Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

How to fix MacBook Air internet speed?

C

CableDog

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 4, 2013
6
0
I found the answer.

Log-on to your router, go to the Application and Gaming Tab, click on the QOS tab and then disable WMM support

Credit goes to Resqu2 for that solution.

Thanks goes out to everyone on this thread who helped me
 
Last edited:
Have you tried doing a recovery? I'm not sure on macs, but overall I've never seen a wireless card go bad in all my years using them. From 802.11a to 802.11ac.
 
OK before we spend time asking you lots of redundant questions, what trouble shootings have you done so far? Go from there.
 
I had a 2012 MBA that started losing internet connection periodically and was running slow.

The solution was a full OSX reinstall- fixed it straight away.
It is probably software, not a hardware issue.
 
I've tried updated the OS but even that didn't work.

I also tried the SpeedTest website and got download speeds of less than 40kb/s and upload speeds of more than 6mb/s

I have a linksys e1200 router

the internet runs fast on other devices (pc, iPhone) just not the MBA.

I find it extremely puzzling and have no idea why that is

Some more information
IPv4 Address: 192.168.1.139
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Router: 192.168.1.1
Configure IPv6: Automatically

DNS Servers
75.75.75.75
75.75.76.76
192.168.1.1
Search Domains: hsd1.il.comcast.net

MAC Address: 00:88:65:43:5c:82

And I've only used 40 of the 60 GB available
 
Last edited:
Assuming you have not withheld any pertinent information like, uh I had a liquid spill incident a few months ago... or it started to happen when I upgraded the router...

I would install OSX from scratch, clean. Yes it's a major hassle, you will have to re-install all your apps, save and restore data.
 
Throw away your e1200 and get the latest Apple airport extreme (802.11ac) then problem solved.
 
A couple solutions have been suggested, eg reinstalling the OS. You also haven't responded with the troubleshooting steps you've gone through, if any.

Have you tried making a different user account and testing the internet there, or booting into safe mode? Try adding a new location in your network settings and testing that as well. I don't suppose you have a thunderbolt-Ethernet adapter; if you did, you could hardware your connection and test it.
 
CableDog said:
come on guys, i need solutions
Click to expand...

U mean like something for sure to fix it? No such thing exist in the computer world. All you can do is narrow down the cause(s) and sometimes, there are just too many variables, so OSX re-install cover all software cases, unless you really have a hardware problem.

I forgot, do SMC reset, and recently there is a post of somebody having a similar problem with Safari, but everything else works, and accordingly to him it was an ISP problem. Why would the ISP discriminate Safari only beats the heck out of me.

No magic.
 
Still can't solve it!

I tried reinstalling the OS but even that didn't work.

I'd like to know some other ideas

I want to know what's causing this problem

Are there any settings I can fix or change or look into?

what about logging into the router?

channel width?

I know there are a lot of experts here that can help me
 
Last edited:
Did you try running speedtest on the other devices at the same time of day? Are you sure they are all connected to the same Wireless network?. Is the SSID exactly the same?
 
have you tried your air on another wifi network?


you reinstalled the OS and still see this problem? take it to the apple store.
 
Try this > turn off iPv6 under the Networking TCP/IP prefs.

This same thing happened to me with a 2010 Air running Snow Leopard 10.6.8., getting half the download speeds on speedtest as my Dell laptop.

In my case, this evidently is an Ethernet stack iPv6 issue on this version of OSX, not a WiFi issue, where the iPv6 translation is slowing the throughput speeds. I am betting your setup is related to this protocol issue, either on your router or your Mac.

Always check the Apple support forums for these types of issues, they have many more posts. That's where I found the idea to turn off iPv6.
 
Last edited:
I had the exact same problem just a few days ago!

I have a few suspicions:
1) My router
2) Time Machine (I back up over wifi to NAS)
3) Could possibly be OSX or my macbook (but I certainly hope not!)

I've only noticed it happen maybe once or twice in the past week (and I've been using this macbook on average 6 hours a day for the past few months since I bought it), and has only been happening recently.

Screenshots follow
 

Attachments

  • Screen Shot 2013-10-03 at 19.48.33.png
    Screen Shot 2013-10-03 at 19.48.33.png
    731.6 KB · Views: 420
  • Screen Shot 2013-10-03 at 20.52.47.png
    Screen Shot 2013-10-03 at 20.52.47.png
    715.1 KB · Views: 420
Alright guys, I just ran speedtest.net using Google Chrome browser. Here are the results

Ping: 15ms
Download: 0.73 Mbps
Upload: 5.23 Mbps

One of the things I don't understand is why the upload speed is always so much higher than the download speed.

I'm trying to find the cause of this problem. Here's what I know though

It's not the router. My network runs fast on all other devices
It's not the OS. I just reinstalled OSX the other day

I just logged into the router (192.168.1.1)

I believe with that I can figure some things out

I think one of the posters suggested to disable IPv6. Is this a good idea?

On my router, under the setup tab, there is a subtab labeled IPv6 Setup. Under there the options are

IPv6 - Automatic * Enabled * Disabled
DUID 00:03:00:01:20:aa:4b:06:f9:4a

Another tab is wireless. Here are the options on that tab

* Manual *Wi-Fi Protected Setup
Network Mode Mixed
Network Name Cisco51981
Channel Width Auto (20 MHz or 40 MHz)
Channel Auto
SSID Broadcast * Enabled * Disabled

Under wireless security, the security mode is WPA2 Personal

Under the guest access tab, the options are

Allow guest access *yes * no
Guest Network Name Cisco51981-guest
Guest Password guest
Total Guests Allowed 5
SSID Broadcast * Enabled * Disabled

Under the Security Firewall tab, I have the following options selected

IPv6 SPI Firewall Protection: * Enabled * Disabled
IPv4 SPI Firewall Protection: * Enabled * Disabled

Filter Anonymous Internet Requests
Filter Multicast
Filter Internet NAT Redirection for IPv4 Internet Only
Filter IDENT (port 113)

* Proxy * Java * ActiveX * Cookies

Under VPN Passthrough, I have the following selected

IPSec Passthrough * Enabled * Disabled
PPTP Passthrough * Enabled * Disabled
L2TP Passthrough * Enabled * Disabled

I have the following ports opened

External Port Internal Port Protocol To IP Address
53 53 Both 192.168.1.50
80 80 Both 192.168.1.50
88 88 Both 192.168.1.50
1863 1863 Both 192.168.1.50
3074 3074 Both 192.168.1.50

Under the Administration Management Tab, I have the following options selected

Access via * HTTP * HTTPS
Access via Wireless * Enabled * Disabled
Remote Management * Enabled * Disabled
Access via * HTTP * HTTPS
Remote Upgrade * Enabled * Disabled
Allowed Remote IP Address Any IP Address
Remote Management Pot 8080
SIP ALG * Enabled * Disabled
UPnP * Enabled * Disabled
Allow users to configure * Enabled * Disabled
Allow users to disable * Enabled * Disabled
internet access

I'd really like to figure out how to fix this

Anyone have any ideas?
 
Its the router I bet

I had the exact same problem on my IPad, google it, slow IPad wifi. I had to disable something called QOS or quality of service, there is another name also for different routers but I have a Linksys. I disabled it and my problem went away instantly. I was also getting great uploads but real bad DL speeds.

If you can't find what I'm talking about let me know and I'l dig up more info for you.

edit to add, in the router set up look for applications and gaming, the under that tab look for QOS then under that I have WMM support, disable this and restart everything, this is an important step. afterward, problem solved.
 
Resqu2 said:
I had the exact same problem on my IPad, google it, slow IPad wifi. I had to disable something called QOS or quality of service, there is another name also for different routers but I have a Linksys. I disabled it and my problem went away instantly. I was also getting great uploads but real bad DL speeds.

If you can't find what I'm talking about let me know and I'l dig up more info for you.

edit to add, in the router set up look for applications and gaming, the under that tab look for QOS then under that I have WMM support, disable this and restart everything, this is an important step. afterward, problem solved.
Click to expand...

It looks like you were spot-on. I disabled it and the internet speeds increased to 30 MBPs

I'm going to test the internet some more but so far it looks really promising.

Thank you very much
 
I suggested disabling iPv6, but it's not a long-term solution. Just do it on your Air only, and see if the download speeds go up for my own curiosity. Your problem is probably different than mine because I'm running Snow Leopard, and it's something Apple fixed in Lion and ML, because my Mac Mini running ML does not have this issue.
 
CableDog said:
I found the answer.
Click to expand...

Glad u got it worked out.

Now this QOS/WMM business is designed to give priority to those connections which are doing audio/video streaming, like Netflix. If all of a sudden your media streaming are having problems, u will remember this.
 
Mrbobb said:
Glad u got it worked out.

Now this QOS/WMM business is designed to give priority to those connections which are doing audio/video streaming, like Netflix. If all of a sudden your media streaming are having problems, u will remember this.
Click to expand...

Is this a Linksys issue or do all modems have this? It almost made me want to throw my IPad away until I figured it out, weird that it didn't affect my 2 IPhone 5's or my Macbook Pro or my IMac. BTW I don't do any streaming at all so that wasn't causing an issue, it killed my IPad speed all the time.
 
Resqu2 said:
Is this a Linksys issue or do all modems have this? It almost made me want to throw my IPad away until I figured it out, weird that it didn't affect my 2 IPhone 5's or my Macbook Pro or my IMac. BTW I don't do any streaming at all so that wasn't causing an issue, it killed my IPad speed all the time.
Click to expand...

All new routers will have something like this, although they may call it by different names.

Odd that it only affects the iPad, but my experience, router vendors throw these "features" out without fully testing how they function in real life.

Good thing is, you can turn it off. It should come turned off out of the box, but am not going to vouch for today's QC.
 
Mrbobb said:
Glad u got it worked out.

Now this QOS/WMM business is designed to give priority to those connections which are doing audio/video streaming, like Netflix. If all of a sudden your media streaming are having problems, u will remember this.
Click to expand...

Is this supposed to provide priority if more then 1 person is connected or even if just 1 person is connected?
 
stylinexpat said:
Is this supposed to provide priority if more then 1 person is connected or even if just 1 person is connected?
Click to expand...

Technically, if only a single user on the LAN, nothing should happen, but as mentioned, I won't vouch for different's vendors' implementations.
 
Resqu2 said:
Is this a Linksys issue or do all modems have this? It almost made me want to throw my IPad away until I figured it out, weird that it didn't affect my 2 IPhone 5's or my Macbook Pro or my IMac. BTW I don't do any streaming at all so that wasn't causing an issue, it killed my IPad speed all the time.
Click to expand...

It seems to be more of a problem with Linksys. I have a 1500 the had this problem after a firmware update. Lots of documentation on the Interwebs about this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back