Difference in Wifi-speed between iPhone5 and Mac Pro

[markus-karlsson]

Hello.
Have just moved in to new studio and having some problems with the wifi-signal on my Mac Pro.

Not the most technical guy so not sure what to do here. Basically we've extended the airport express which we're using as the router/base with another Aiport Express. The base airport express is situated upstairs from me now so not expecting a full signal but bought another airport express to extend the signal. Now to my problem: basically my workstation is a Mac Pro Early 2009 which we at the time put a wifi card in. If i do a speedtest at exactly the same position with my Mac Pro and with for example my iPhone 5. The iPhone5 gets a speed result of around 20mbit/s and the Mac Pro only gets around 5-6mbit/s.. Why is that? Could it be that the wifi card in the Mac Pro is too old or something? The Airport Expresses are both purchased in the last month or two so they are the most up to date ones avaliable. Do they run on different signals or something?

Thanks!
/markus

 

[Macman45]

A couple of things to check...Make sure you have the AE that's acting as a booster for your wifi set to "Extend a Network" It may be that it's not correctly extending the signal.

 

[priitv8]

One possible cause: do they both use the same Wi-Fi standard? iPhone uses 802.11n but the Mac Pro can very well be still using 802.11g.
Also, since Extreme has 2x2:2 MIMO, wireless throughput is capped at 300 Mbps in 5GHz range and 150 Mbps in 2.4GHz range (both for 802.11n obviously). 802.11g is still capped at 54Mbps.
But these numbers come into play only in the best-case scenario. Assuming, you are extending your network wirelessly, there is not much bandwidth to share in the first place. The extending Express can only share as much, as it gets from upstairs. Minus the wireless extension overhead.

This approach allows a three-stream router, like the Extreme, to have an effective raw throughput of 450 Mbps in 5GHz and 225 Mbps in 2.4GHz, while the Express is limited to 300 Mbps and 150 Mbps, respectively.

Source

 

[markus-karlsson]

A couple of things to check...Make sure you have the AE that's acting as a booster for your wifi set to "Extend a Network" It may be that it's not correctly extending the signal.

yepp it's setup to extend the network. Things is, im sitting here at my desk not moving, everything is in the same position and i still get a difference in about 15-20mbit/s. Only 5-6 on the Mac Pro, but 20-30 on the iPhone5 and iPad Retina?

So that makes me think the problem isnt so much the Airport Express but the Mac Pro?

 

[priitv8]

So that makes me think the problem isnt so much the Airport Express but the Mac Pro?

So the 802.11x talk was gibberish to you?
What do you see, when you Alt-click on the Wi-Fi menu icon on your Mac Pro??
Here's an example of how it looks like:

 

[markus-karlsson]

So the 802.11x talk was gibberish to you?
What do you see, when you Alt-click on the Wi-Fi menu icon on your Mac Pro??
Here's an example of how it looks like:
Image

haha it sure was!

here's a screengrab