Airport Extreme slow internet

[jamin100]

I've had an Extreme since October 08 but for some reason its deciding to slow down my connection to the internet.

I'm on a 20MB cable connection (virgin media UK) but i'm unable to get anything above 10MB wirelessly through the AEBS. If i connect my macbook straight to the cable modem then it maxes out straight away.

I did have the 7.4.1 firmware on the AEBS but have now downgraded to 7.3.2 with no effect.

I brought this from PCWORLD less than a year ago so am still in my 1 year warranty

Would PCWORLD exchange this for a new one if i take it back as i really think there is something wrong with it.

 

[brentsg]

I've had an Extreme since October 08 but for some reason its deciding to slow down my connection to the internet.

I'm on a 20MB cable connection (virgin media UK) but i'm unable to get anything above 10MB wirelessly through the AEBS. If i connect my macbook straight to the cable modem then it maxes out straight away.

I did have the 7.4.1 firmware on the AEBS but have now downgraded to 7.3.2 with no effect.

I brought this from PCWORLD less than a year ago so am still in my 1 year warranty

Would PCWORLD exchange this for a new one if i take it back as i really think there is something wrong with it.

Your post isn't very informative in terms of what AEBS you have and how it's configured, what other devices you are using, etc...

You say 10MB... which I would read as 10 megabytes/sec throughput. That's around 80 megabits/s and that's quite good for throughput.

 

[termina3]

You say 10MB... which I would read as 10 megabytes/sec throughput. That's around 80 megabits/s and that's quite good for throughput.

Come on, you know that 80mbps isn't what he's getting. Yes, he's probably on draft-N,but g maxes out at 54mbps? It's also reasonable to assume that he isn't paying for a 160mbps connection.

OP: The previous poster is right, however, in asking for more information about your setup. We need more info. Also, don't be too ready to blame this on the base station--it is possible that your MBP is to blame. (Have you ever sustained 20mbps throughput wirelessly?)

 

[brentsg]

Come on, you know that 80mbps isn't what he's getting. Yes, he's probably on draft-N,but g maxes out at 54mbps? It's also reasonable to assume that he isn't paying for a 160mbps connection.

For all I know he's not being consistent in units between the broadband he pays for and the speed he's trying to measure. Many people have no idea there's a difference between bits and bytes... yet since they pay for the broadband they can quote that number accurately. So yes it's possible he's got a 20Mbit/s broadband connection and he's measuring 10MB/s throughput and wondering where it's all gone wrong. I see this all the time.

And 54mb/s for G is the theoretical max including all overhead and everything. There's no way to actually reach that kind of throughput. You need a perfectly clean setup just to get 80mb/s out of draft 2 N.

 

[jamin100]

ok,

I'm using the square AEBS but not the latest one with dual band.

I have it set up in with 5ghz N.

My cable internet connection is 20MBps. I should therefore be able to achieve a download speed of around 2048kbps but i'm not getting that. I'm getting what seems more like a 10MBps connection and downloading at around 1024kpbs

To answer some of your questions.

1. Yes i have had the 20mb throughput wirelessly with the AEBS before.
2. If i connect my XP laptop wirelessly to the AEBS then i get the same slow speed.
3. If I connect either my macbook or XP laptop directly to the cable modem then I achieve the full 20MBps connection.

 

[termina3]

OK, now you're really being inconsistent with your labeling.

When you capitalize the B, it's a byte. 1 byte=8 bits. Internet throughput is generally measured in bits (megabits or gigabits), not bytes like your harddrive. So when you say you're getting 20MB (megabytes), that's 160mb (megabits), a very large number. Please stop switching between the two, or start spelling it out.

And when you say you're getting 10MBps (80mbps) wirelessly, my first thought is "that's not slow" and the second is "that's faster than g can even handle."

 

[jamin100]

Do you know what - just forget it.
I'll figure it out.

Thanks everyone for their input.

Thread can be closed.

 

[brentsg]

It's not that we don't want to help, you have to provide all the info or we can't.

You really need to use some software that is intended to test network performance between nodes on a network. That way you rule out ISP performance issues.

Also it's important to know what encryption you are using. Some of them affect performance a lot.

Having mixed mode (G or B) devices on your N network degrades performance too.

Just some thoughts...