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Mac download speed extremely slow :(

R

rudstre

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 26, 2011
9
0
When I bought my iMac in 2008, It could download files at about 1mb/sec. Now, when I try to download any file from safari, it starts at about 500kb, and then continually gets slower, until it gets to less than 75kb. I checked Activity monitor, and I have enough Sys memory, but it wont get any faster. I have tried restarting the mac multiple times, but did not get faster. PLEASE HELP!!!

Intro Date: April 28, 2008 Disc Date: March 3, 2009
Order No: MB324LL/A Model No: A1224 (EMC 2210)
Subfamily: Early 2008 Model ID: iMac8,1
Std. RAM: 2.0 GB Std. VRAM: 256 MB
Std. HD: 320 GB (7200 RPM) Std. Optical: 8X DL "SuperDrive"
 
This sounds more like a networking problem. I would check your router, the connections, and your internet speed from a speed test site and see if there's anything wrong there before checking your hardware (the Mac).
 
I checked my internet connection speed on multiple sites, and then said my download speed was about 8mb/s, but my upload speed is only about 249kb/s!
 
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I get crappy download speeds when using the wireless, arroung 500 kbs but wired I get up to 10 mbs......@ OP are you using wired or wireless.
 
wireless, but if my download speed is high, and my upload speed is now, shouldn't I download files faster than 75 mb/s? Should upload speeds be slower than download speeds?
 
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Upload speed is indeed a lot slower then the download speed, it's normal.

Your Mac is not to blame, but your internet provider or your selected internet you pay for.

If you want higher speeds, you'll need to spend more money/month for your internet.
 
rudstre said:
wireless, but if my download speed is high, and my upload speed is now, shouldn't I download files faster than 75 mb/s? Should upload speeds be slower than download speeds?
Click to expand...

Your post is a little confusing....you are getting 75 Mbs download speed, is that on speed test or when downloading a file from a host.Yeah and as the post above says upload speeds are much slower than downloads.
 
sometimes these speed issues can be caused by the software used to up and download , the server you up and download from/to can be responsible too , so it is not necessarily a problem of your Mac or OSX or your router /dsl modem , sometimes its the other end that is causing the problem

i just want to say up and download speed issues are not always caused by the Mac alone, so even if on your side is everything perfect if the other side has problems .....

to make a example very simple
if we would send each other files and i restrict my connection to you to 56k due to high demand , then you can have a as fast as technically possible connection , but you wont get higher download /upload speeds then the 56k from ME
and some servers restrict upload /download speeds too , in recent years when more and more got high speed dsl some servers had to restrict speeds so everybody gets the ability to download/upload reasonably fast or slow depending how you see it
 
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JCZac said:
Your post is a little confusing....you are getting 75 Mbs download speed, is that on speed test or when downloading a file from a host.Yeah and as the post above says upload speeds are much slower than downloads.
Click to expand...

my mistake. I meant to say 75kb/s.
 
and, if my internet connection speed is 8mb/s, shouldn't that be how fast I download files from a host?
 
rudstre said:
and, if my internet connection speed is 8mb/s, shouldn't that be how fast I download files from a host?
Click to expand...

That's 8 megabits per second. That should be around 1 MB (1 megabyte = 8 Megabits) per second.

However that doesn't mean that everything you download off the internet will come at that speed. At the end of the day the maximum speed you get will also depend on the speed of hard disks of the server, how heavily loaded they are, how much bandwidth the server's got. It also depends on how much bandwidth is available on the network route between the server and your machine.

If you're only getting 75 kilobytes a second, you may be able to carry out multiple downloads from different sites at high speeds simultaneously.

The 75 KB/s is probably the limit for what you're downloading from the source site.
 
rudstre said:
and, if my internet connection speed is 8mb/s, shouldn't that be how fast I download files from a host?
Click to expand...



make a simple understandable example the bugatti veyron super sport has a top speed of 431.07 km/h (267.85 mph) , but that does not help a bit if you stuck in the middle of the rush hour in town and it neither wont help if you are on a narrow country lane behind a tractor with no chance of overtaking , you need a empty highway to use its full potential
and translated into computing see those different roads as the hosts upload speeds , you can only get your 8Mb/s if your host has a upload speed of 8Mb/s and all the servers in between too offer you that much bandwidth
 
I have the same problem as the OP

And no its not a network / ISP problem. There is something definitely wrong in the software.

In VM Win 7 under parellel, I am getting DL speeds of 1.3 MB/s 100 mb file taking a couple minutes.

Same file under safari or chrome i get 55-90 kb/s typically hovering 60-75. over an hour to download.

I tried wired and wireless into an airport extreme. Only router options on security are WAP and WAP2. But being the same problem exist on a cat-5 cable connection, I can safely rule out the security settings as the problem. Hardware is not the problem, because the win 7 VM is D/Ling fine, which then rules out the ISP, router, wireless adapter, and LAN card. Only thing left .. Snow Leopard OS X software. Updated with latest updates. No luck. mac book with original leopard install is fine. this new imac 2010 and "newer" version of leopard .. no go ...

So ... lots of people with this complaint, and lots of people wanting to blame the ISP. Sorry but its just not that. iPad, iPhone, and macbook .. all connect wireless and smoke this imac.
 
i doubt its only a snow leopard problem as on my "old" iMac core duo when i run snow leopard on it (i dual boot with osx tiger) then i get 1.59MB/s over Ethernet and 1.58MB/s over Airport downloading a 100mb file and it makes no difference on my older PPC Mac's which run tiger also connected via Ethernet same speeds , but i use firefox on the intel Mac and tenfourfox on the ppc Mac's , and as i share my WiFi (i prefer Ethernet anyway so i dont need the WIFI ) in the house between 5 people , 1using windows and 3 using linux and 1 using a PS3 /xbox
and they report about the same speeds
 
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I am also having the same issue.

Download and upload speeds tested and various sites and they seem normal. However, actual download speeds are extremely slow.

Has this been solved?
 
I had the same issue. It was a problem with my Mac when connecting over my 5Ghz. I noticed that my Windows computers (one connecting on 5G and other on 2.4) were fast with no issues, so I knew it was the Mac. I did some troubleshooting without success. Posted on a forum. Was told I was a moron. Then decided to try the 2.4 as I have a dual band router, and all my problems went away.

You might try different channels, and if you have a dual band router try each band.

Good luck
 
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