Download rates

My wife and I just added two iMac DC 17s to our orchard. We are having identical problems as indicated here. We have a D-Link 624 router with our iMac 800 mhz wired and a 15in. PB wireless downstairs in our kitchen. Our download speeds are almost always fast and trouble free until we placed the two new computers in the network (wireless). The new unit in the kitchen is cruelly slow, but we definitely notice the oscillation problem this morning. However, the other new iMac is upstairs right next to the router and it seems to download at the expected speeds of the other two older computers.

This morning, I was trying to download the G-Force visualizer for the new iMac in the kitchen and the downloading was oscillating and was taking a good 15 minutes when I aborted it. I immediately unplugged the machine, took it upstairs and tried it right next to the router. Guess what? It downloaded the software in about 10 to 15 seconds!

Distance does matter, apparently.

Also, I didn't know that I could use Airport Express with the D-Link 624 router to extend the signal. Does this work?

John B.

iMac DC 17 Mac OS X (10.4.4) Also own iMac 800 and PB 15



iMac DC 17 Mac OS X (10.4.4) Also own iMac 800 and PB 15

My cable is rated for 5Mbps and I get around 1200-2000 while on wireless with my Linksys router. I used my AX in wireless router mode and got much less than that. Even wired with an ethernet cable I was getting really low rates, so I'm suspecting its my Cable company. But still, I have been getting less than stellar results as compared to my wife's PC laptop.

Ron

GWS,
nice site and very informative.
Reading it , you made me realize some info I kept from you initially.
My wireless set up here is : 1 AXBS as the main wireless router , and a second one to extend the range (the third one goes to work!).
However, there is a peculiarity to the way I have my system setup I have G4s, iBook and the DC. The ibook is an older one a G3 with a b Airport card. Having spoken with an Apple network engineer, I was told that if you run a mixed network, I would have better results running it b rather than both b and g. Since I have 2 AXBS, I decided to setup the main as g and the xtender as b. It works fine and everybody sees everybody else.

As I told you, I am not experiencing any problems.


Deivy

Thanks for the tip!

Changing my router settings from WPA-TKIP to WPA-AES fixed the problem for my Intel iMac.


Hans-Joachim

Internet/network performance has been a topic on MacFixit as well.
There is a possible solution that users can try in the form of a delayedACK modification. Information and a download can be found at the link below;

http://systemsboy.blogspot.com/

Well, Patrick, now that you've mentioned, here is another link one could try:
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/broadbandtuner10.html>

Let me know if it does for you.
You can set those valies by hand if you will


Deivy

I seem to be having an interesting problem

while I can connect fine and the throughput seems fine if I do a ping to something like www.yahoo.com I get very VARIED MS rates. On my pc's, I get a solid 60 MS response rate, with the mac, doing PING in Terminal, I get 60 MS, 400 MS, 600 MS, 62 MS, etc. WHY such variance?

I have my iMac talking with my brothers PC, on WEP, my bridge is conneted wireless, I have no drop out in speed even if we are both on the net at once, downloading.

So might be the wap guys.


give it a try!


Regards ArtyPaul

I've noted this problem with airport a while ago on macrumors forum.

I've tried all the hacks and solutions, all the encryption settings and enabled and disabled interference robustness.....

All to no avail.

As soon as I connect ethernet cable into the imac speed is back to normal.
WE NEED AN AIRPORT FIX NOW APPLE!!!!!!! As a temporary measure I've had to plug in a ralink 54g usb adapter into the back of the mini in order to get full speed.

I imagine the MacBookPro will suffer same problems seeing as though its the same chipset. Here's hoping 10.4.5 or Airport Fix will be available very shortly as I'm really dissapointed about this...

I'm assuming the Airport they are using is a different chipset to all the other airports and hence drivers are at a very juvenile stage.

Sorry Philip,
I do not believe it is a hardware problem.
My iMac DC works fine.
Also, just to check, I run the ping test above, not abnormal, same behaviour on the G4 or the iMac. Around 20ms for a ping to yahoo and sometimes, in both machines it goes to a number between high thirties and low fifties (about twice in a 20 run, same on both machines).

So , no, I am not experiencing any network problems. At least, not yet! 🙂

It might be something else.

Deivy

I have a third gen iMac and at least part of the problem appears to be related to Bluetooth and namely my wireless kb and mouse.

When I plugged in the wired versions from my other iMac, my download speeds were up to par. I know this because my 15 inch pb was sitting right next to the new iMac and they were both downloading at the same speeds.

Also, when the new iMac was sitting right next to the wireless router (D-Link 624) its download speeds were about normal even though the wireless devices were in use at the time. So, there appears to be an issue with the distance and the wireless devices.

I spent almost two hours on the phone on Thurs with a fairly high level tech support person from Apple. All of this was recorded in real time with a program he sent me to install for the testing. I then uploaded this data file back to him. He said this would be examined by the engineering dept. and he might have some answers for me on Mon. or Tues.

Until this issue gets solved we are using wired kb and mouse with the third gen. iMac. The tech told me that Apple went with two cards instead of one in the third gen (and probably newer DCs) iMacs. One card is for airport and the other is for BT.