Airport Extreme - So very very slow...

[liamski]

Hi All

I have been running the following setup for a while:

-- ADSL line (theoretical 24mbp/s down, 2mbp/s up) into a Netgear DG834GT router
-- Netgear into Airport Extreme (purchased Jan 2009) - connected by ethernet cable
-- Wireless network setup on both Extreme and Netgear - one MacBookPro connected to either
-- 2 x Mac Pros connected via ethernet into Extreme

In the last month or so, I noticed a massive drop in the wireless speed over the Airport Extreme. It's impossible to stream videos on Youtube for example.
I checked the network speed over ethernet into the Mac Pros, and it's also very very slow
Using Speedtest.net, I'm getting very high ping rates, average transfers of around 4mbp down and 0.4 mbps down

I dont have this problem over wireless when using the Netgear connection

I did a firmwire upgrade on the Airport Extreme by no change

I tried a hard reset on the Airport - power down, hold reset button, power up, wait, reconfig. No luck either

This is driving me nuts

The only change I can think of was with my ISP who updated their DNS servers at the start of Feb. I updated the Netgear router config to reflect this change though

Any thoughts? Help appreciated

Thanks

 

[Serif]

Why are you running Wifi on both the Netgear and the Airport? Are the two separated by a significant distance or something? Unless you have a good reason for needing to do things this way, I'd be inclined to disable wireless on one of the routers and let both your MBPs connect to the same router. I'm thinking along the lines of channel contention on the wireless network, but also a simpler set up is often more efficient and easier to maintain.

 

[liamski]

Why are you running Wifi on both the Netgear and the Airport? Are the two separated by a significant distance or something? Unless you have a good reason for needing to do things this way, I'd be inclined to disable wireless on one of the routers and let both your MBPs connect to the same router. I'm thinking along the lines of channel contention on the wireless network, but also a simpler set up is often more efficient and easier to maintain.

Thanks for replying

I thought having the other router on may create options for visitors who have an issue with the Extreme, but you make a fair point. I'll switch the netgear off and see whether it was a channel interference issue

However, that doesnt explain the poor wired performance I'm seeing, no?

l

 

[Serif]

Sorry, I didn't notice that you mentioned that the Mac Pros were also seeing a slow down over wired connections. I'm wondering now if there could be a problem with the connection between the Airport and the Netgear such as a bad cable or the interfaces negotiating a silly speed / duplex setting.

Is the interface on the Netgear that connects to the Airport gigabit ethernet? Maybe check that that interface has negotiated optimally as 1000 / Full Duplex. I've noticed that if you set the port on the Airport to be explicitly 1000 Mbps / Full Duplex rather than leaving it as Automatic (the default), then that can cause weirdness when talking to some other devices.