Bought Airport Extreme - How to tell if iMac has "N" Loaded?

[meagain]

Hi. I'm sorry if this is again a stupid question.... But we bought an Airport Extreme router today. I have a new iMac and I 'thought' I loaded up the N software when it came out a few months ago. Though I'm wondering why I would've done that if we didn't have an N router.

Can someone tell me how I can tell on my iMac if I am running on "N" now vs. G? The Airport Extreme is working but I want to see which version I'm running and if I need to download the N firmware update. Thanks!

 

[Jack Flash]

Open Network Utility, then select Network Interface (en1)

If at the bottom where it says Model Wireless Network Adapter it says (802.11 a/b/g/n) then you have it installed.

 

[meagain]

It does say that. Thank you!

Now we're having another issue. We hooked up the new Airport Extreme and was getting great connection/bars - but then hooked up an Airport Express for the iPhones and this made everything worse. Even my iMac has less bars and it's never had less than full bars. iPhones don't work at all.

It's like the Express made everything worse for some reason and that doesn't make sense.

 

[Jack Flash]

Well, if you wireless 802.11g clients you won't get full performance from 802.11n

 

[meagain]

It never occurred to me Apple would sell the Airport Extreme as an N, and the Express as a G. Well, we were running a netgear G before and all was well. I thought the Express would be used as a booster to the Extreme and make our signals stronger at the other end of the house. It made it worse. I'll assume for now we didn't set it up right.

But I am surprised the Express isn't N to match all their other newer stuff. Maybe we'll try calling AppleCare on this if they're open on Sunday.

 

[Mac-Apple User3]

It never occurred to me Apple would sell the Airport Extreme as an N, and the Express as a G. Well, we were running a netgear G before and all was well. I thought the Express would be used as a booster to the Extreme and make our signals stronger at the other end of the house. It made it worse. I'll assume for now we didn't set it up right.

But I am surprised the Express isn't N to match all their other newer stuff. Maybe we'll try calling AppleCare on this if they're open on Sunday.

It has been my experience (after talking with Apple Care) that all the new Airport Express's are "n" as well as the Airport Extreme. But (and it's a big one), any device on your wireless network that is slower than "n" will slow down everything to the lowest common denominator.

Example: While the Airport Extreme and Airport Express are all "n," for whatever reason the iPhone is only a "g." So if you use the iPhone on your network, all you are getting from the Airport Extreme and Airport Express is "g" as well. Once you shut off the iPhone, everything goes back up to "n" again.

Apple now has a new Airport Extreme available that works on two different frequencies: 2.4 Gigahertz and something in the 5 GH range just for this problem. So if you get the new Airport Extreme, your computer will still run fast on "n" while on the other frequency your "g" iPhones will work without slowing down your "n" computer.

Hope this helps! Note that if you don't want to spend the money on another Airport Extreme right now, that any time you use a "g" device on your network that "n" won't work during that time. But if you do get a new Extreme, you can use your old Extreme in place of one of your current Express's as a "g."