferences. Any other suggestions???

Feb 6, 2012 2:04 PM in response to patrickfromwest chester

I relaize this is an old thread - and you likely have found an answer or another solution - but in case you are still looking or someone else happens across this thread - the default user name and pasword on the SBG6850 are admin and motorola - which you can then change after you log in.

As an additional note - I have had a few times where things seemd to slow down - and the router status showed only one channel in use - a reboot of the router solved that.

I am having a couple other issues that *might* be realted to the router - with FTP to a Mac OS X Lion Server for example - but may not be.

Another interesting tidbit - the firmware is not user upgradeable - not sure how to detemine what the latest firmware is or how often the cable co will update it - mine is currently - SBG6580-3.3.0.0-GA-06-022-NOSH

Feb 7, 2012 9:13 AM in response to tasiv

I was having the same problem with my SBG6580 as everyone else and I eventually found this post. I turned off the firewall and what do you know, it's fixed. But I didn't really like the idea of not having firewall so I did some testing and found that what also fixed the problem is just turning off IP Flood Detection the option right above the Firewall Protection option. This also fixed issues with my PS3. So my recommendation to all of those people having problems is that you do this first before you turn off your firewall. Good Luck to all and thanks to everyone who helped find a solution.

-James

ASchwab

Level 1

0 points

Feb 8, 2012 5:24 PM in response to tasiv

Thanks guys, I was shopping for a new gateway unit when I stumbled across this and it fixed everything!

Feb 16, 2012 8:24 AM in response to ASchwab

To any of the respondents in this thread who are using a Motorola SBG6580 with an Airport Extreme base station:

I've owned a couple of different Motorola SBG series cable modem/router/Wifi devices. I'm probably going to buy the SBG6580 soon. Lately, I left the router portion of the SBG intact, turned OFF WiFi on the SBG, and have set my Airport base station to "bridge" mode in order to use the Airport Extreme to create my wireless network. I've never had any problem with this setup but I'm wondering how the settings on the SBG need to be changed in order to use the Airport Extreme as the router. Any advice would be appreciated. Are there any speed advantages to doing this?

The reason I left the router on the SBG intact is because I've read that causes fewer problems on the Time Warner cable internet service than using an Airport unit as the router.

Jonfinpa

Level 1

4 points

Mar 23, 2012 3:48 AM in response to Scott Newman

Hi Scott,

I found this online which I believe will help you.

http://gol10dr.com/motorola-surfboard-sb6580-playing-nice-with-a

You might have to cut n paste the link or google sb6580 with airport extreme

Mar 23, 2012 7:55 AM in response to Jonfinpa

Thanks for the info. I've printed it to a PDF file and saved it in case I need it in the future.

As it turned out, a week or so after my previous post I did purchase this cable modem/wireless router. I disabled NAT within the cable modem and let my AE Base Station do that job as well as create my local WiFi network. I haven't had any problems. I initially set up the cable modem/router to create a network (now disabled) using the same name/password as the one that my AE Base Station does which gives me redundancy if the AE Base Station fails.

Apr 8, 2012 12:19 PM in response to tasiv

I’m having similar issues with the SBG6580 modem as described above but am not even able to access the modem through the http://192.168.0.1/ address. I have disconnected all other devices and even tried connecting solely through an Ethernet cable. Even though I can access the Internet, I’m still not able to access the modem in order to disable the firewall. The error I’m getting is that "Safari can’t open the page because the server where this page is located isn’t responding." Any advice?

Apple devices extremely sluggish with Motorola SBG6580 modem