To any of you internet guru's-Question about ping time?

[Imola Ghost]

I recently switched over my home computer from a Windows PC to a new 27" iMac. Since I play xbox 360 I always was concerned with lower ping times, which I checked regularly on my PC and it was consistently 151ms. I used Speedtest.net for those numbers. Ever since buying the new iMac, I immediately check the speed and it came back with a ping of 212ms.

Now I'm no expert but that is higher than 151ms and with ping lower is better. How come my iMac has consistently put out higher ping times of 212ms and the PC was lower.

 

[brasscat]

I recently switched over my home computer from a Windows PC to a new 27" iMac. Since I play xbox 360 I always was concerned with lower ping times, which I checked regularly on my PC and it was consistently 151ms. I used Speedtest.net for those numbers. Ever since buying the new iMac, I immediately check the speed and it came back with a ping of 212ms.

Now I'm no expert but that is higher than 151ms and with ping lower is better. How come my iMac has consistently put out higher ping times of 212ms and the PC was lower.

Can you let us know 1) what kind of internet connection are you using, and 2) what are you pinging?

A ping of over 100ms, to say yahoo.com is atrocious.

 

[Imola Ghost]

I'm using Comcast cable internet with a 22meg connection. I pay for a 22mb download, 5 upload.

Not sure how to tell what I'm pinging, I just use the speedtest.net site.

 

[Imola Ghost]

This is using Pingtest.net site and for your information. I would always get lower ping results using this site on the PC also. For some reason the Speedtest.net site came back with 151ms for my PC and 212ms on my iMac.

This site has been lower results on both computers PC and Mac.

 

[brasscat]

That's a nice connection. That screen is helpful, but the ping time is irrelevant, it's doesn't give any information you can use.

Drop to a terminal, and type "ping yahoo.com"... let it return a few times then press CTRL+C to stop it. The ping times should be 20ms or better. For me it's around 12ms.

If you still see 100+ms ping times for the yahoo test, there's something slowing your routes down externally. I assume you're connecting everything wirelessly to your Comcast router? if so, try a hardwired connection and see if the problem still exists.

Or, you may have a access point, switch, or router plugged into your cable modem from comcast. Try connecting straight into your cable model from your mac and see if the problem still exists. If that fixed it, it's time to replace that non-comcast switching device.

If none of these apply, and you ping yahoo at 100+ms you should then call tech support and see what they have to say about it.

To your original question, OSX is well optimized for internet traffic. A 212ms ping would tell me there's a hardware problem somewhere, and it's unlikely it's your Mac. In short, this doesn't make sense... but you already knew that.

 

[calderone]

If there is indeed something slowing you down, open up Network Utility in /Applications/Utilities. Click on the Traceroute tab, pop in an address and then click trace. See what you get there.

Although, please note, this may or may not be indicative of your web browsing experience. For me, it is not.

 

[Imola Ghost]

PING yahoo.com (209.191.93.53): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=0 ttl=49 time=66.478 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=52.907 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=2 ttl=49 time=51.106 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=3 ttl=49 time=51.973 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=4 ttl=49 time=52.589 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=5 ttl=49 time=50.823 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=6 ttl=49 time=51.778 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=7 ttl=49 time=52.413 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=8 ttl=49 time=53.193 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=9 ttl=49 time=51.593 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=10 ttl=49 time=52.215 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=11 ttl=49 time=53.154 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=12 ttl=49 time=51.500 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=13 ttl=49 time=52.304 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=14 ttl=49 time=52.904 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=15 ttl=49 time=51.200 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=16 ttl=49 time=52.020 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=17 ttl=49 time=52.821 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=18 ttl=49 time=51.312 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=19 ttl=49 time=51.913 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=20 ttl=49 time=52.670 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=21 ttl=49 time=53.205 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=22 ttl=49 time=51.537 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: icmp_seq=23 ttl=49 time=52.286 ms



I have my 27" iMac wired directly to a Linksys WRT610N with the router having the latest firmware. I don't use the wireless much except for my Macbook Pro.

The odd thing is that I've removed the Linksys router out of the loop and plugged my iMac and PC in directly to the cable modem and came back with the exact same results with or without the Linksys router.

 

[Imola Ghost]

If there is indeed something slowing you down, open up Network Utility in /Applications/Utilities. Click on the Traceroute tab, pop in an address and then click trace. See what you get there.

Although, please note, this may or may not be indicative of your web browsing experience. For me, it is not.

Traceroute has started…

traceroute to www-real.wa1.b.yahoo.com, 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 (******) 0.690 ms 0.407 ms 1.121 ms
2 * * *
3 6) 9.155 ms 7.108 ms 6.766 ms
4 t ) 7.348 ms 6.815 ms 7.252 ms
5 (5) 14.771 ms 14.643 ms 15.841 ms
6 pos-0-7-0-0-ar03.northdade.fl.pompano.comcast.net 15.148 ms 16.062 ms 16.509 ms
7 pos-0-3-0-0-cr01.miami.fl.ibone.comcast.net 15.443 ms 16.727 ms 16.520 ms
8 pos-2-2-0-0-cr01.atlanta.ga.ibone.comcast.net 30.656 ms 30.690 ms 31.126 ms
9 pos-0-1-0-0-pe01.56marietta.ga.ibone.comcast.net 31.815 ms 32.292 ms 33.427 ms
10 vlan502.icore1.a56-atlanta.as6453.net 42.515 ms 46.527 ms 35.760 ms
11 if-7-0-0-60.har1.a56-atlanta.as6453.net 29.947 ms
if-5-0-0-50.har1.a56-atlanta.as6453.net 29.570 ms 29.587 ms
12 if-11-0-0.core3.aeq-ashburn.as6453.net 46.124 ms 45.651 ms 45.685 ms
13 ix-14-2.core3.aeq-ashburn.as6453.net 63.114 ms 62.773 ms 62.073 ms
14 ae-6.pat1.dce.yahoo.com 54.952 ms 54.239 ms 55.325 ms
15 ae1-p140.msr1.re1.yahoo.com 54.663 ms
ae1-p150.msr2.re1.yahoo.com 53.938 ms
ae1-p140.msr1.re1.yahoo.com 54.324 ms
16 te-8-1.bas-a2.re1.yahoo.com 50.800 ms
te-9-4.bas-a2.re1.yahoo.com 53.567 ms
te-9-4.bas-a1.re1.yahoo.com 54.655 ms

 

[miles01110]

Now that you've told the world your IP information, I hope you have your firewall on and a non-default password on your router.