AirPort & netgear dg834g

G

gkaloy10

Registered
Hello,

I just made the switch over from Windows 7 to Mac.

My download speed has dramtically decreased since the switchover. Some webpages just timeout.

The wifi connection to the router is fine.

I have performed the following steps on the netgear dg834g router.

DNS servers (208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220).
Connect directly to DNS servers to avoid DNS forwarding through your router
Turn off IPv6 DNS lookups in Firefox
Updated router's firmware
router is set to b & g

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Open up console.app in your utilities folder.

Open the System log and filter for any activity on en1 (Just put en1 in the search box in the tool bar).

Let me know what you find.

Here are a few tips

Don't use B & G both unless you have B devices

Don't choose multiple encryption methods (AES & TKIP), choose only one.

The reason I make these recommendations that I've seen my machine toggle between encryption methods and I got System log messages like the following

mDNSResponder[24] Note: Frequent transitions for interface en1 (192.168.1.100); network traffic reduction measures in effect
Click to expand...

It seemed that the machine would toggle between encryption methods and then throttle the connection because it saw too much activity.

Set the router up in the simplest possible configuration. I use G only, WPA2 Personal, AES encryption and I now have it working perfectly.

Edit: I'll add one interesting thing. I'd see the bars fade in the Airport menu bar icon when the signal strength was staying constant, I used iStumbler to verify the signal strength.

So those bars indicate more than just simple signal strength. When the system throttled the connection it also used the menu bar icon as an indicator that the Airport connection was degraded.
 
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Thanks for the quick reply.

I dont think i mentioned that the internet is fine on the PC's in the network.
Also the router is using WEP - Does this matter?

Feb 7 14:58:50 localhost configd[13]: bootp_session_transmit: bpf_write(en1) failed: Network is down (50)
Feb 7 14:58:50 localhost configd[13]: DHCP en1: INIT-REBOOT transmit failed
Feb 7 15:55:19 Gregory-Kaloyianniss-MacBook-Pro ntpd[17]: unable to create socket on en1 (8) for fe80::fa1e:dfff:fedc:a449#123
Feb 7 15:58:19 Gregory-Kaloyianniss-MacBook-Pro mDNSResponder[26]: DeregisterInterface: Frequent transitions for interface en1 (169.254.223.16)
Feb 7 19:23:53 Gregory-Kaloyianniss-MacBook-Pro mDNSResponder[26]: RegisterInterface: Frequent transitions for interface en1 (FE80:0000:0000:0000:FA1E:DFFF:FEDC:A449)
Feb 7 19:41:21 localhost configd[13]: bootp_session_transmit: bpf_write(en1) failed: Network is down (50)
Feb 7 19:41:21 localhost configd[13]: DHCP en1: INIT-REBOOT transmit failed
 
Sorry for the double post -

Ever since i copied output in the Internet has been working fine..... But i doubt it will last.
 
I forgot one thing which has always helped when I had problems.

Run the periodic daily maintenance scripts. My machine usually misses the daily script because I let it sleep often.

Onyx is a free tool which will run them or you can just start Terminal and type

sudo periodic daily (return).

Enter your password when it asks.
 
I wouldn't use WEP unless you have to for some reason. Use WPA or WPA2 Personal and use AES in preference to TKIP.

This kind of stuff...

Feb 7 15:58:19 Gregory-Kaloyianniss-MacBook-Pro mDNSResponder[26]: DeregisterInterface: Frequent transitions for interface en1 (169.254.223.16)
Click to expand...

is what's killing your connection. You want to clean things up so you no longer see "Frequent transitions".
 
Hey,

I have onyx on the system, i ran all the maintenance yesturday. If the browsing drops again i will call my ISP. Is there anywhere where i can see which driver my wireless adapter is using? and also anywhere i can see alist of driver releases?

Thanks
 
gkaloy10 said:
Hey,

I have onyx on the system, i ran all the maintenance yesturday. If the browsing drops again i will call my ISP. Is there anywhere where i can see which driver my wireless adapter is using? and also anywhere i can see alist of driver releases?

Thanks
Click to expand...
Your ISP can't help you with this, it's a local WiFi problem (en1 is your Airport connection) and you'll have to solve it or settle for frustration. Don't worry about driver release info, you're not in a Windows world here. I put up with a bad connection and gradually slowing speeds for way too long till I finally decided to really figure out what was going on. I had Console reading en1 in the System log for days while I tried this and that.

Download iStumbler via macupdate.com and make sure you're getting a decent signal, you may have to fool around with the location of the router.

gkaloy10 said:
Hey,

I have onyx on the system, i ran all the maintenance yesterday.
Click to expand...

Daily means daily (really). If your system is not doing it daily you have to. It does make a big difference for my Airport connection, dunno why, but it definitely does.
 
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gkaloy10 said:
anyway in seeing what the "frequent transition" is?
Thanks
Click to expand...
That's not so easy. You have to eliminate things which might cause the system to “hunt”. In my case it seemed to be that I had both AES and TKIP enabled and I'd always see it set keys twice.

Another thing I did was manually set the machine's IP address in the Network Control Panel. I choose the last address in the IP range which the router could assign via DHCP.
 
I'm going to go ahead and make this thread long :p because it may help more people.

Another thing I noticed was a lot of blued crashes, blued is the Bluetooth daemon. I used to use a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse but went to wired ones and turned Bluetooth completely off in Prefs. Well, that wasn't such a good idea because I was getting all those crashes. I turned it back on, discoverable and all and the crashes went away.

What's that got to do with Airport? A lot, it's the same hardware, Bluetooth uses the Airport system for its connection.
 
gkaloy10 said:
Could an install of logmein or igetter cause an issue?
Click to expand...
You just have to simplify everything till you get it working correctly, the console display helps a lot.

Delete any saved stuff (locations etc) for Airport in Network prefs and start fresh, it's not hard.

It's very possible to set up conflicts in there, I've done it.
 
I'm posting some more info from another thread, I'm just trying to make this a comprehensive thread.

When you go to the Network System Pref pane, does it list Airport (it should have this as a choice in the list along with Firewire and Ethernet). If it has Airport is it reporting this service as "not connected"? Is the Airport the top most service in the list (I think it is suppose to be the top most).
Click to expand...

Yes, in the Pref pane the list was Ethernet, Firewire, Airport, [reporting 'Inactive'] Using the drop down preference I reset the service order to Airport, Ethernet, Firewire.

Not positive but think this does coincide with Snow Leopard Installation.

Although this occurs only on my iMac and ethernet, I feel rearranging the service order is the answer.
Click to expand...

Those quotes are from this thread.

The order of services is something I'd never checked. You can set the order by clicking the gear icon in Network Prefs and choosing set order. Mine was wrong, I also want Airport first.
 
In my quest to make this the go-to thread for WiFi / AirPort solutions and tips I'll add another trick I use.

Most people are probably familiar with the Network Diagnostics app which will appear if Safari is stalled when trying to reach a site. It's a pretty useful little app and it provides a quick way to figure out what's going wrong when your internet connection is acting up. It could be one of several things from your local connection all the way to the server you want to access.

You can start Network Diagnostics.app without waiting for Safari to time out and bring it up. It lives in /system/library/coreservices so you can negotiate there in the Finder and double click it like any other app, it starts very quickly.

I made a duplicate of it and put the duplicate in my Applications/Utilities folder for easier access. I had tried to make an alias and then a symlink but the system doesn't seem to like letting people access apps in coreservices via links, hence the duplicate.

It's a very quick way to find out what's going on if you're having problems, especially its first window.

When it's started by Safari it attempts to connect to the server Safari is trying to contact. When you start the app independently of Safari it contacts or attempts to contact an Apple server to check the entire pathway to server.
 
Check to see if any plug-ins are making Safari sluggish by going back to the Safari menu on the top left-hand corner of the screen and clicking on "Safari."

Select "Preferences." This is the third item down on the menu. When the "Preferences" menu opens, find the tab that says "Security." Click on this tab.

Ensure that the "Enable plug-ins" selection at the top of the screen is not checked.

Close Safari and restart it. You have now made the Internet faster on your Mac.


Hope it will help you
 
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