The most Puzzling macosx problem I have ever encountered

C

callmemrright21

Registered
Bit long but bear with...
I have a 13' macbook running osx 10.5.8
I recently purchased and have connected an acer 23' hd lcd monitor (StarTrek in 1080p awesome by the way) but thats neither here nor alternate reality.
I have the monitor near the computer on the same desk. When I am running macosx and my monitor is turned on my wireless internet is still full signal but runs extremely slow or doesnt run at all.
At first I thought this was my monitor interfering with my wireless signal, but then this occurred. ........
I also have bootcamp and windows xp installed on my computer, I was running in windows xp and decided to see if I could use the internet.... Bam! super fast no problems.
>>>Diagnosis, with my monitor off, great internet no problems, when it is on, I get a full signal in OSX but it doesnt run, however when running windows it runs smooth like butter on toast.
>>its not problems with firefox or safari, I used both and checked...
...... any thoughts ?
 
Patience, young grasshopper. Some people might not have come across your post yet. I just came across this just now.

Try disabling IPv6 for your network interface in the Network pane under System Preferences. See if this resolves the problems you're having under OS X.
 
callmemrright21 said:
Thanks for the attempt, didn't work though, I am connected through the IPv4 using DHCP, If any other suggestions are out there.
Click to expand...

I understand that you're using IPv4, but IPv6 is usually enabled by default in OS X and it sometimes has been known to cause slowdowns in accessing the internet (same in versions of Windows and Linux that have support for IPv6 enabled). If you have disabled IPv6 in the section I mentioned already, then disregard.

Have you also tried using a different channel for your wireless access point? You should be able to select a different channel for the wireless signal. It's possible that something from your monitor is causing interference with the signal from the access point. I've never seen this caused by a monitor, mind you, but it's worth a try.
 
Genius! my default channel was on 8..? odd since the standards are 1,6,11 stupid cable company, anyway, got it on 1 and bam! no more having to switch to windows to stream movies!
Thanks for the help.
-aRE
 
There is no "standard" channel for wireless communication.

Here in the US, we're allowed to use channels 1 through 11 (other countries can use either more or less -- most places more).

Channels 1, 6, and 11 are frequently used because they're the three channels that do not "overlap" each other in terms of frequencies used for transmission. So, if your neighbor is using channel 6, you can choose either channel 1 or 11 and be assured that absolutely none of the frequency spectrum overlaps with your neighbor, producing exactly 0 interference.

Other things such as microwave ovens and cordless phones also operate in the 2.4 and 5GHz spectrums, and those can cause interference with wireless accessibility as well.

If you opted to use, say, channel 8 (and your neighbor, 6), then a portion of your spectrum would overlap with your neighbor's spectrum, possibly (but not likely) causing some interference, including the inability for you to connect to your wireless access point, or producing weird signal activity (dropping connection, unstable connections, etc.).

So, yeah, changing the channel was probably the right thing to do -- but it's not because of using "non-standard" channels... it's because of possible spectrum overlap. Your monitor was potentially giving off an EMF that interfered or coincided with channel 8's spectrum.

More info on channels and spectrums here:

http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/wireless/wi-fi/80211-channels-number-frequencies-bandwidth.php

...and here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11
 
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