Hardware :: Slow Wireless Internet/how To Make Fast?
Jan 27, 2008
After running an internet speed test I find that my download speed is only running at 1MBps, despite paying for 5 MBps. The upload speed was as advertised at 500 KBps. So after firing off a nasty e-mail to my ISP (DOH!) I try to troubleshoot the problem. Lo and behold, if I plug the notebook in directly to the cable modem it runs at 5MBps! Is there some internal setting either in the computer or router that is slowing me down? FYI I am purchasing the .n technology soon with time capsule and a new iMac...but this old notebook won't handle it.
Been months and issue is still the same, why does my desktop work blazing fast online from browsing to loading streaming videos etc. And my Macbook Pro can't, its a little slower browsing online which I can put up with but youtube, rottentomatoes, basically any streaming type site sucks. And it doesn't matter whether it's by wireless or connected directly by ethernet. It just buffers like every 15 seconds (does the samething on Safari and Chrome). I mean before my 4 year old HP laptop died it could load videos on those same sites almost instantly with no buffering.
I have a friend with an Imac that does the same thing, and a buddy brought over his MBP 15 and same thing happened like at his house, and I showed him how fast the desktop is in comparison.
I just moved to a new condo, have high speed internet from Comcast, and its def not the internet since the desktop works perfect. Any ideas on what to do as I use this MBP more being I carry it around the place and its so irritating knowing how quicker my desktop is, and that desktop is 2 years old.
I've tried different DNS etc and that helped a little bit (was a lot worse before) but still sucks, this is what I have inputted from this forum under DNS servers: 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220 4.2.2.1 4.2.2.2 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4
My Internet has just been upgraded from 2MB/s to 10MB/s. To confirm the upgrade I have used [URL:...] to test my upload/download speeds with Firefox and Safari. I have 2 computers on my network which consists of a cable modem connected to a white airport base station with 128 bit WEP encryption in 802.11 b/g compatible mode. The 2 computers are a dual 2.8 ghz MacPro which is wired directly into the Airport base station by Ethernet and an iMac 1.83 Intel core 2 duo. The much faster MacPro only achieves a download speed of 5.5MB/s over its wired connection while the slower iMac achieves 9.8MB/s - very close to the advertised speed over its wireless connection. These are consistent speeds not one offs so I am wondering why the difference? The MacPro is my main machine so I'd like to have the best speed possible on that. What can I try?
The internet has bee moving slowly on my 24" imac. I'm using a wireless connection that is only a few feet from my computer. (my own network) The web moves slow on both safari and firefox. Google taking long to load up, a google search loading slowly, facebook taking a couple of minutes. My girlfriend used the same wireless network on her Dell Vostro laptop using internet explorer and it moves lighting fast. (The internet connection is cable high speed 7.5 mbps).
I have a 2008 2,4 MBP and I have a problem with it. I was using snow leopard and everything was going fine for a few months. Then suddenly, it froze on the desktop at the opening. After few minutes, and command+ctrl+Shift+esc, and a few prayers it sometimes came ok.
I got tired of that and decided to format my hard drive and reinstall osx. I had to do it 3 times before it worked. Then I installed the updates and BANG! New problem! Now it was booting for 6 minutes before I see the desktop.
I am running an Ethernet (hardwired) connection from my Comcast modem to a Netgear WNR834B v.2 router then to my iMac 20" 2.16Ghz (previous white version)'s Ethernet port. I did this because I have been experiencing slow connection and frequent drop-outs (gets disconnects frequetnly when playing WC3). Now that the same problem still exists when using this wired setup. Whenever I open up Safari and go to a webpage , the page hangs while loading, and it will take about 10~20 seconds to get the page fully loaded with pictures and everything else. If I unplug the Ethernet cable that goes to the iMac from the router, and then plug it into the modem (so that my iMac is connected to the modem directly), the connection speed is blazing fast, and the webpages would fully load in no time. Therefore I am wondering what might be the cause of the slow Ethernet connection? Is it my router since that connection speed is super fast when connecting to the modem directly?
I got a white iMac G5 about a year ago. Everything has been working fine until recently when I started to notice that its REALLY SLOW. What I mean by this is that whenever I try to open an application, load my widgets or basically do anything, it is really slow and Im seeing A LOT of beach balls. Just as i started typing in the title for this tread, it gave me a beachball. This computer is not that old so it should still be running smoothly.
Does anyone know why this is happening?
btw: I have 1GB of RAM, but it still operate really slow when I only have a few application open.
Recently my macbook slowed down during it's initial boot process. It now takes 42 seconds just for the apple logo to appear. Finally after 1:20 I'm at the desktop. I can certainly live with this but am just curious as to why all of a sudden the initial process has basically doubled (getting to the apple logo).
When I open up my finder, and try to search through files with my mouse, i will click on a folder with my mouse and the sub folders will not show up. It looks like they don't exist. BUT when I use my up and down arrows to search through the files, everything works great. The files show up immediately.
Iv installed a cracked version of FCP7 and once it is up and running it runs very slowly and after closing down FCP7 my mac runs very slow but if i re-start my mac it is as fast as ever untill i start up FCP7 again. i dont think there is anything wrong with the program but more that there is something wrong with my mac (my ignorance).
When watching Videos on youtube longer then 10 min my 1.6/80 MBA slows down to a crawl, its driving me bananas for $2k Canadian this thing should work like a charm.
My Ipod Touch has no problems with the same videos on Youtube.
I am finding time machine too slow and i am looking at super duper or carbon copy cloner has anyone used either of these programs ,are they better than time machine
The wireless on my mbp is really slow most of the times -- about 3Mbps. I get 13 Mbps via ethernet. (speedtest.net) A windows machine connected to the same network gets 13 Mbps on wireless as well as ethernet. Even my iphone gets 12 Mbps. I guess this rules out problems with the router (DLink DI-524 with WEP). Tried OpenDNS servers, no change. Also tried disabling file/internet sharing, Ipv6.
I recently purchased my first Mac computer, a MacBook Pro with Intel Core 2 Duo processor. I receive free internet included in my apartment rent, and I don't use a router, instead I simply plug into the wall. I previously used a Toshiba laptop with Windows Vista and there was no problems. I am not very knowledgeable about computers really, especially when it comes to the internet. I need advice on how to speed my downloads, but speak to me like you would 2 y/o.
I can't seem to find anything that applies to me or I can understand. I'm currently using Transmission for torrents and Safari for browsing, but my general internet connection outside of downloads seems to be fine.
I've been trying to troubleshoot this and have yet to find a good configuration. I have the dual band extreme (not the latest) with the following wifi devices:
2 Apple TV's MacBook Pro Two Airport Express's (joined to extreme for remote ethernet connections) 2 iPhone 3GS's PSP
For some time now, I have noticed that my Mac's internet is running super slow. I am saying slower than what I see on my PeeCee (Used for gaming such as CSS and Half-Life)! So, I set out on a Google journey to find that a lot of people have been having the same problem with they Airport. It seems that in some Apple updates, the Airports are having issues. So, I tried to fix it and I came up with this wonderful guide. My internet now loads Facebook in 3 sec instead of the 30 sec it was before and I can watch my good old YouTube videos in a flash.
First, Open your "System Preferences"; Next, go to your "Network" settings; From there, make sure Airport is highlighted and click "Configure"; Click the "TCP/IP" tab; Type 4.2.2.1 into the blank DNS Servers box, hit return and type 4.2.2.2 then click the "Apply Now" button like so;
Your internet may restart, but it will come back on right after you hit Apply! And your internet should now return to speeds like it used to have. I am running 10.4.10 and I am proud to say my Internet is fast as hell.
I'm having an issue with my MacBook Air on my friends wireless router in an apartment that I just moved in to. It is a Belkin N Wireless Router. The internet runs painfully slow. Takes about 1 minute to load a page, and sometimes it does not load at all. The internet and router work fine on my iPhone and another macbook. It just runs slow on my MacBook air. Anything in system preferences or anything I need to change?
There may be an easy explanation for this, but for someone who is new to Mac's entirely, it's proving to be difficult. I recently acquired a powerbook g4 15" powerpc 1.5ghz with 1gb ram and 80gb hd. I'm a computer technician at work, go figure, but only for pc's. The wireless works flawlessly on the mac at work, t1 connection. When I arrive home, my wireless is so slow and sometimes doesn't even work.
I have comcast cable internet, which is really fast on my desktop and two pc laptops. So with my comcast, I have their issued cable modem and a linksys wireless router. Any thoughts as to why this is so slow? Takes me like, 5 minutes to load facebook. I have Mac OSX 10.5 +, not sure what exact version. I think 10.5.6? I'm not connected to anyone elses internet and my DNS are the same on my PC.
So I have a wireless router from cox cable (motorola surfboard SBV5220). I also have my airport extreme base station connected to the wired ethernet in the other half of my house. So I have the cox motorola router hard wired to the ethernet in-wall outlets. And When I plug my computer directly into the ethernet plug in the walls it works great and fast. So I have the airport extreme plugged into the ethernet port in the wall to use wireless on the other half of the house that the motorola router doesn't reach very well.
Everything worked great until the motorola router went out one day and we had to reset it. Once we reset it, the wireless internet from the airport extreme started acting up. Half the time it works fine and just as fast as it did before. The other half it doesn't load a full page. It's not even working at all really. I tried to see if the problem happens when using the internet from the motorola router, but it wasn't consistent. Sometimes the airport internet worked fine while the motorola was in use on another computer and sometimes it didn't. I haven't been able to figure out a consistent cause.
I also had the airport express plugged in as a wireless extended for the airport extreme, but I took that out as it was pretty unnecessary. Also, I got a new mac mini and need to run it off the airport extreme wireless also. When I turn off the mac mini and use my macbook with airport extreme the problem still persists.
I tried google-ing and then searching on this forum and got many unrelated topics. I would really appreciate anybody pointing me in the right direction. I am a semi-newb when it comes to networking, etc...
I must admit that this posting is a last resort. However, remarkably, on narrowing the problem it seems it has to do with an unknown default setting on my Mac OS X Leopard on both my MacBook and iMac.
This week I invested in two new Wireless-N routers - Belkin and D-Link - and both fail to perform. The problem manifests itself as follows:
- When my Apple is wirelessly connected to the router, it takes a very long time to pull up any website. And unless I am imagining things, it seems to first pause when the blue progress indicator reaches just beyond "[URL]" each time. It is slow loading beyond this initial pause as well.
- When I change my security from WPA2 to WEP to None, it makes no difference whatsoever.
- When my Apple is connected to the router via ethernet, it performs very well. Each website appears very quickly and as expected i.e. no wireless connection.
- Very surprisingly, when I am using Windows via Boot Camp on my iMac, it performs very well when *wirelessly* connected. This threw me a little. This is what led me to suspect there's a default configuration with my Mac OS X that is causing the problem.
- In light of the above point, I have not yet checked to see whether wireless frequency or channel affect the download speed.
- For 2.5 years I had been using a Netgear Wireless-G router without any problem.
Might anyone know what the problem is? Or at the very least how better to diagnose it?
I am using Windows right now. I never realized this but my download speed is supposed to be 768 Kbps. Though when I download something my speed is between 70 - 90 Kbps. Is this normal? I ran many virus scans and I am clean.Is there something that is slowing it down? I am also using wireless connection.
I just bought my MacBook Pro 13.3 inch and it is amazing. I just have one problem. The net is running very slow on wireless. I have a NetGear router that has always had PCs. It works fine through Ethernet.
I just got a new MacBook Pro, but my wife uses my old 1.25GHz Alum. PowerBook. My MB pro flies, but unfortunately, the wireless ethernet on my old PB is slow as hell. I've got 11+GB of free space left on my hard drive and Safari or Firefox are the only applications I have open. I also have a cable internet connection with wireless through my 1st Gen Airport Express, yet it's still slow.
I thought I fixed it with a wireless-n router and it worked perfectly till now. I was loading videos on youtube in seconds with no buffering and fully loaded, and could stream even 1080hd videos on there and other sites no problem. Now the MBP is going slow again, like there's this lag when browsing, and I can't even watch youtube videos anymore unless their 240p as anything else buffers every couple of seconds.
It's not the internet, as like I've said before I have an pc in another room across the condo on the wireless network and its blazing fast browsing and watching/streaming videos. I've seen other post about this lately and really leading me to believe these $ MBP just suck on wireless networks, b/c I can be right next to my router and no changes... and my girlfriends cheap netbook can stream videos faster with no buffering then my expensive piece of aluminum.
I saw someone else say enter this for DNS and I had already done that, so is something screwed up here?: 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220 4.2.2.1 4.2.2.2 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4 and Search Domains next to that says: domain hsd1.fl.comcast.net.