Poor WiFi Performace with New MBP

[FourtyEightFan]

I have a new 17" MBP and the wifi connection is slooow. I have two PC laptops and a desktop using the same wifi connection and they are not nearly as slow. Has anyone else seen this issue? How can I improve the transfer speed on my new MBP?

Cheers,

~J.

 

[UltraNEO*]

What's the connection speed of your Mac?
You can find this out by launching Network Utility located in:

Root → Applications → Utilites → Network Utility.app

 

[FourtyEightFan]

Here are some performance tests. The PC is a Dell Latitude D620, 2GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM. The MBP 17", 2.6 GHz Core 2 Duo (Penryn), 2GB RAM. Both laptops are sitting next to each other.

Speedtest.net
Mac 4.9Mbs
PC 7.5Mbps

Speakeasy
Mac 4.7
PC 7.3

Mac is 35% slower on both tests

Visualware
Mac 1.91
PC 4.85

Mac 60% slower.

Interestingly, the Visualware claimed the quality of the connection for my Mac was poor. It rated the quality of the connection for the PC as good.

~J.

 

[FourtyEightFan]

Just for grins I connected my MBP directly to the router (Cat-5 cable). The connection speeds were all consistent. There is definitely something screwed-up with my Mac's WiFi connectivity.

Speedtest.net
Mac 9.7 Mbps

Speakeasy
Mac 9.7 Mbps

Visualware
Mac 9.7 Mbps

Obviously the wired connection is going to be faster. However, this proves there is nothing wrong with my router and cable model connection speed.

~J.

 

[FourtyEightFan]

I fixed it! After spending my morning playing around with various settings on both my MBP and my router, I found the solution - change the channel. Switching the router from channel 6 to 1 did the trick.

FYI, my MBP WiFi connection is now faster than the PC! It's downloading at 9.4 Mbps vs. 7.4 Mbps on the PC.

~J.

 

[donmei]

Its strange, for some reason the apple products seem to be cranky about what channel they are on.

I was on 11, but my Ipod touch wouldnt connect reliably.
So I changed to 6 or 7.
Then I got a mbp and it was flakey.
So i changed the chanel to another (cant remember what one) and they both work now.

 

[LeahM]

Actually thats a good suggestion, I thought I'd just have to deal with it for a bit.