Time Capsule setup questions

[hazzzwu]

Yes, both my Mac Pro and my XP machine are desktops. Therefore they are wired to the TC. The Linksys router I have it older, and can only handle 10Mbps or 100Mbps connections. These are MegaBITs per second. Roughly, a 100Mbps connection will transfer data at about 10 MB (MegaBYTES) per second.

A Gigabit ethernet port is 1000Mbps. With this you will see those 10MB per second speeds of 100Mbps, go up to 20-30MB per second.

Because both my Mac Pro and my XP machine have network cards that can handle 10/100/1000Mbps speeds, by plugging them into the TC and using either Cat5e or Cat6 cables, I'm able to get the maximum speeds of Gigabit Ethernet, or 1000Mbps.

You can tell what speed your current link is running at by opening Network Utility (Applications -> Utilities -> Network Utility). Under the Info tab you can select your link and see the current speed. In my case, my Mac Pro shows the Link Speed as 1 Gbit/s. In XP, it's under the Network Connections, and check the Status of the connection.

In order to get the speeds, you need not only a Router that has 1000Mbps ports, but the network cards in each machine need to support 1000Mbps.

Hope this helps.

-Kevin

Understood, very clear... thanks for the information!

 

[hazzzwu]

MBA is the acronym for MacBook Air. Just short hand for those too lazy to type it out

Your access speeds for your Windows laptop are, unfortunately, limited to 54 Mbps transfer rate. That's theoretically a maximum of 6.75 MB/s (real world speeds are usually quite lower). That may be why you're experiencing the slow access times. I haven't tried moving my library over to my Time Capsule, so I really wouldn't have many suggestions, sorry. Hopefully somebody else could help you in that department.

After reading your message, I think tonight I will try out to access the mp3 stored in the TC using my iMac, both from my Mac OS and Windows Vista OS. (I do have installed two OS for my iMac).

Thanks...

 

[amiroo79]

What if you reset the password to something simple, just as a test. Then once it connects and you know everything works, change it to a more secure password.

Also, did you setup the Timed MAC address filtering? It is not setup by default, so it would have been something you did.

-Kevin

Thanks Kevin. Got it figured out (kinda). I reset the whole thing and now it works. I was told that I had setup the TC to only work in "n" mode and therefore, my iphone was not able to connect to it. I actually don't see anywhere on the AirPort Utility where it says that. I don't even know where it says what mode it is in (ie "g" or "n").

This is important for me to understand because I now believe that the TC is in a constant "g" mode due to the addition of my iPhone. This is because I noticed my MacBook's surfing speeds go to what I had before with the "g" router once I connected my iPhone to the TC.

Assuming that the TC will only be in "g" mode if there is a "g" device using it, how do I put it in "n" mode only? I see a lot of people on this forum say that but I don't know how to do it as I don't see it in the AirPort Utility.

Thanks,
Amir

 

[netnothing]

Thanks Kevin. Got it figured out (kinda). I reset the whole thing and now it works. I was told that I had setup the TC to only work in "n" mode and therefore, my iphone was not able to connect to it. I actually don't see anywhere on the AirPort Utility where it says that. I don't even know where it says what mode it is in (ie "g" or "n").

This is important for me to understand because I now believe that the TC is in a constant "g" mode due to the addition of my iPhone. This is because I noticed my MacBook's surfing speeds go to what I had before with the "g" router once I connected my iPhone to the TC.

Assuming that the TC will only be in "g" mode if there is a "g" device using it, how do I put it in "n" mode only? I see a lot of people on this forum say that but I don't know how to do it as I don't see it in the AirPort Utility.

Thanks,
Amir

In Airport Utility, go to manage the TC. With the Airport Section open, go to the Wireless Tab. As shown in the attached picture.

You want the Radio Mode dropdown.

Basically, in wireless, your entire network will operate in the speed of the slowest device. So if you have TC serving b/g/n speeds....if you connect your iPhone (which is g only), it will bring all the other clients down to g speeds.

Your other option is to keep your Linksys router, and have that act as the main DHCP, NAT router serving up g only speeds. Then you plug the TC into the Linksys and set it up in Bridged mode. Then on the TC, you create a new wireless network, and switch the Radio Mode to be 802.11n 5GHz only. Make sure you name each of the wireless network uniquely. In my example, I have my Linksys network named GoldenEye-G and the TC network named GoldenEye-N. This makes it easy to see which is which. In the case of my MacBook, technically I can connect to either.

At this point you'll have 2 wireless networks, your Linksys serving g only traffic, and the TC serving n only traffic. You'll setup your iPhone to connect to the Linksys, and the MacBook to connect to the TC.

-Kevin

 

[amiroo79]

In Airport Utility, go to manage the TC. With the Airport Section open, go to the Wireless Tab. As shown in the attached picture.

You want the Radio Mode dropdown.

Basically, in wireless, your entire network will operate in the speed of the slowest device. So if you have TC serving b/g/n speeds....if you connect your iPhone (which is g only), it will bring all the other clients down to g speeds.

Your other option is to keep your Linksys router, and have that act as the main DHCP, NAT router serving up g only speeds. Then you plug the TC into the Linksys and set it up in Bridged mode. Then on the TC, you create a new wireless network, and switch the Radio Mode to be 802.11n 5GHz only. Make sure you name each of the wireless network uniquely. In my example, I have my Linksys network named GoldenEye-G and the TC network named GoldenEye-N. This makes it easy to see which is which. In the case of my MacBook, technically I can connect to either.

At this point you'll have 2 wireless networks, your Linksys serving g only traffic, and the TC serving n only traffic. You'll setup your iPhone to connect to the Linksys, and the MacBook to connect to the TC.

-Kevin

Kevin,

YOU ARE DA MAN!!!

I'll be sure to try this out tonight when I get home from work. Thank you so much for the info. Being new to Mac and abandoning my PC after much frustration with Vista and Office 2007 was a bit scary but you are making it so much easier. I can't thank you enough.

 

[netnothing]

Kevin,

YOU ARE DA MAN!!!

I'll be sure to try this out tonight when I get home from work. Thank you so much for the info. Being new to Mac and abandoning my PC after much frustration with Vista and Office 2007 was a bit scary but you are making it so much easier. I can't thank you enough.

Glad to help. The Mac community rocks when it comes to this stuff....mainly because we are all so passionate about our systems. Afterall, they are acutally a pleasure to use!

Let us know if you have any issues, but basically the setup will go like this:

Network cable from the Cable Modem into the Linksys WAN port.
Network cable from one of the Linksys LAN ports out to the TC WAN port.

You may want to plug in the MacBook to do this via a network cable until you get the wireless network setup.

Linksys will be the main router, so essentially, no real changes need to be done to this router. However, I'd recommend going in an setting the Linksys SSID to indicate that it is G only. Also make sure you are allowing enough IPs to be distributed.

Now on the TC, you will want to setup a new wireless 802.11n only (5 GHz) wireless network with it's own name, again, indicate that it's the N only network. On the Ethernet (Intenet option in Airport Utility) side of the TC, that will need to be setup so it obtains it's IP Using DHCP (from the Linksys), and the Connection Sharing option is set to Off (Bridge Mode). This basically turns off the DHCP, NAT, etc on the TC and turns it into a switch/wireless AP.

That's about it. That's how I have mine setup and it's been working great. My older XP laptop connects to the Linksys G network, and my MacBook connects to the TC N network. Any device on either router can see all the other devices. I also have a Canon printer plugged into the TC which both my Mac Pro and MacBook can print to, as well as my XP machine via Bonjour.

What the network will essentially look like is the diagram on page 41 of this PDF:
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Designing_AirPort_Networks_10.5-Windows.pdf
Except the Airport Extreme in this diagram is basically your Linksys.

Good luck!

-Kevin

 

[amiroo79]

Thanks again!

Kevin,

Your instructions were awesome (and crystal clear) and I have now setup my network as you described. Thank you so much for all your help and guidance.

I owe you one.

-Amir

 

[netnothing]

Kevin,

Your instructions were awesome (and crystal clear) and I have now setup my network as you described. Thank you so much for all your help and guidance.

I owe you one.

-Amir

That's awesome. Glad I could help. Welcome to the Mac!

-Kevin

 

[hazzzwu]

After reading your message, I think tonight I will try out to access the mp3 stored in the TC using my iMac, both from my Mac OS and Windows Vista OS. (I do have installed two OS for my iMac).

Thanks...

After several trials... i have to conclude that I am unable to use TC as a place to store my mp3 files, and access it smoothly through my iTunes or Media Player...

Using Media player, i can still play songs. However, the speed to access the song is very lousy. I also experience it when I move from one artist/album to another artist/album.

Using iTunes... the application is hang. I should use ctrl-alt-del to go to the task manager and terminate it manually by pressing end task.

Anyone of you have clues?

 

[skorpien]

After several trials... i have to conclude that I am unable to use TC as a place to store my mp3 files, and access it smoothly through my iTunes or Media Player...

Using Media player, i can still play songs. However, the speed to access the song is very lousy. I also experience it when I move from one artist/album to another artist/album.

Using iTunes... the application is hang. I should use ctrl-alt-del to go to the task manager and terminate it manually by pressing end task.

Anyone of you have clues?

I suspect if you are using it wirelessly to access these files, the transmit rate is unfortunately too low to make it an effective solution in your situation. I would think that if you were to connect your Windows laptop to the Time Capsule via ethernet, you would notice a significant improvement. I also suspect that if your Windows laptop were capable of wireless-n, you wouldn't have such slow access times. I'm sorry I can't comment any more on this as I haven't set mine up as a media file server, but if it is another issue and you manage to figure it out, I would like to know how you solved it.

 

[hazzzwu]

I suspect if you are using it wirelessly to access these files, the transmit rate is unfortunately too low to make it an effective solution in your situation. I would think that if you were to connect your Windows laptop to the Time Capsule via ethernet, you would notice a significant improvement. I also suspect that if your Windows laptop were capable of wireless-n, you wouldn't have such slow access times. I'm sorry I can't comment any more on this as I haven't set mine up as a media file server, but if it is another issue and you manage to figure it out, I would like to know how you solved it.

Actually for the above trials, I was using the iMac but running in Windows Vista Home Premium. I have windows media player and iTunes installed in it.

I have also tried to connect to both network : b/g and N-only network.

If anyone of the readers has an experience to solve this problem, appreciate if you could share...

Thanks...