Mac Pro killing my bandwidth?

[GoKyu]

Hey all,

My internet is with Cox cable and I have a Linksys cable gateway (modem + wireless router all in one.) Only one other computer on the network besides my Mac Pro (a laptop) uses any significant amount of bandwidth.

Once in awhile the connection will drop out (maybe once a week), and a quick reboot will instantly cure the problem.

Other times (thankfully more rarely) the connection drops out and *stays* out, no matter how many times I reboot the router...it's almost like it can't sync up to the cable system.

It was doing this yesterday when I decided that along with rebooting the router (which wasn't helping much), I would also reboot my Mac. Talk about instant cure - the router came back and connected almost instantly.

How would my Mac have anything to do with how easily the modem syncs up to the service? I have it plugged in on Ethernet port 1 (en0) straight into the Linksys.

Any replies welcome,

-Bryan

 

[Erwin-Br]

Linksys routers have a history of freezing up when downloading large files using a torrent client. Other than that, I don't think your Mac could have anything to do with the performance of your router. It's usually the other way around.

When you reboot your router, your Mac needs a new IP address. It takes some time for the machine to pick up this new address from the router, and by rebooting your Mac you kind of force it to get a new IP immediately, so that might explain something.

--Erwin

 

[pastrychef]

I agree with Erwin-Br. Having a Mac should not have any influence on how easily the cable modem syncs. Ever since Cisco acquired Linksys, many of their products have been quite shoddy.

 

[GoKyu]

I just checked the network prefs -> advanced - would renewing my DHCP Lease do the same thing (i.e. allow me to pick up a new IP address after the router is rebooted?)

I haven't done much with torrents lately, although I have downloaded a few files via the Gnutella network...downloading is downloading I suppose.

I really hadn't had much trouble with this Linksys, bought it back during Katrina in 2005, but since it *is* my cablemodem as well, I'd have to get 2 new pieces of equipment (new modem as well as Airport extreme....)

Thanks for the replies!

-Bryan

 

[pastrychef]

You shouldn't have to renew your DHCP lease. Have you tried checking if there's newer firmware for your cable modem/router? It could be something that's already been corrected with a firmware revision...

If you do decided to try a new router, try checking http://www.smallnetbuilder.com and take a look at their chart to compare a bunch of different models. Maximum number of connections can be very important.

 

[Erwin-Br]

I just checked the network prefs -> advanced - would renewing my DHCP Lease do the same thing (i.e. allow me to pick up a new IP address after the router is rebooted?)

I haven't done much with torrents lately, although I have downloaded a few files via the Gnutella network...downloading is downloading I suppose.

I really hadn't had much trouble with this Linksys, bought it back during Katrina in 2005, but since it *is* my cablemodem as well, I'd have to get 2 new pieces of equipment (new modem as well as Airport extreme....)

Thanks for the replies!

-Bryan

Yes, renewing the lease would exactly do that.

Downloading torrents is way different than via Gnutella. At least, for your router. The difference is that Torrents generate much more packet traffic for your router to handle.

 

[Erwin-Br]

You shouldn't have to renew your DHCP lease. Have you tried checking if there's newer firmware for your cable modem/router? It could be something that's already been corrected with a firmware revision...

If you do decided to try a new router, try checking http://www.smallnetbuilder.com and take a look at their chart to compare a bunch of different models. Maximum number of connections can be very important.

When you reboot a router/modem, it will assign new IP's to your clients if you're using DHCP. Unfortunately the client doesn't notice that automatically. At least, that's my experience and I've used a wide range of routers.

--Erwin

 

[jjahshik32]

Did you make separate port range for the mac pro and your other laptops? Thats what I do and I have plenty of bandwidth to go around (I'm constantly downloading heavy newsgroup files up to 50gb + surfing the web on my macbook pro and chatting with no lag or problems and playing xbox live just fine all on the ****** comcast cable modem).

 

[GoKyu]

jj: I never really thought about doing that. Do you have a tutorial on setting that up?

The only thing I've been doing that's maybe bandwidth-heavy lately is watching a lot of YouTube videos.