# New to Mac, Slow, slow, slow downloads



## redraider (Jun 20, 2006)

I'm new to Mac. I just bought a Intel iMAC. I have no complaints so far except for my download speeds which I can't figure out. My old sony vaio pentium 4 will download at an average speed at about 720kb/s but my mac on the same network will only average about 250kb/s. On my sony I've peaked as high as 1.5mb/s, the mac has only peaked at 700kb/s. I tested the download speed by plugging my mac straight into my cable modem with no significant change from going through my linksys wireless router. I just find it sooo hard to believe that there is such a hugh difference between my old sony vaio and my new mac. Can anybody tell me anything, is this they way it's supposed to be. Just an FYI, I took my iMac to the genius bar, they put it on their 10/100 network and averaged 320kb/s but I still consider that slow considering my sony vaio on a 10/100 network can average 750kb/s.  What is the link speed supposed to be for the Airport wireless card because I'm reading 54mb for the link speed compared to the ethernet of 100mb plugged into my linksys router.


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## MisterMe (Jun 20, 2006)

I am betting that you are not measuring your Internet connection speed by timing the downloads of files of known size. Wintel users get all out of sorts because their Macs almost universally report slower speeds than their old machines. Often their old machines reported connection speeds that were _greater_ than their ISP's advertised speeds.

Compare your Mac's connection speed to the speed that your ISP is selling you. If the two numbers are within 10% of each other, be satisfied in the knowledge that you now have honest numbers.


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## redraider (Jun 20, 2006)

Sorry for my ignorance. So the test I should perform is, download a file with the size on both my intel pentium 4 and my imac and see if it is about the same speed?

I have a cable modem and they advertise 

Maximum download speed of 4Mbps (or 6 Mbps). Speed range from 4.0 to 8.0 Mbps download speed.

I'll go home and time a file of the same size on my intel and mac.


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## MisterMe (Jun 20, 2006)

Yes, download the same file from the site. This is not a perfect test, but it cannot fall victim to bad calculations. 

_Caution_: The important number is the advertised speed for your service tier. Your ISP may have 1.5 Gbps service available but if you are subscribed to the 128 kbps service tier, then 128 kpbs is the best you can hope for.


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## redraider (Jun 20, 2006)

o.k. I just ran the test. I downloaded a 70.1mb file from my mac across my airport card through my linksys wireless router. It took my Intel Mac, 6 minutes 44 seconds to download it. I downloaded the same file through my wireless adapter on my Sony Intel Pentinum 4, 2 minutes 29 seconds. I will run a couple of more tests on a smaller file and report.


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## redraider (Jun 20, 2006)

Ran second test. Turned off the airport card on my mac. plugged a ethernet cable into the mac and into my linksys router. Downloaded a 40.1mb file. It took the mac 2 minutes 41 seconds. Downloaded the same file on my sony vaio through it's wireless card, it took 1 minute. Will run 1 more test taking out the linksys router completely.


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## redraider (Jun 20, 2006)

Ran third test. Took the linksys router out of the picuture. plugged my mac straight into the cable modem. Downloaded a 30mb file, took my mac 2 minutes 29 seconds. Downloaded the same file with my sony vaio plugged straight into the cable modem this time, it took 1 minute 9 seconds. Any ideas what might be going on?


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## HateEternal (Jun 21, 2006)

So... What software are you using to download stuff? Are you using Safari, Firefox, an FTP application, etc?

If you are using Safari maybe you should try something else, like Firefox to see if it runs any faster.

Also, try running a speed test: http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest and see if the results on PC and the Mac match up, run it a few times to make sure results are consistant.

I highly doubt that it's a hardware issue, even if you only have a 10/100 card (I  expect that you have a 10/100/1000 card) the amount of internet traffic you are talking about is tiny compared to your network cards ability. More likely, it's the way Safari, or the app you are using, was coded.


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## Tommo (Jun 21, 2006)

Could be hardware, if the cards are both set to auto detect network speed and the ports they are connecting to are set to 100 Full Duplex, then the PC will be OK. 

I don't know if it has changed with the move to INtel, but with the old PPC based Macs they would detect the 100 Full Duplex as 100 Half Duplex and run accordingly.


Try manually setting it to 100 Half Duplex on the ethernet card and try again.


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## redraider (Jun 21, 2006)

I am using Safari. I did download Firefox but I can't figure out how to download a file using Firefox. When I right click on a downloadable file, it doesn't give me a option to download the file, the best option I get is download the link. Yes the ethernet card is a 10/100/1000. I can try setting the ethernet card to half duplex, how do I do this? From my novice point of view I think it's a protocol issue more then a hardware issue because the issue is both on the airport card and the ethernet card. Not unless there is a piece of hardware that they both sit on that is causing the issue.


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## MisterMe (Jun 21, 2006)

redraider said:
			
		

> I am using Safari. I did download Firefox but I can't figure out how to download a file using Firefox. ...


Just double-click on the file.


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## Tommo (Jun 21, 2006)

You change the speed of the network card from Network section of system preferences. On the In-built ethernet section select Configure then Ethernet and change from Automatically to Manual(Advanced) and set to 100Mbps Half Duplex.


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## redraider (Jun 21, 2006)

o.k. I tried using firefox to download the same files and got the same results, actually it was not as good because a couple of times the download manager would stop in the middle of the download. I tried changing my ethernet card to half duplex, the performance was worse so I changed it back to it's original settings. I ran speed test from www.dslreports.com/speedtests. my sony vaio peaked in one test at 6700kbps while my mac peaked in on test at 7005kbps.
I ran three tests on both through the wireless cards. So anybody have any idea what this means?


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## redraider (Aug 21, 2006)

Just a FYI for anybody that might have been reading this thread. I kept doing
more reading and I read about the dlink dcm-202 cable modem, you can buy it at best buy. It's got turbodox on it. I upgraded the firmware on the modem (requirement for comcast users) then I plugged it in, called comcast. I had them register the mac of the modem, it took them 15 minutes to get the modem registered and connected, got on the internet. Gees what a difference this modem makes. I went from a average download speed of 256kb/sec to 850kb/sec on my imac. My pc and mac peaked at 1.2mb/sec when downloading files. I haven't run a speed test yet on dslreports but I will soon.


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