I had an iMac....for a week!

[paulrbeers]

Thanks for the post.

I, for one, appreciate it when we get data points about problems with machines. And I'd bet on the Mac. If a reasonably competent user (and the OP seems at least that) cannot get it to work with two routers I'd say that's an Apple fail. Not so robust; nobody has yet come up with much else he could do but ditch it. It worked with all the other Apple products.

I'm curious about what happened with the neighbor's connection.

Maybe it's Anonymous...sounds like this iMac is doing it's own DoS attack

You clearly didn't read my earlier post... Apple has laid out the specific requirements for Macs to work on a router. If your router doesn't support these fairly common protocols, then it won't work:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3763

The more you know....

 

[thekb]

You clearly didn't read my earlier post... Apple has laid out the specific requirements for Macs to work on a router. If your router doesn't support these fairly common protocols, then it won't work:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3763

The more you know....

We're sorry.

We can't find the article you're looking for.

Please return to the Apple Support homepage.




I don't know if OP's problem was router or iMac, but I can tell you I had a Belkin router that worked fine on my windows machines but crapped on my iMac. I replaced with Airport Extreme and completely smooth sailing ever since. I don't know if Apple does this kind of thing on purpose to increase sales of the Airport Extremes, but whatever, it worked for me and getting to use the iMac was worth it. Plus, frankly everything about the network has worked better since then. Still, seems a bit underhanded to me to push folks toward a closed system like that.

EDIT - Well, I'll be darned, I clicked on that link again and it worked this time. Must have been a temporary glitch in Apple website.

 

[GGJstudios]

We're sorry.
We can't find the article you're looking for.
Please return to the Apple Support homepage.

The link works fine. Apple has been having problems with their site in recent months. As with any links to Apple's site that don't load at first, refresh the page a few times and it will load.

 

[Mooondog]

what if...

what if it was your neighbor with THEIR new iMac stealing your wifi signal???

 

[38911]

You clearly didn't read my earlier post... Apple has laid out the specific requirements for Macs to work on a router. If your router doesn't support these fairly common protocols, then it won't work:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3763

The more you know....

That article specified requirements for the "Back to My Mac" service which (as far as I can tell) is a specific feature for configuring point-to-point encrypted connections between computers using IPSec.

The only specifications for general wifi connectivity are 802.11b/g/n - though AppleCare themselves conceded Macs aren't very good at 802.11b/g - which is why I went out and got a 802.11n router.

If we're saying that even a worldwide standard 802.11n connection needs a specific brand of router to work then that is one heck of a design fail and I would argue makes the hardware unfit for purpose. I seriously doubt Apple would be that negligent though.

My money is on a hardware fault.

----------

what if it was your neighbor with THEIR new iMac stealing your wifi signal???

I should have been clearer. I live in a detached house - the only neighbor wifi signals are very weak and intermittent due to the distance so when I tried it on my neighbors router I physically took the Mac round to their house.

I suppose in theory if I lived in a multi tenant building then the iMac may have taken out other peoples connection?

 

[38911]

Because it's quite apparent that the OP joined the forum just to post this rant ... blah blah blah... They just want to say how bad iMacs are, even though millions of iMac users don't have the same problems as the OP.

Shame really. You spent more time and effort writing that nonsense than it would have taken to read my posts :

I accept it was probably a HW fault on the iMac.... Shame because I love the hardware and OS

FWIW I love Apple Product and own iPad, iPod (touch, shuffle and classic), iPhone (3G and 4). I'm not here to slate Apple. I reached the end of the line with the iMac for the reasons I've already stated. I may try another one at some point but it's clear (for those not in denial) that there are still issues with Lion so I may wait until it matures a bit. I came on here to post up what I thought was an unusual glitch. In 20+ years in IT (yes I'm another one!) I've never come across a workstation that causes this kind of blip.

Some people have appreciated the details and managed to engage in a meaningful debate, e.g :

Thanks for the post.

I, for one, appreciate it when we get data points about problems with machines. And I'd bet on the Mac. If a reasonably competent user (and the OP seems at least that) cannot get it to work with two routers I'd say that's an Apple fail. Not so robust; nobody has yet come up with much else he could do but ditch it. It worked with all the other Apple products.

I'm curious about what happened with the neighbor's connection.

Maybe it's Anonymous...sounds like this iMac is doing it's own DoS attack

 

[hotrats]

Enjoy that truck OP.

 

[imahawki]

Because it's quite apparent that the OP joined the forum just to post this rant, and is not asking for solutions. The OP has already made up their mind that the iMac was at fault and has returned it, so don't try to confuse them with facts. They just want to say how bad iMacs are, even though millions of iMac users don't have the same problems as the OP.

Which is why I posted what I posted...

 

[Winni]

Bought my first iMac a week ago. Since then nothing but problems with wifi connection - intermittent dire slow internet, frequent disconnections etc.

I know this seems to be a very common problem but the wierd thing is that apart from the slow connection on the iMac, the Mac itself was trashing the connection on every other device on the network!

Seriously - my Lenovo Windows laptop that has worked fine for years just ground to a halt when accessing the internet. I setup a constant ping from the Lenovo PC to google.com and it was consistently either timing out or 3000ms+. Same on my other devices in the house. As soon as I turn the iMac wifi off, everything returns to normal.

I called Applecare several times and over the last 5 days I reckon I've spent 20+ hours trying to fix this :

Changed wifi channels
Turned everything else off (iPad, iPod, iPhone, PCs, printers etc)
Changed encryption
Turned encryption off altogether
Moved router to different part of the house
Moved iMac to different desk
Removed & recreated locations
Refreshed Network settings
Deleted System Preferences
Bought a new router
Tried iMac on a neighbors Wifi connection
Checked for interference (there is just three wifi routers in sight of the Mac, mine and two others which are across the street from me)
​

So...... as much as it pains me (because I really like the OS and the product) is that I've just called Apple and told them to come and collect it for a full refund.

Can't blame you. The only non-Apple router that I found over the last five years that works well with Apple Airport cards is a TPLink router with the dd-wrt firmware on it. (dd-wrt is a Linux distribution for wireless routers.)

But magically, those connectivity problems only occur when you run Mac OS X on your Apple computer. They completely dissolve when you boot into Linux or Windows on the SAME computer; and I'm talking about native Windows/Linux installations, not Parallels, VirtualBox or VMWare installations.

So in the end, this is a Mac OS X problem that Apple simply does not want to fix, probably because it helps them sell their own Airport base stations or wireless Time Capsules or however else they call their WLAN gadgets these days.

Also for the record, in my observation, this problem began showing up with very late releases of OS X Tiger (wireless connections in 10.4.0 worked better than in 10.4.11) and then the situation got worse with Leopard and its successors.

 

[theSeb]

That article specified requirements for the "Back to My Mac" service which (as far as I can tell) is a specific feature for configuring point-to-point encrypted connections between computers using IPSec.

The only specifications for general wifi connectivity are 802.11b/g/n - though AppleCare themselves conceded Macs aren't very good at 802.11b/g - which is why I went out and got a 802.11n router.

If we're saying that even a worldwide standard 802.11n connection needs a specific brand of router to work then that is one heck of a design fail and I would argue makes the hardware unfit for purpose. I seriously doubt Apple would be that negligent though.

My money is on a hardware fault.

----------



I should have been clearer. I live in a detached house - the only neighbor wifi signals are very weak and intermittent due to the distance so when I tried it on my neighbors router I physically took the Mac round to their house.

The main problem is the wireless specification body. They take a long time to finalise a protocol once it is announced. The chipset manufacturers use the draft protocol specification because if they don't, then another competitor will to get the edge. That's why for a long time everyone was using draft N and there were some incompatibility issues.

It is impossible for me to diagnose your problem over the internet so it's difficult to start. I am lucky enough to have not had the kind of problems you describe, but I find wireless in general to be a hit and miss affair, on both PCs and Macs. For example I once had a Netgear N router that would freeze and restart if more than 3 devices connected to it via wireless.

In Lion there is indeed a software bug that causes your wifi connection to drop intermittently when resuming from sleep. I've seen this on a MBP, a MBA and a Mac Mini. Switching the wifi on and off on the computer or reconnecting by selecting the network again fixes the problem. Your problem is a lot more complex than that. It seems like there may well be an incompatibility issue, but some of the symptoms you've described simply do not make sense from a technical point of view. I cannot see how a computer can impact your router or other computers connected to the router when establish a connection. It's a complete Chewbacca.

I suppose in theory if I lived in a multi tenant building then the iMac may have taken out other peoples connection?

I hate the word "impossible", but I am heading in the direction.

 

[GGJstudios]

Shame really. You spent more time and effort writing that nonsense than it would have taken to read my posts :

It's not nonsense, and you confirmed that my statement was accurate:

Because it's quite apparent that the OP joined the forum just to post this rant, and is not asking for solutions.

I'm not looking for answers ...

And don't worry about my time and effort. I have complete freedom to choose how to apply both.

 

[38911]

Well, TNT are collecting the iMac on Friday. Between now and then I have potential time to do PD so if anyone has any suggestions?.

Here is a ping to google.com from a Lenovo Windows 7 laptop on the same wifi 802.11n network. Text in bold is my comments (obviously).

Bear in mind it's peak time here and I only have an 8Mb broadband...


iMac Wireless Turned off
C:\Users\IBM_ADMIN>ping google.com -t

Pinging google.com [173.194.66.99] with 32 bytes of data
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=45ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=49ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=46ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=48ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=45ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=107ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=48ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=155ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=73ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=97ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=86ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=39ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=62ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=79ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=101ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=125ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=47ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=71ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=47ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=47ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=57ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=46ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=63ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=85ms TTL=45
At this point I enabled Wireless on the iMac
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=106ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=124ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=46ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=46ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=808ms TTL=45
Within 5 seconds your can see the Ping begins to slow down
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=1338ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=2250ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=3768ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=4964ms TTL=45
While iMac wifi is on, my Lenovo, iPhone and iPad time-out on web-pages
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=2866ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=3966ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=4868ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=3835ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=2888ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=3863ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=4869ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=4855ms TTL=45
In Activity Monitor the Mac is transferring almost no data (<1kb /s) so shouldn't be a bandwidth issue
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=2874ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=2866ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=4871ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=2860ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=4866ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=2763ms TTL=45
At this point I disabled wifi on the iMac
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=1058ms TTL=45
Ping immediately returns to normal and iPad, iPhone and Lenovo all begin working again
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=66ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=86ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=109ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=133ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=157ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=76ms TTL=45
Reply from 173.194.66.99: bytes=32 time=99ms TTL=45

Wierd huh?!

So.... any PD suggestions?