network tuning?

[mrklaw]

Hi

any tips for tuning a wireless network? Just synced up my new ipod touch for the first time and it was taking ages (all my content is on a USB drive attached to a time capsule) - activity monitor was showing peaks of around 400KB/s so less than 5Mb/s which is pathetic. even sitting less than 1m from the TC didn't help. This is using wireless N 5GHz as there are a few 2.4GHz networks in the neighbourhood.

Cancelled and connected via ethernet direct to the time capsule and got 10MB/s (not fantastic considering both TC and MBP should be gigabit, but nevermind)

I have my MBP and Apple TV connecting to the time capsule using N, and the time capsule connects via ethernet to a belkin router/modem set to 2.4GHz for all my other items to connect wirelessly to.

is there any kind of tuner software I can use to try different things out and observe the differences? Not sure exactly what to change though if sitting 1 meter away with 5GHz N is giving me rubbish connections.

 

[dcMobile]

If the TC's running in bridge mode, then your Belkin's doing all the routing and you won't see the benefits of running on 5 GHz N because it's likely bottlenecked at a 100 mbps because of the Belkin.

Any reason you're not using the TC as your router? Why have the Belkin in commission? If you want the Belkin to dish out 2.4 to keep the g's and b's around, just use that as your bridge.

 

[waw74]

the 10MB/s is probably the limit of the memory in the ipod, and not the network connection, my 1st gen iPhone tops out about 5MB/s over a wired network.
Try dragging something to your desktop, and see what the speed is.

I have basically the same setup as yours, altough a linksys router (running dd-wrt firmware) serving my b/g and an express serving my N.

when on the N, in the same room, I'll get about 5 to 6 MB/s transfer, so i don't know what your problem is.

try a program like istumbler. check out what your signal and noise numbers are, you might have wireless interference from something else.

 

[mrklaw]

tried the desktop thing and similar results. Even sitting right next to the TC i was getting rubbish results.

I actually got better results using the belkin b/g/n access point! Using activity monitor, the performance was spiking up and down, and the best I was getting was 1.5-2MB/s. thats just 3ft from the access points. Just seems completely the opposite from what I would expect.


I tried using the TC as a router, but when I switch the belkin into access point only mode (i.e not router), it seems to shut down its modem too - which naturally I need.

Can I set up two DHCP servers, one on the belkin to keep the modem alive and one on the TC? eg 1-100 on one, and 101-200 on the other?

Also, should I route wired ethernet through the TC?


Tried istumbler. lots of b/g networks in my area, but channel 1 seems most quiet (most of them are on 6/11). When I'm downstairs (router and TC are upstairs) I get approx 45% signal on the belkin with 10% noise (channel 1), and the TC gives me 37% and 13% noise. When sitting right by them I'm getting about 75% on the belkin and 58% on the TC.

I'm just at a loss and if I could wire everything up I would, but with a laptop thats clearly not practical (and the house layout doesn't lend itself to that either)

I'll probably move all my music locally instead of hang it off my TC. I'll back it up using TC so I have a duplicate and I now have space in my MBP compared to my old MB. But still doesn't solve the general throughput issues. at the moment no point even upgrading to ADSL 2 as my network won't even give me 16Mb/s!

 

[waw74]

Is the TC new? perhaps it just has a faulty antenna.
Are the speeds on the other devices good?