is there a way to strengthen wifi signal to my Mac Pro

Question

Level 1

27 points

is there a way to strengthen wifi signal to my Mac Pro

I have an 2009 Mac Pro. I am renting a downstair apartment and am on the owners wifi. The have a gamer, and have the highest wifi upload and download. I also have a 2015 MBP. The wifi lighting fast.

My Mac Pro is my workhorse for audio and video editing. I have the wireless card that is specific for the 2009. Sometimes it is pretty fast and other times I get timeouts.

Just a sub question since we are on wifi? I have 3 macs, an iPhone and iPad on the network. I know there are 2 mart TVs. There are also 2 other phones and laptops. Can only so may devices connect at once? I also have the slow connection problems on my Mac Pro during the day when my roommates aren't home.

Is there anyway to speed up my connection? Is there a "n" wifi card for the Mac Pro that I don't know about. Can I hook up an extender or repeater and go into the Mac Pro though ethernet.

Just trying to look at all possibilities.

Mac Pro, Other OS, early 2009 8 core 2.4Ghz Mavericks

Posted on Feb 4, 2016 11:20 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Johnb-one

Level 6

9,156 points

Feb 4, 2016 11:59 AM in response to nelsonmay

yes-you do have a few options. You could get a better wireless card for your Mac Pro 2009 or some kind of USB wifi dongle. You could install that card yourself, but believe you me, it's not really that easy, but it's do-able. You could also extend the wireless network. I bought an Airport base station (big rectangular white flat one), and used that to extend my wireless signal. Amazingly enough, I was able to find an app I could install on my iPhone and do it that way. Not as hard as you might think, surprisingly. You can also buy wireless signal boosters/range extenders as well. You may also want to consider Powerline ethernet, with the owner's permission. What this does is one transmitter plugs into the Ethernet socket on whatever router is there, and a reciever is plugged into your Mac's ethernet socket and then into the powerline, so it uses the electrical wiring to carry the signal. Don't ask me how it works because I don't know that well, what I do know is that if a wireless signal has to go through floors and walls, especially those that contain metal (and most do) the signal might not be as strong as you would like. You may also want to consider changing the channel on your wifi network, and/or creating a 5Ghz wireless network which ought to be less subsceptible to interference which a 2.4 Ghz connection might possibly have. One last thing: and this is very important. If you have Yosemite on your 2009 Mac Pro it will trash your wifi. I found I couldn't do much with that until I upgraded my Mac Pro to El Capitan

(or left it at Mavericks) . Once I did that, my wifi was working fine again. I think there's even a card with external facing antennas you could get for your Mac Pro-Asus??

anyways, you do have options when it comes to this

good luck whatever you choose

John Brine

Reply

Answer 2

nelsonmay Author

Level 1

27 points

Feb 4, 2016 12:23 PM in response to Johnb-one

Great. Thanks. There are some really good ideas. Here is one I want to try first.

I do have an apple Basestation with"n". Big fat square one. I was actually in another situation like this a couple of year ago when I had an office, in the vicinity, but not connected to my house. I also like my base station better than the wifi routers, the ISP gives you. Anyway, I was told that I couldn't set up the base station on an existing wireless network. Something about having to create a sub network and it would cause all kinds of problems. Maybe they were telling me that because it couldn't be done at the time or they wanted me to stay with their wifi router and not use mine.

If I correctly understand the beginning of your post, there is an iPhone app that will help you configure a base station on an existing wifi network?

I have Yosemite on the MBP and never took it back to Mavericks. I don't want to upgrade yet, because I will have to spend a lot of money upgrading software. I really thought Mavericks was a sloppy release and it gave me headaches for a year. Now that is its patched, (and no Steve Jobs) I worry about upgrading to a new OSX until everyone else works out the bugs.

Cheers.

Reply

Answer 3

lllaass

Level 10

210,411 points

Feb 4, 2016 12:22 PM in response to nelsonmay

The wifi card in the Mac Pro should include compatibility with the 5 GHz N band

Built-in AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi wireless networking³(based on 802.11n draft specification); IEEE 802.11a/b/g compatible

Mac mini (Early 2009) - Technical Specifications

Mine support/uses the 5 GHx N band

You can get USB dongles that use the AC band (also 5 GHz).

However, while the 5 GHz bands are usually faster, they are attenuated more by distance the things (floors, wall, especially ones with metal) than the 2.4 GHz networks

Reply