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Why are my wifi download speeds so slow?

S

Sandy Santra

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 1, 2008
350
73
Brooklyn
I'm beginning to wonder if Apple put a lousy Airport card in the new MBA. No matter what the wifi hotspot, I get downloads of 2MB. I just bought a new Airport Extreme at home and I really thought the MBA would be faster.

Am I missing something here? Do I have to "match up" the MBA with my Extreme to use the fast "N" connection? Or is there some network setting to tweak on the new MBA?

Any help really appreciated. Thanks!
 
If you mean "MegaByte" with MB, then 2MB/s is quite good of 802.11g speeds, maybe the wireless networks you connect to don't use 802.11n routers.

Hold down the OPTION/ALT key, click on the AirPort icon in the Menu Bar and see for yourself, what it says after PHY Mode and Transmit Rate.

wireless-info-airport-menu.jpg
 
WardC said:
wow, that is really awesome. I didn't know about this feature in Mac OS X. That is really cool!
Click to expand...

You can activate a lot of features via holding down the OPTION/ALT key and clicking. Just hold the key down and browse through the menus of Safari or other applications.
 
spinnerlys said:
If you mean "MegaByte" with MB, then 2MB/s is quite good of 802.11g speeds, maybe the wireless networks you connect to don't use 802.11n routers.
Click to expand...

Routers at both home and work are "n" routers. At home, I have the very latest Airport Extreme.

My GF's 15" 18-month-old MacBook Pro gets 5MB down on wifi. How is it that my MBA is getting only 2MB down?
 
Sandy Santra said:
Routers at both home and work are "n" routers. At home, I have the very latest Airport Extreme.

My GF's 15" 18-month-old MacBook Pro gets 5MB down on wifi. How is it that my MBA is getting only 2MB down?
Click to expand...

Which MBA did you get?
 
Sandy Santra said:
I'm beginning to wonder if Apple put a lousy Airport card in the new MBA. No matter what the wifi hotspot, I get downloads of 2MB. I just bought a new Airport Extreme at home and I really thought the MBA would be faster.

Am I missing something here? Do I have to "match up" the MBA with my Extreme to use the fast "N" connection? Or is there some network setting to tweak on the new MBA?

Any help really appreciated. Thanks!
Click to expand...

How are you measuring this ?
 
If you are timing how long it takes to copy a document from one Mac on the 802.11n network to the MacBook Air, the equation is: MB/s = MB / sec * 2. It's "times 2" because it's reading and writing at the same time.

Macintouch did extensive benchmarking on AirPort Extreme Disk throughput. The best WRITE speed they saw was 2MB/s. The best READ speed was 3.5MB/s. The best READ speed on a wired Ethernet port was 6MB/s.
http://www.macintouch.com/reviews/airportn/#performance

If you need faster transfers, a USB 2.0 drive does 38MB/s READ and 37MB/s WRITE speed. That's what I'm using for transfers and backups.
 
I am also wondering how you are measuring your throughput. I have a brand new MBA 13 connected to a Time Capsule (Dual Band) and I am getting excellent download speeds. Please see the attached screen shot.

What wifi security are you using?

How far are you from the base station when you are taking the bandwidth measurement?

What wireless frequency are you using?
 

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I just tested my MBA (11") against my mid-2009 13" MBP. Averages of the first four tests:

MBA: ping 87; upload 0.92Mb/s; download 0.83Mb/s
MBP: 80; 0.95 8.80

So I'm getting 10x faster downloads with the MBP than the MBA. Imagine how that affects trying to watch streaming video. These tests are on the same wireless network, computers side by side, alternating tests, BT off. I can't think of any other variables to try controlling.

Any suggestions? I'm on a Belkin N router, btw.
 
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