Slow wireless speeds

H

hanalea

Registered
I have an Airport extreme base station (b/g) v5.7, and now have added an Airport Express. It all seems to be working fine, but it is somewhat slow. The best I can get right now is about 500 KB/sec download speed. Is this a compatibility issue between the older Extreme and the new Express, or something else? NAT is off, and I turned the security on (added password), then off, with no difference. Other ideas? Do I need to get the newer Extreme with the n spec?

Thanks, Gary
 
Which computer do you have? or are you sure that your computer supports n? Do you fileshare with other computers on the network? If you don't fileshare with other computers, then it isn't worth the time or money in my oppinion.

Turn on interference robustness on your router. Also, do you have any cordless phones in your house? or anything else thats wireless?
 
500Kb/sec is about a 5 or 6Mbit DSL connection speed.

What kind of internet connection do you have (cable, DSL, T-1, Verizon Fiber Optic, etc.), and have you ever achieved higher speeds?

Or are you talking about network throughput from machine-to-machine -- and not "downloading" from the internet?

802.11g will transfer at a maximum of 54Mbits/sec, which equates to about 6.75MB/sec (8 bits = 1 byte), but you'll never see that due to interference and TCP overhead. More than likely you'll see computer-to-computer transfer speeds between 3MB and 4.5MB/sec, which is decent -- but still faster than 500Kb/sec.

Please elaborate on what kinds of transfers you're doing (downloading from the internet vs. computer-to-computer transfers), and any other information that will help us diagnose the problem.
 
I'm looking for help myself. I have an old quicksilver with an airport. I have a new macbook with an extreme. I have an airport express (the little square boxy one). I have an old g3 iBook. The signal coming into the house is 4.7. The quicksilver which is about 50 feet away gets 2.7 at best. The macbook gets 2.7 ten feet away from it. The ibook gets 2.5 ten feet away from it. If I turn everything off and test one at a time, I cannot do better than these speeds. Any suggestions? I also upgraded to where there are no 2.5gh phones now, just the 6.0 newest phones. As I said, the incoming signal is 4.7 and drops to 2.7-2.1 when it goes through the Airport Express. Base station is V6.3. iBook is firmware version Airport 9.52. The MacBook is firmware version 1.4.4. Airport Extreme.
 
If you're using DSL, then 4.7 may be your theoretical maximum speed -- not the speed that you'll see in the real world. The pipe coming into my home is rated at 6Mbit, but I pull 4.5MBit on a good day.

What kind of speed do you see if you connect one of the machines directly to the modem via ethernet cable? Perhaps this doesn't have to do with wired vs. wireless, but rather with the actual speed you're seeing from your ISP.
 
Actually, the theoretical maximum speed is 5mg on the cable coming in from the ISP. We did the speedtest.net numerous times yesterday, directly from ethernet to MacBook, and the actual signal coming into the house is 4.7.

Here's what I discovered though, buried in the forums. I had been tweaking the airport using the old computers and found a post that said (paraphrasing), "if you have mixed computers, an extreme and an express, though the airport will work, you should do all your airport utilities from the computer that is the extreme. Extreme airport card, Extreme base station." So, all I did was do a channel change on the MacBook (just to change something) and the update from the MacBook, and viola.....we are getting 4.5-4.7 now on the MacBook, and even the G4 and G3's are showing up with 2.80-2.9.
 
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