Airport 5ghz confusion

Need to get some details sorted.

1. What model/s are the Extreme/s you are using?

2. Did you measure it by ethernet plugged to the main modem?

In this test do you get 200Mbps download? And how are you measuring it?

How are you measuring the 120Mbps download?

3. Is the modem a router or is it cable service and a simple modem?

Exact make and model of the modem please?

while I pay for 200 mbps service, with wifi my top speeds are 120 average if Im sitting in the same room.

What device are you testing on?

Most of the iDevices have limited top speeds due to number of streams.. eg iphone is one stream.. ipad is two stream on lots of models.. this sets upper limits depending on the actual model AE you use.

4. On a Mac please post screenshots of a couple of things.

Your setup on the airport utility showing link speed of the extension.

You will find it by hovering over the connection with your mouse then take a snapshot.

Here is what mine looks like.. I hover the mouse over connection:Unknown.. where it says Unknown it will give us actual speed and signal levels.

Also use the wireless diagnostics.. built into any of the recent Mac OS. But this screenshot is also valuable. Option key plus click the wireless fan in top menu area.

You can then click on Wireless Diagnostics.

What we need here.. is the utility window scan.. not the main diagnostic.. you don't need to even run it.

Don't click continue. it is next to useless.

Just go to the top menu window (or utility.. slightly different on different versions and get the scan).

Now run the scan and open the fields so we can see all the info.

That gives us some data to work on.

But I can tell you now.. at least part of the problem is extend wireless. That slows down the network drastically even for clients connected to the main wireless router not the extender due to sharing links over double hop wireless.

Using streaming over wireless links with multiple wireless hops.. big no no.

Built into wireless is priority of streaming services that will hurt your other services.. even if Apple do not have QoS some priority is built into wireless.

What I need is the actual speed on the Mac.

Option Click the wireless fan..

This is the speed on 2.4ghz .. absolute max. on Apple is 217Mbps which this has reached. But its internet speed is about half that.. ie 108Mbps give or take.

This is 5ghz.

878Mbps is not great.. I can usually get 1300Mbps but I am perhaps running too many 5ghz routers now.

Note this is channel 36.. if i push the channel to the high end I can often get faster speeds.

Which is what happened.

Sorry I am getting older and I don't have the energy to read back the whole thread.. if you upgraded to Sierra I would do NVRAM and SMC reset. (Also check if updates are available).

It can also be well worth clearing out all the previous wireless connections on the computer.. reboot it and rediscover the wireless.

They tend to accumulate.

Empty out the whole lot and start again.

When you cannot install ethernet.. which is the only reliable connection in the long run.. give powerline adapters a try.

Buy passthrough type.. ie they plug into the wall socket and provide another socket on top.. because you cannot use them on powerboards. (at least not current limited ones). Get AV500 as the lies really just get bigger as the speed goes up.. (gigabit ones recently came out and it is perhaps 10-20% faster in real world where they are at max distance) and make sure you buy from store with good return policy.. because they can work anywhere between brilliant to not at all. The big advantage is they are full duplex.. and when they do work are pretty much consistent. Unlike wireless which is by its very nature inconsistent as you have discovered.

Use reviews.. expensive does not necessarily mean good.

https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/powerline/view

Although let me revise that as a quick look through the top model

https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/lanwan-reviews/32813-tplink-tlpa8030p-3-p ort-gigabit-passthrough-powerline-starte…

Is $49 a set. which is pretty cheap actually.

Ran out of time.

I just don't get why my iPhone would show 120 with 2 bars and 40 with three?!?!?

More extenders = worse performance when the other extender is still in range.. more interference and more time slicing.

Wireless is single Tx and Rx half-duplex (ie wireless cannot Tx and Rx it must do it sequentially). So lets say your network has one main wireless plus two extenders.. that means each extender gets 1/3 of the time.. and main client gets 1/3. Speed is reduced as your wireless must deal with multiple clients and slowed by double hop connections.

If you want to improve the setup the first thing to do is remove all wireless extenders.. use multiple Wireless Access Points.. WAP.. ie each extreme tied together by ethernet in a roaming network is far superior layout.

Thanks for all of that.. it is frustrating to post all the details.. and then Apple site bugs out.. that is what I wanted though.

I would like to see the scan with all the fields showing and all the info.. it is cut off length and width.. expand so I can see it all.

I think you will do better to link on 2.4ghz and use 5ghz for the wireless connection to the clients. It is well worth a try.

I am busy for next couple of hours so one of the other guys here might also jump in to help.

I might get you to do some local link tests as the SB6121 is a known buggy modem with Apple routers. Do a search here (or better google it) and you will see there are some strange issues that could be the cause.. I think your wireless bridge in the main router can be having issues.. but might be actually fine for local transfers.

Do plug a hard disk into the Deckstrong Airport and do some simple file transfer tests .. ie create a directory in finder on the disk and copy a largish.. say around 1GB file back and forth and give me a speed. (just using the activity monitor and an aprox average is fine).

JDecker1978 wrote:

Ah are you saying just extend the 2.4 network? When I did that before my tests were showing MUCH slower speeds, thats why I kept the 5ghz going.

Wireless networking is not easy to manage, especially when you are surrounded by other wireless users and you cannot use wired backbone. It is worth keeping open mind as to what will work .. and one set of tests can be negated by another set when you change conditions a bit. Lots of odd things happen.

The Zoom is going to be a better modem than the SB6121.. so start from there.

My usual list of network setup hints.

When you change modems reset to factory and start over. AE = Airport Extreme.. TC = Time Capsule. TM = Time Machine.. I will leave this in TC but other than Time Machine stuff simply read AE in place of TC.

Factory reset universal

Power off the TC.. ie pull the power cord or power off at the wall.. wait 10sec.. hold in the reset button.. be gentle.. power on again still holding in reset.. and keep holding it in for another 10sec. You may need some help as it is hard to both hold in reset and apply power. It will show success by rapidly blinking the front led. Release the reset.. and wait a couple of min for the TC to reset and come back with factory settings. If the front LED doesn’t blink rapidly you missed it and simply try again. The reset is fairly fragile in these.. press it so you feel it just click and no more.. I have seen people bend the lever or even break it. I use a toothpick as tool.

N.B. None of your files on the hard disk of the TC are deleted.. this simply clears out the router settings of the TC.

Setup the TC again.

Then redo the setup from the computer you want to use for TM using Airport Utility.

1. Use very short names.. NOT APPLE RECOMMENDED names. No spaces and pure alphanumerics.

eg TCgen5 for basestation and TCwifi wireless name.

If the wireless is still a problem set wireless names like TC24ghz and set the 5ghz to different name.. eg.TC5ghz

2. Use all passwords that also comply with 1. but can be a bit longer. ie 8-20 characters mixed case and numbers.. no non-alphanumerics.

**3. If the TC is main router you can skip this point. This is only an issue when the TC is bridged.

Ensure the TC always takes the same IP address.. you will need to do this on the main router using dhcp reservation.. or a bit more complex setup using static IP in the TC.

Ignore this point if you don't understand it .. post back if you have drop out issues.

4. Make sure IPv6 is set correctly in the computer. ie link-local only for ethernet and/or wireless depending on which you use. Auto is not good enough.

IPv6 is still crucial to get right. If you need it for your ISP the setting will be different.. but for most people their internal network is still IPv4 but you need IPv6 set correctly for everything to work. In Sierra you cannot use auto setting.. you must set to Link-Local only or use a full IPv6 configuration.

It is an area I am weak in because IPv6 is basically unknown where I live. Just have not had experience to comment much.. beyond the above.

but 5k iMac still shows 130

This is actual internet transfer speed?

Give me the numbers.

The wireless link speed from the wireless directly.. so I can see it is connected to 5ghz.. and make sure it is not going via the other router. Any double hop wireless will totally mess things up.

So you have good signal and the top possible speed on 2.4ghz.. but 217Mbps can never get internet speed much above 100Mbps because of wireless being half-duplex.. ie it cannot receive and transmit at the same time.. that single fact means you always divide by 2 at a min.

Only by connecting to 5ghz and making sure you are getting at least 500Mbps will you reach your Internet limit.