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Whenever Early 2008 iMac is connected to Wifi, it slows the network down.

128keaton

128keaton

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jan 13, 2013
2,029
419
Hello! I have an Early 2008 iMac that has an odd issue. Whenever it connects to our home wifi, the entire network is slowed down. I've reinstalled 10.9, but it still does it. Yes, I am sure it is the iMac, whenever you turn Wifi off on the iMac, the network returns to its normal speeds (4MbD vs 30MbD). Any suggestions as this seems like a really odd issue.
 
128keaton said:
Hello! I have an Early 2008 iMac that has an odd issue. Whenever it connects to our home wifi, the entire network is slowed down. I've reinstalled 10.9, but it still does it. Yes, I am sure it is the iMac, whenever you turn Wifi off on the iMac, the network returns to its normal speeds (4MbD vs 30MbD). Any suggestions as this seems like a really odd issue.
Click to expand...

Please describe how much it is slowing, how you are testing, and what kind of wireless router or access point you have.
 
Basically, we have the 30MBs download package from Xfinity. Whenever I test, I first run speedtest and I get 25 or 30MBs. Then I turn the iMac on and connect it to our wifi, the. Fun speedtest again. This time the page loads noticeably slower and I get about 4MBs. After that, I turn the wifi on the iMac off then run speedtest again and I get the same speeds as before. I've tried it on computers connected though wifi and Ethernet. It slows down the whole network. The router is the standard xfinity router: http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/wireless-gateway-1
 
128keaton said:
Basically, we have the 30MBs download package from Xfinity. Whenever I test, I first run speedtest and I get 25 or 30MBs. Then I turn the iMac on and connect it to our wifi, the. Fun speedtest again. This time the page loads noticeably slower and I get about 4MBs. After that, I turn the wifi on the iMac off then run speedtest again and I get the same speeds as before. I've tried it on computers connected though wifi and Ethernet. It slows down the whole network. The router is the standard xfinity router: http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/wireless-gateway-1
Click to expand...

Does it happen if the imac is connected via Ethernet? What is the other device you're testing speeds with while the imac is connected?
 
khedden said:
Does it happen if the imac is connected via Ethernet? What is the other device you're testing speeds with while the imac is connected?
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Currently, the iMac isn't in a position to connect to ethernet, but I will try and report back soon. So far, I've tried on a Late 2011 MacBook Pro over WiFi and a 2006 Mac Pro over ethernet.
 
128keaton said:
Currently, the iMac isn't in a position to connect to ethernet, but I will try and report back soon. So far, I've tried on a Late 2011 MacBook Pro over WiFi and a 2006 Mac Pro over ethernet.
Click to expand...

I think that would be best since it would let us know if it's isolated to the wireless, or if the imac is somehow sucking up bandwidth over any connection.

Something else you can look at is after connecting the imac to wireless, run the Activity Monitor and check what the top processes are by CPU usage, plus check and see if it's using lots of network bandwidth.
 
You mean, when your iMac is connected via wifi, other clients of the network also connected via wifi get slowed down? Not the other clients via ethernet?

Well, your iMac should already have wireless n, if your whole network is maybe based on ac gets slowed down with a mixed mode of different wireless standards? But even then it should not be that much and I'm not really sure its even a real thing. Some people say wifi gets slowed down, some say slowed down by some percent with another standard in there.
 
bennibeef said:
You mean, when your iMac is connected via wifi, other clients of the network also connected via wifi get slowed down? Not the other clients via ethernet?

Well, your iMac should already have wireless n, if your whole network is maybe based on ac gets slowed down with a mixed mode of different wireless standards? But even then it should not be that much and I'm not really sure its even a real thing. Some people say wifi gets slowed down, some say slowed down by some percent with another standard in there.
Click to expand...

Its over the whole network, not just wifi.
 
I am having the exact same problem... When my 2008 iMac (6gb of ram) is connected to our wifi it slows down the entire network to a crawl. The minute I turn wifi off on the Mac the whole wireless network speeds up. I have an apple wireless base station btw. I recently got a new TMobile wireless router and it did same thing on that network too.

I know the iMac is the cause because the minute it is offline it is an instant fix. iMac is running the most recent version of El Capitan but also did it when on Yosemite

Note: this has been happening for about 10 months.
 
So the Mac is connected via a wireless connection to your router but all the other machines (how many are there?) are connected via wired connection and the slowdown only occurs when the Mac is connected?
 
aliensporebomb said:
So the Mac is connected via a wireless connection to your router but all the other machines (how many are there?) are connected via wired connection and the slowdown only occurs when the Mac is connected?
Click to expand...

Well, with iPhones, iPads, computers, TV's, Stereo's and the likes about 10 to 15 devices accessing the Apple or Tmobile Asus Wireless Routers all at once. Nothing is wired... Not all devices are hitting at the same time so that would be average to max numbers. The only time the speed is degraded is when the iMac is on the network. The minute I pull it off everything doubles or triples in speeds within seconds. It has not failed yet.
 
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