airport icon-signal strength?

Question

airport icon-signal strength?

Hi, my airport icon in the menu (right) indicates only two bars out of 4. What exactly does this mean? Does it mean I can't download as fast? How can I improve this? I'm using a wifi connection through my cable provider. This works poorly. I have to manually connect each time. Love some input folks.

M

iMac intel 24", Mac OS X (10.4.8), Intel Core 2 duo, 2.16 2GB memory

Posted on Dec 4, 2006 12:13 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 4, 2006 1:03 PM in response to Matthew Jackson

As far as I know, the number of signal bars indicates the strength of the connection between the computer and the router. It may affect speed a little bit, but for the most part, more than 1 bar means that you are connected at a sufficient speed. I use this widet to monitor signal strength in exact percentages:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/networking_security/airtrafficcontrol.h tml

It tells what percent the signal strength is, the name of the router, the type of router, the type of password, and the channel (1 - 11).

Trevor

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Answer 2

Dec 4, 2006 1:45 PM in response to Trevor Gibson

Thanks for your input. I downloaded this. I get 15 mbps. Is that good? I don't see the the name of router ,type, password. Hmm.

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Answer 3

Dec 4, 2006 3:33 PM in response to Matthew Jackson

Maybe it doesn't display that on intel-based macs as I have a PPC-based mac. 15mbps is just fine as far as speed goes. What was the number that was in the column for connection strength? If it's below 20, then your signal is weak in that area of your house.

Trevor

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Answer 4

myhighway

Level 5

7,270 points

Dec 5, 2006 1:00 PM in response to Matthew Jackson

Matthew Jackson,
Mine is usually showing 54mbps, but I just checked and it's showing 36, so I opened internet connect and, sure enough, I only have 10 bars instead of the full 15. And all the while, my menu bar AirPort icon has continued to show the full four bars. That's why I always check internet connect rather than rely on the icon.

To see if you can get more info, try flipping it over and checking for updates, that seems to strengthen the reported info for mine.

edit-
iMac is two feet from the AirPort base station, sometimes during the day the signal just gets weaker, I believe it's the isp or DSL line, as a high percentage of the time I have the 54mbps.

Message was edited by: myhighway

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Answer 5

Dec 5, 2006 6:03 PM in response to myhighway

I have a wireless 802.11g router, and I'm 150-200 feet away from the router. I get about 36 mbps average, but the connection percentage always hovers aroung the high 20% range. That's pretty marginal as far as connection strength goes. But because I have a cable modem hooked up to the other end of the connection, I get download speeds at a maximum of 1-1.2mbps or 8-10MBps.

However, after saying all of this, the AirPort icon in my menu bar always has 1 bar, and sometimes 2. I think that this is because of the connection strength and has nothing to do with the speed.

Trevor

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