Slow Internet compared to my PC

Hi,

Just purchased a new iMac Intel 20" intel dual-core. My internet performance stinks. I have a Windows laptop sitting right next to it, plugged into the same ethernet switch, and it gets twice the performance of the Mac. I measured this using the Verizon Fios speed test. Additionally, web-pages load noticeably faster on the windows machine than on the Mac.

I have the problem whether I'm using Firefox, Safari or Internet explorer.

I have both machines plugged into a 100BaseT ethernet switch.

I'm very frustrated, and tempted to return the blasted thing.

Any ideas, RTFM's or configuration options will be appreciated.

iMac Intel Dual-core 2.0Mhz, Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on May 10, 2006 9:48 AM

21 replies

TAV

Level 3

880 points

May 18, 2006 3:48 PM in response to Michael Dye

Cheers on getting it up to speed.

Dah•veed

Level 9

66,565 points

May 19, 2006 12:43 PM in response to TAV

D*mn TAV,
Telefonos de Mexico always told us things were slow, even with a 1 Meg DSL because the USA had heavy filters on all the traffic since 9/11.
I made your sugested changes and pages just fly on the screen now!!
Muchas gracias, amigo!

TAV

Level 3

880 points

May 19, 2006 12:52 PM in response to Dah•veed

Glad to hear it!

May 20, 2006 2:53 PM in response to Michael Dye

I'm have the same problem. It takes 20 seconds to load Apples home page. I've used Boot Camp to load Windows XP home. Using Explorer or Firefox in XP it loads in 1 second. I've tried the Rosetta both ways, no big difference. My Airport is connected by ethernet to a cable modem. I also have an iBook G4, it's also slower. Maybe OSX is just slower. It seems to have really slowed about the time I loaded the last Apple security update a few weeks ago, could that have anything to do with it?

May 20, 2006 3:43 PM in response to Mike Moerer

I think I may have solved my problem. I had a speed problem several months ago and a cable company rep told me to type in 2 specific DNS server addresses (even though I was using DHCP). There was a cable outage several weeks ago. I bet the cable company changed dns servers. I just deleted the dns IP addresses, renewed DHCP, and the speed picked up greatly. Now on my iMac, both OSX and WinXP are about the same speed (loading web pages).

Aug 8, 2006 7:32 PM in response to TAV

Regardless of running a PPC or native browser, raw
data speeds should not be impacted, although the
overall user experience certainly will be due to the
rendering issues with a browser under Rosetta.

To test this theory, try your native browser (Safari,
Opera, Camino, Firefox, whatever) surf to the Apple
downloads page, and just pick a larger file to
download (an update, anything). Check your d/l
speeds. The Apple downloads are a decent test source
- their server loads seem to remain fairly
consistent. All of your browsers might perform
differently, but your raw data download speeds will
remain constant.

Now force your browser to run under Rosetta. Surf
back to the same Apple page, attempt the same
download. Your raw d/l speeds will remain on par
with the first test.

Back to Michael's original question:

In the Network Pane of your System Prefs, set the
Ethernet tab to "Manually" (Advanced); change your
Speed tab to "100bastTX" (or faster if the option is
there); select "Full Duplex" and click Apply.

Reboot and do a raw data test using the method above
on both your Mac and PC and see if you get similiar
data rates.

Just chiming it.. your network settings tip seems to help.. Note that it didn't help under Camino, but did under safari (I originally went to Camino becasue it was faster, but not any more looks like).

Thanks for the tip.

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Slow Internet compared to my PC