loke groundrunner

Q: Imac (early 2008) constant wifi packet loss

I have an early 2008 imac (2.8ghz, 6GB ram, 128gb SSD card) running Mavericks 10.9.4.  i'm having problems with wifi packet loss to my uverse wifi router (a Pace PLC 5031NV-030.  If I ping 192.168.1.254, get dropped packets on the order of around 25% usually.  I don't lose connection and it's not a wake from sleep issue, like I find all over the forums.  It's just a poor connection that makes it unusable for skype/facetime/streaming video.  Here's the thing, though, my iphone doesn't drop packets and neither does my wife's W7 laptop.  And when I moved my imac into the room where the router is and hook it up via ethernet, no lost packets of course.  So it's only on my imac and only when I use wifi.


I have tried the following

 

  1. Called uverse and gotten a brand new router.  I plugged the new one in (using all new cables and power cords that came with it), exact same problem.
  2. moved the router physically to the other side of the room see if anything was interfering with it.
  3. changed the channel the router broadcasts on to an empty one i found using the wifi scan in apple's wireless diagnostics
  4. turned off our roku and any other device in the house using wifi
  5. changed wifi bands: 802.11n/b/g to b only to g only and n only
  6. changed the wifi security (on/off, wpa2 tkip/aes to wpa2 aes)
  7. reset p-ram and smc
  8. repaired permissions on the startup drive and checkdisk
  9. removed any wifi passwords stored in keychain access
  10. in System Preferences->Networks, made a new location, changed the wifi to be first in Service Order and rebooted
  11. removed /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration
  12. ran the kext utility that I saw on a thread about yosemite problems

 

And generally pulled my hair out.   I've been searching these forums and the net for days and nights now.  Any other ideas?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jan 17, 2015 8:29 AM

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Q: Imac (early 2008) constant wifi packet loss

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  • by Baby Boomer (USofA),

    Baby Boomer (USofA) Baby Boomer (USofA) Jan 17, 2015 12:46 PM in response to loke groundrunner
    Level 9 (57,623 points)
    Jan 17, 2015 12:46 PM in response to loke groundrunner

    changed the channel the router broadcasts on to an empty one i found using the wifi scan in apple's wireless diagnostics

    Instead of using the one from Apple's, try changing the channel directly from your router.


    Other things to try if you have not already done so from the following resources:

    System Preferences>Network

    Click the Assist Me button.

    In the next window that pops up, click the Diagnostic button & do the necessary.

    Post the results here.


    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4628 Wi-Fi: How to troubleshoot Wi-Fi connectivity

    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2712 Using network locations in Mac OS X


    CLICKY CLICK---> Manually provided DNS server addresses are higher priority than DHCP's


    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1714 Solutions for connecting to the Internet, setting up a small network, and troubleshooting

     

    CLICKY CLICK---> What to do when you can't connect to the Internet



    Thank you for posting a list of your troubleshooting that you have done so far.  It is very helpful to those of us trying to help.  Much appreciated.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Wave Siggy.gif

  • by loke groundrunner,

    loke groundrunner loke groundrunner Jan 17, 2015 1:50 PM in response to Baby Boomer (USofA)
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 17, 2015 1:50 PM in response to Baby Boomer (USofA)

    Thanks for the (detailed!) reply.  I did set the channel directly on the router.  Currently using 6.

     

    I ran the System Preferences->Network->Assist Me for the wifi connection and it said everything appears to be normal. 

     

    I looked through the other links and I've done all those things in the course of this (I use OpenDNS servers, etc).

     

    Maybe I just shouldn't expect ping results to be consistent and normal?  even when I ping -i2 google.com (ping ever 2 seconds) or some internet site, I experience packet loss.  But then I went to http://pingtest.net and it said no packet loss. 

     

    --- 8.8.4.4 ping statistics ---

    26 packets transmitted, 24 packets received, 7.7% packet loss

    round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 25.249/27.511/32.566/1.509 ms

     

    --- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---

    34 packets transmitted, 31 packets received, 8.8% packet loss

    round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 25.703/29.566/50.540/4.966 ms

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Jan 17, 2015 2:27 PM in response to loke groundrunner
    Level 10 (207,963 points)
    Applications
    Jan 17, 2015 2:27 PM in response to loke groundrunner

    Hold down the option key and select the Wi-Fi menu in the menu bar. What values are shown for the following?

              PHY Mode

              Channel

              Security

              Signal/Noise or RSSI

              Transmit (or Tx) Rate

    Please do not post the BSSID, as that information is private.

    Now hold down the option key again and select

               ▹ System Information... ▹ Network ▹ Wi-Fi

    Compare the two-letter Country Code with the ISO code for your country. Does it match? The code X0 means that the country couldn't be determined. The code X3 means South America, not otherwise specified.

  • by loke groundrunner,

    loke groundrunner loke groundrunner Jan 17, 2015 2:45 PM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 17, 2015 2:45 PM in response to Linc Davis

    PHY Mode: 802.11n

    Channel: 6 (2.4ghz)

    Security: WPA2 Personal

    RSSI: -65

    Transmit rate: 130

     

     ▹ System Information... ▹ Network ▹ Wi-Fi

    yields Country Code US (which is correct)

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Jan 17, 2015 2:58 PM in response to loke groundrunner
    Level 10 (207,963 points)
    Applications
    Jan 17, 2015 2:58 PM in response to loke groundrunner

    That seems OK. Does the same thing happen on other networks?