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Fix for MacBook Slow Internet

H

highlighter

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 4, 2007
7
0
There have been a few threads lately about slow Macbook internet out of the box, with the Mac getting download speeds much slower than the PCs on the same network. I was finally able to fix this issue with my Macbook.

I have a new SR Macbook with Leopard preinstalled. Out of the box, the internet was about 1/4 as fast as my PCs, with both wireless and directly connected to the modem. Some people have reported changing the DNS servers to the openDNS.com servers under TCP/IP and the router solved the problem for them. It solved it partially for me, but internet was still quite slow.

I finally came across http://miranda.ctd.anl.gov:7123/

This can diagnose where the problem is on your network. For me, it said there was a duplex mismatch (host full switch, client half switch). It only said this on 3 of the 5 times I ran the test, since I believe it's an intermittent issue.

So I went to system preferences -> network -> ethernet -> advanced -> ethernet .. and changed the "automatic" setting to the following:

Configure: Manually
Speed: 100baseTx
Duplex: full duplex
MTU: Standard (1500)

This worked for me, and the wireless and direct-to-modem internet is screaming. I am using an Airport Extreme Base Station with Comcast cable modem. Hope this helps.
 
I am not able to access the site above - could you let me know how you found it?

My problem is similar to what some of you are posting - I have a new iMac w/ a Linksys router, and both a wired and wireless connection are running significantly slower than my XP computer (wired). The XP computer would achieve close to my speed cap (10000), but the iMac won't exceed 4000 and usually is much less. Last night I switched to a wired connection and didn't see a difference. I have tested this over several days with no change.
 
I did the test a few times. It always says that 'the receive buffer should be
xxxxxx.x Kbytes to maximize throughput'.

Now the inbound and outbound test, in Kb/s, varies slightly as does the receive buffer number. Obviously you can't be changing this buffer number minute by minute to reflect the variances.

But....what and where the hell is this 'receive buffer' anyway?? :D
 
How do these numbers look?

I just bought a 2.2 MB SR (my first Mac by the way) and have been wondering about my speeds. Before finding your fix, I was getting the following:

Macbook connected wirelessly to Airport Extreme Base Station on Comcast cable (tested via dslreports):
Down - 2200 kb/s Up - 1200 kb/s

Vista PC connected via ethernet cable to AEBS:
Down - 9167 kb/s Up - 1655 kb/s

Macbook connected via ethernet cable to AEBS:
Down - 13036 kb/s Up - 1800 kb/s

After changing the settings to what you have:
Macbook connected wirelessly to AEBS:
Down - 3784 kb/s Up - 1200 kb/s

This is with the lid open and the macbook inches from the AEBS with only the PC nearby. I walked over to the kitchen earlier and my signal strength (via iStumbler) dropped from 97% to 60%.
Do these numbers look okay or should I take the macbook (and AEBS) into the local Apple store to have a genius look at it?
Thanks!
E
 
Ellen- You can do a search for "NDT speed test" in Google and get a bunch of similar sites.

Wie- I don't know much about changing the receive buffer, but I remember reading that it is almost always set high enough automatically. Someone with more geek power than me might be able to shed some light on that.

eoren1- Those numbers are pretty comparable to mine, and there is always some variability with network congestion and interference. I took mine to the Genius Bar, and they said it's hard to get a guage on speed and signal there since there are so many people on the network. Besides, they didn't know how to fix my internet, so I wouldn't put too much faith in them.
 
My SR Macbook is nearly two weeks old now. My wireless connectivity is completely unpredictable. It drops from 50 to 0 Mbs sporadically. I've found myself constantly hitting refresh in Firefox or clicking links multiple times.

According to this Digg post, there appears to be a long standing problem with wireless access dating back to older Tiger patches. When can we expect Apple to address this widespread problem?

http://www.digg.com/apple/MacBook_wireless_suffering_after_recent_Mac_OS_X_updates

Not all Mac users are tech savey enough to pull-off the workaround that Highlighter describes.
 
highlighter said:
There have been a few threads lately about slow Macbook internet out of the box, with the Mac getting download speeds much slower than the PCs on the same network. I was finally able to fix this issue with my Macbook.

I have a new SR Macbook with Leopard preinstalled. Out of the box, the internet was about 1/4 as fast as my PCs, with both wireless and directly connected to the modem. Some people have reported changing the DNS servers to the openDNS.com servers under TCP/IP and the router solved the problem for them. It solved it partially for me, but internet was still quite slow.

I finally came across http://miranda.ctd.anl.gov:7123/

This can diagnose where the problem is on your network. For me, it said there was a duplex mismatch (host full switch, client half switch). It only said this on 3 of the 5 times I ran the test, since I believe it's an intermittent issue.

So I went to system preferences -> network -> ethernet -> advanced -> ethernet .. and changed the "automatic" setting to the following:

Configure: Manually
Speed: 100baseTx
Duplex: full duplex
MTU: Standard (1500)

This worked for me, and the wireless and direct-to-modem internet is screaming. I am using an Airport Extreme Base Station with Comcast cable modem. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

I have been having a similar problem with wepages hanging occasionally on my mac via wireless, but not occuring on other computers that are on ethernet. Besides OpenDNS you can also try as well:

4.2.2.1
4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3
4.2.2.4
4.2.2.5

For DNS servers, they seem to work very well (found out these at DSL reports)
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19384486-AZ-Constant-server-not-found
 
How to change DNS servers

Depending on which version of Leopard you're on, changing DNS servers can be somewhat involved.

If you're using 10.5.2 or earlier, follow these instructions to adding/changing DNS servers on Leopard. The reason why you can't simply add more DNS servers onto your current network settings is because DNS servers are used in the order that they're listed. Meaning, any newly added DNS servers will only be used after the default ones provided by your ISP. And if your ISP's default DNS servers are slow, the newly added DNS servers will only be used after the slow ones have timed out. Thus, you would see no benefit in Internet browsing speed.

The instructions above show you how to create a new network location, which will allow you to specify your new/faster DNS servers first.
 
My fix for slow internet is to get faster internet or move to somewhere with faster internet.
 
forget messing with the DNSs .. problem is mostly due ti Ip6 to Ip4 conversion..
very easy fix just try and see the difference...

open firefox
type "about:config" on address bar
don't worry about the careful sign - click "I'm ok"..
type "ipv6" on filter bar
double click "network.dns.disable.ipv6 - false and make it "true"
quit firefox - with alt_Q (total quit)
restart your firefox and enjoy the fast surfing...
 
Thanks!!

Yo man, the solution in the original comment in this thread made my internet go so much faster! you rock! :)
 
top

the top solution is only for ETHERNET correct? I don't see any duplex settings for airport settings
 
Slow wireless on MacBook (black)

My friend had serious speed issues with her wireless connection. I did a speed test on her MacBook and the results were puzzling. Even pages like www.google.com took 10-15 seconds to load (on a fast DSL connection).

The site for the speed test came up very slowly. There seemed to be a big delay. Once loaded however, the download speed was blazing fast.

I suspected problems with the DNS and attempted to set up OpenDNS as referenced in this thread. It turns out there were a couple of entries in the DNS control panel already. So rather than add more, I deleted all the DNS entries except the wireless routers DNS which was greyed out.

Apply changes, restart Firefox/Safari and VOILA! The browser has no more 'delay' before loading webpages.
 
Haha...my wireless network is pathetic. Isn't the iPhone 3G faster than this?

455.0kb/s up
1.36mb/s down

It also detected packet queuing...no wonder I'm plugged into ethernet as much as possible.
 
uiop. said:
Haha...my wireless network is pathetic. Isn't the iPhone 3G faster than this?

455.0kb/s up
1.36mb/s down

It also detected packet queuing...no wonder I'm plugged into ethernet as much as possible.
Click to expand...
It depends on what you have. If you are talking internet speeds, the AT&T DSL Express does 1.5mb/s down and 384kb/s up, just about what you are getting. This is the package that I had for many years. I now have the DSL Pro (3.0mb/s down and 512kb/s up). And no, I don't think the 3G is anywhere near that speed in reality (theoretical yes).
 
fourwalls said:
My friend had serious speed issues with her wireless connection. I did a speed test on her MacBook and the results were puzzling. Even pages like www.google.com took 10-15 seconds to load (on a fast DSL connection).

The site for the speed test came up very slowly. There seemed to be a big delay. Once loaded however, the download speed was blazing fast.

I suspected problems with the DNS and attempted to set up OpenDNS as referenced in this thread. It turns out there were a couple of entries in the DNS control panel already. So rather than add more, I deleted all the DNS entries except the wireless routers DNS which was greyed out.

Apply changes, restart Firefox/Safari and VOILA! The browser has no more 'delay' before loading webpages.
Click to expand...

HOLY CRAP...I've been looking forever to find this answer, this fixed it for me...thanks!!
 
slow in russia

I have tried the open DNS and the 4.2.2.x drivers and nothing seems to help the download speed of my internet. I am in St. Petersburg, Russia with a cable via motorola modem internet service and have chosen a 4m speed but am still having trouble with video and downloads. Any ideas?:confused
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by fourwalls View Post
My friend had serious speed issues with her wireless connection. I did a speed test on her MacBook and the results were puzzling. Even pages like www.google.com took 10-15 seconds to load (on a fast DSL connection).

The site for the speed test came up very slowly. There seemed to be a big delay. Once loaded however, the download speed was blazing fast.

I suspected problems with the DNS and attempted to set up OpenDNS as referenced in this thread. It turns out there were a couple of entries in the DNS control panel already. So rather than add more, I deleted all the DNS entries except the wireless routers DNS which was greyed out.

Perfect! On my MacBook Pro, Parallels running XP had very fast download speeds, and both the built in ethernet and airport were painfully slow. In BOTH the Airport and Ethernet control panels, delete the DNS server IPs and put in the address of the wireless router. Bingo, problem solved. Incidentally, the speed tests showed everything was working fine.
 
Snow Leopard is Soooo Cold

I must admit that I had absolutely NOT problems with wireless speed under Leopard (done as clean install on new drive/upgrade).

I have been chasing wireless speed issues since the upgrade and nothing seems to help very much. The IPv6 shut down, the DNS house cleaning (really wasn't anything to clean), and referenced in other posts the New Location creation and the network file deletion and recreation "fixes" have all been tried to no avail. :mad:

My "proof of concept" test is hulu.com streaming ... never had a lick of problems with it under Leopard but the streaming stops and starts like molasses flowing in December under Snow Leopard. The fact that Apple is now pre-releasing a second "developer's update of nearly 500 gig indicates that, perhaps, the SL release was a bit premature.

I am suspecting that the intelligent "fix" is a clean install back to Leopard.
:confused:

Perry Shipman
UCSD GCRC IT
 
Fixed!

highlighter said:
There have been a few threads lately about slow Macbook internet out of the box, with the Mac getting download speeds much slower than the PCs on the same network. I was finally able to fix this issue with my Macbook.

I have a new SR Macbook with Leopard preinstalled. Out of the box, the internet was about 1/4 as fast as my PCs, with both wireless and directly connected to the modem. Some people have reported changing the DNS servers to the openDNS.com servers under TCP/IP and the router solved the problem for them. It solved it partially for me, but internet was still quite slow.

I finally came across http://miranda.ctd.anl.gov:7123/

This can diagnose where the problem is on your network. For me, it said there was a duplex mismatch (host full switch, client half switch). It only said this on 3 of the 5 times I ran the test, since I believe it's an intermittent issue.

So I went to system preferences -> network -> ethernet -> advanced -> ethernet .. and changed the "automatic" setting to the following:

Configure: Manually
Speed: 100baseTx
Duplex: full duplex
MTU: Standard (1500)

This worked for me, and the wireless and direct-to-modem internet is screaming. I am using an Airport Extreme Base Station with Comcast cable modem. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

This works perfectly! I am running Snow Leopard on my MacBook and while speed tests were showing plenty of bandwidth browsing was slow nonetheless. However, after following your simple how-to fix pages are loading in a blink. Thank you!!
 
I was having a similar issue in whee my mini and MacBook pro had extremly slow connection speeds when connect wireless. Speeds are fine when connect wired to my non duel band extrem base station. What I had to do to fix the issue was to change to 5 ghz wireless N. Agian I don't think this is the same issue of the OP but it may help so
e one.
 
Fix for Slow Web Browsing on MacBook (for Firefox)

My web browsing speeds on my new MacBook Air have been abysmal, on both Safari and Firefox. My buddy just gave me a fix for Firefox, though, which seems to have worked great:

Within Firefox:
- Type "About:Config" into the browser web address/url bar
- After proceeding past the warning about voiding your warranty (presumably on Firefox), you should see four items, 3 of which have a value of "false" and 1 of which has a number value (probably "4") in the farthest right column. Change each "False" to "yes" and the "4" to "30" simply by double clicking on each of those original values.
- Exit Firefox and re-launch it and it should be lightning fast!
 
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