Airport Slowing down ADSL drastically

[jbee]

I'm on BT Broadband 1mb using a Zoom X3 ADSL modem / router. If i plug my Powerbook (or any of my macs) DIRECTLY into the router i get a proper broadband connection (around 914.69 kilobits/ 114.34 kilobytes per second).

However - when i use either my Airport Extreme OR my new Airport Express as basestations i'm getting a massively reduced internet speed!! oF only 100 kilobits!!!!

I'm getting to the point where i am going to pass out from trying to fix this. Can anyone please help????

Kind regards Justin Berkovi
justin@predicaments.com

[wdlove]

I will certainly be interested to hear the answer to your question. Currently using a 2Wire Wireless. Considering changing to an Airport Extreme Base Station. Also an Airport Extreme for use of wireless on the first floor. Currently our connection is weaker on the first floor. My thought was that it would be a better connection with Apple.

[Kingsnapped]

My airport did the same to my connection for a while. I wound up sending it to apple for a new one. The new one has behaved, but it occasionally still sucks. If I weren't moving in a month, I guess I would be more worried about it.

[gekko513]

I had the same problem with an SMC wireless access point / router. After much troubleshooting I discovered that I had packet loss that resulted in terrible connection. I borrowed a hub at work and hooked it up between the modem and the router to try and sniff the traffic and find out if it the router was dropping the packets. However, when the hub was connected, the problem disappeared.

After consulting with a colleague, we figured that the router and the modem weren't able to negotiate if they should use half or full duplex, but that the hub were able to negotiate correctly with both.

So I bought a cheap hub/switch and fixed the problem. You can get a nice 4/5 port hub/switch for $30-$40

(note: when I refer to the router, I mean the basestation :o )

[jbee]

But surely there are millions of users out there with a Zoom X3 and Airport Extreme??? I cannot see why the purchase of yet another router would solve this


I had the same problem with an SMC wireless access point / router. After much troubleshooting I discovered that I had packet loss that resulted in terrible connection. I borrowed a hub at work and hooked it up between the modem and the router to try and sniff the traffic and find out if it the router was dropping the packets. However, when the hub was connected, the problem disappeared.

After consulting with a colleague, we figured that the router and the modem weren't able to negotiate if they should use half or full duplex, but that the hub were able to negotiate correctly with both.

So I bought a cheap hub/switch and fixed the problem. You can get a nice 4/5 port hub/switch for $30-$40

(note: when I refer to the router, I mean the basestation :o )

[gekko513]

I'm suggesting you try to put a switch/hub between them, not another router. Do you know anyone with a switch you can borrow to try it out?

The probable reason why this worked in my case is that a switch is a much simpler unit, so the units then agree on communcating half duplex, which avoids conflicts, but when the modem and the basestation were connected directly one unit were put in full duplex mode and the other unit was not able to handle this.

[Xenious]

I had to put the WAN port of my AE at 10meg half duplex to get it to work at all. It would not auto-config with my Toshiba cable modem at all. I was able to diagnose the connection in the same way described above (putting a hub between them to see what was happening). Since I've put the connection to 10meg half duplex, communications have been pretty good (not as good as direct internet, but as good as it is behind any home router/firewall). About 2.5 megabit (through a wired connection with the AE as a firewall/router)
-jim

[gekko513]

So the AE has a setting for half/full duplex. That's good, because the SMC didn't.

[WCat]

If the switch or hub idea doesn't give any new clues, FWIW my guess is that the problem might be due to wireless interference. I would start by moving the Airport base station to another channel, but not just one or two channels away. There are only 3 non-overlapping 802.11b/g channels in the 2.4 GHz band: Channels 1, 6, and 11. The base station is probably either on channel 10 or 6. I would try Channel 1, then 11, and check to see if the throughput increases. Also check to see if any 2.4 GHz cordless phones or other wireless devices are very near the base station.

Cheers,

WCat