iMac Airport Help

B

BurntWaffle88

macrumors newbie
Hey guys,

Just a couple of questions I need help with!

So recently I moved house, I moved in with some old uni mates and there's 5 of us, all using the same internet, we're on Virgin media.
Basically when I lived at home the internet was fine (I was on TalkTalk) and since I've moved it's been extremely slow and sometimes losing connection. I'm using a 2008 iMac 24 inch which is running Leopard 10.5.6.

However on my old Macbook (2007 white version) the internet is fine and very quick. But on that I'm running Snow Leopard 10.6.8.

A few things, the router is downstairs next to the television, I'm upstairs on the second floor. I changed the router channel incase we were getting interference from other networks in our area or whatever. I can't really move the router because there are people who live downstairs too so it wouldn't be fair, nor can I run a ethernet cable from downstairs to my room and plug directly into the router because it's too far. But like I said my Macbook in my room next to my iMac has no problem whatsoever picking up a fantastic wireless reception.

I did run a verify disk permissions which came up saying everything is fine, same again with my network diagnostics tests - basically everything says it's fine so I don't think it's a hardware issue.

So it made me think is it Apple's fault? Have the released a dodgy update of Airport, because I do check software update regularly so my iMac is up to date as of today.
I've been thinking about upgrading to Snow Leopard to see if that does the trick and solve my airport problems (certainly works fine on my 2007 Macbook). Would that be a good idea? Would you guys recommend it? I've seen some posts from users saying that their iMac's have frozen after updating to SL from Leopard.

The other thing was about my energy saver sleep problems. My iMac is set to go to sleep after 10 minutes (as well as dim the screen to black) but it doesn't go to sleep, it dims the screen but my iMac keeps running. Any ideas why that could be? It works by pressing the power button (set to sleep) going to the Apple logo and selecting "sleep" from the menu as well as using my Apple remote. Just doesn't work with the energy saver for some reason.

I would appreciate any help or suggestions you guys can give me!

Thanks!
 
are you sure the iMac is running 10.5.6? because if then i suggest to update to 10.5.8 the latest update for Leopard which included some airport update

snow leopard should not really cause a problem , just backup what you need and do a clean install of snow leopard
 
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so ok you system is up to date
but to find a solution to your airport problem and sleep problem is tricky as
if you look for solutions you get about as many different solutions that did work for some as you find post about that problem , same for the sleeping problem

but the most effective seems to be the upgrade to snow leopard for most of those with these problems
 
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Can you test the iMac downstairs closer to the router? It may be that you are just too far away, and need either a more powerful router or some kind of network wireless extender.

(An airport express can extend an airport extreme router, I would think linksys/netgear/etc sell something similar for their brands.)

It could be that you MacBook gets better reception being plastic, if your iMac is aluminum it may have worse range? (I noticed the effect between a plastic MacBook and an aluminum one a few years ago.)

Just a thought, but you may want to also consider one of those powerline Ethernet kits, they transmit data to/from the router over the a/c plugs akready in a house. Since the iMac doesn't move around like a laptop, it may be a good solution.
 
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My internet seems to be working a lot better now.

Before, I tried using this https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/358919/ method but it seemed to give me a really low signal (hence my need for help). So I downloaded an old Airport client release from Apple, it said I couldn't install it but it must have done something because my Airport reverted back to it's default settings (Automatic IPv6, IPv4 Configure Using DHCP) Basically after getting rid of the steps I did following that post above, my Airport seems to be working fine. Hasn't dropped a signal yet and it maintains a strong, full connection. So I don't know if that post above works with Leopard, it could be more for Snow Leopard.

Also I switched to Google Chrome, I was using Safari, but I'm finding Chrome works a lot faster, pages and videos load quicker and it seems more reliable.

Thanks for your help guys, I think I will make the switch to Snow Leopard eventually, or I may just go out and buy Lion, makes more sense.

Thank you!
 
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