Possible wi-fi connectivity solution - requires Windows under Boot Camp

Hi guys - stumbled across this earlier whilst fiddling with settings and it has made an amazing difference.
As we all know, unless you are running your Airport in wireless-n 5GHz only mode, it will drop connections left, right and centre. This is okay when I am on my home network with a 500Gb Time Capsule - I can set it to that mode as long as I'm not using my Win7 desktop PC as well (that only has a b/g card in it, so requires compatibility mode).
However, at my in-laws house at the moment - they've just got their first laptop (a Dell Studio) and their first internet connection through Sky. The router is a standard b/g NetGear router - as you can imagine my MacBook Pro was being very badly behaved in staying connected, and was showing very poor network performance as well.
This was happening under Win7 RC as well as OS X 10.6.2 (both OSes fully updated - important and optional).
Here's the new bit - I went into Device Manager in Windows (not Devices and Printers, the original Device Manager interface, which requires UAC verification). In there I went to Network Adapters and then the Broadcom 802.11n adapter.
Once I went in, the second tab across (Advanced I think) has a long list of scary sounding functions you can select with a drop-box that changes depending on which one you have selected. So..
I changed two settings.
The first setting I changed was Afterburner - I set this to Enabled.
Then I scrolled right down to the bottom, and selected Xpress(TM) Technology and set that to Enabled as well. Then I clicked OK and watched the network reset as the new settings were written to the card.
Now I have the full five bars of connection at all times in both OSes, and it seems rock solid. On a relatively slow 4Mb broadband connection over a 802.11g connection with normal WPA (not WPA2) and sat several metres from the router I can watch HD YouTube and have practically no lag or slowdown on web browsing.
I think that this is because Windows has a more in depth control for the "deep settings" on the Wi-Fi card, and enabling those two functions on the card (which I have enabled on both my desktop PCs on their add-in Broadcom 802.11g cards) has allowed the MBP to finally work properly on a wireless network without faffing around with the router settings (switching modes etc) or running a third party utility such as iStumbler (which does not work properly under SL anyway - run it, open Activity Monitor, highlight the blued process and make sure you have sorted by memory usage, and then quit iStumbler completely and watch blued eat you hard drive completely).
Anyway, I really hope this helps you guys who are having problems - as far as I can remember, all versions of Windows since 2000 have the Device Manager screen. If anybody knows how to set these options under OS X can you let me know?
Quick recap:
Device Manager -> Network Adapters -> Broadcom 802.11n -> Advanced -> Set Afterburner and Xpress(TM) to Enabled.
Merry Christmas all!

Anyone try this out ? As I'm just get my new mbp and not yet install any windows on it, so there is no way to try this.

Similar Messages

Resolve trouble between Parallels and Windows under Boot Camp

After seeing several threads relating to this issue, I decided to make this it's own thread instead of trying to reply to each. hopkinsvscloudlivestream.blogspot.com/2013/03/watch-hopkins-vs-cloud-live-stream-2013.html This article NOW resolves all issues pertaining to using Windows under Boot Camp through Parallels, INCLUDING activation. Hopefully Parallels will be able to integrate these fixes into a future release.
Before doing anything, I would recommend preparing your existing Windows installation under Boot Camp, for Parallels, before trying to access it through Parallels. If you have already installed Parallels and now have problems, don't worry, this article should address and resolve these issues as well.
Something to know upfront: using your existing Boot Camp installation with Parallels will most likely require you to activate your Windows installation a second time. The reasons for this are addressed in Section 4 of this article.
Section 1: Preparing your Boot Camp Installation for Parallels
(If you already tried to access your Boot Camp installation through Parallels, and can no longer get into Windows through Boot Camp or Parallels, please skip this step and come back to it after you have completed Section 2.)

Personally, I think the software fix is a band-aid for a larger hardware problem, probably involving the power management circuitry. I think the reason Photo Booth and QuietMBP and Windows XP all work to silence the noise is because they draw more power by using more CPU, and it's the extra power draw that kills the noise. Nothing scientific, mind you, just a hunch.
What if your speakers made an annoying hum that went away whenever you started playing music through them in iTunes? Would you still think it's a software problem? I think it's a similar situation here - where software can cover up the issue but not really fix it...

Please help! Need to re-install windows under boot camp

Hi,
My windows (in boot camp) is not booting but I have many software licenses on there and cannot afford to wipe windows off.
I am hoping I can re install windows over the top of the current windows without losing my applications/licenses with boot camp but am not confident enough that a: re-installing windows wont mess up the mac osx and b: I cannot even see an option in the boot camp assistant which offer me the option.
Has anybody esle ever had to re-install windows over an existing installation and managed to do so without losing applications etc?
Thanks for any help on this.
Spencer

*In addition:*
IMPORTANT: Make sure you select "preserve user preferences and data" when you performed the A&I?

Can I install a program on an external disk via Windows under Boot Camp?

Simple question.
Will i be able to install Flight Sim X onto a FAT32 Formatted USB Hard Drive and be able to run it from the drive?

Hi Ryan,
this should be possible.
Just make sure that the external HD is fully accessable when running BootCamp Windows and during installation point the destination folder in which FlightX should be installed to the external HD.
Most definitely there will still be some files that the installer of FlightX must install into the Windows System Folder, so some free space should be on the internal Windows partition.
Regards
Stefan

Windows Under Boot Camp & No Whine

Hello,
My first post and first Mac. Not sure if this has been posted yet but apologies if it has. My Week 11 MBP has the Processor Whine which can be gotten rid of using the methods we all know about. When I am in Windows though there is no whine at all. So I have to assume that the problem can be fixed with a software update. Any thoughts?
Bboy

Personally, I think the software fix is a band-aid for a larger hardware problem, probably involving the power management circuitry. I think the reason Photo Booth and QuietMBP and Windows XP all work to silence the noise is because they draw more power by using more CPU, and it's the extra power draw that kills the noise. Nothing scientific, mind you, just a hunch.
What if your speakers made an annoying hum that went away whenever you started playing music through them in iTunes? Would you still think it's a software problem? I think it's a similar situation here - where software can cover up the issue but not really fix it...

Does Windows under Boot Camp see external drives?

Anyone?

Yes
If you have further questions regarding Boot Camp, you should post them in the Boot Camp discussions:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1165

Connecting Under Boot Camp - WRT610N

I recently replaced an old Belkin router with the WRT610N. I've benn very happy with this router with one exception. I have a Macbook Pro. Under the Mac operating system, I have not problem connecting. Running XP under Boot Camp is a diffferent story. It will connect for a few minutes, but then the link becomes non-responsive (limited ot no connectivity) and I have to log off and then back on. This never happened with the Belkin router, and other PCs, an Apple TV, and an iPhone connect wirelessly without a hitch. So I suspect this is something about the Linksys router.
Can anyone help me with this problem? It happens on both bands. If it's relevant, the 5GHz band is network mode Wireless-N only, radio band Auto, WPA2-Personal with WPA-TKIP or WPA2-AES encryption. The 2.4GHz band (the one I prefer to use for this problamatic connection) is network mode Mixed, radio band Auto, WPA-Personal with TKIP encryption.
Thanks in advance for any help.

Upgrade the Firmware on the router as the new firmware has resolved many issues for wireless connection...Also make sure that the radio band for 2.4GHz Frequency is set to standard-20MHz and standard channel should be 11-2.462GHz...Also the network mode should be Mixed on both the frequencies...

Wifi under windows 7 boot camp keeps dying

I have been running windows 7 64 bit under Boot Camp for just under a week, and last night have started to have some pretty serious issues with the built in wifi.
Periodically, without any consistent cause, when I am booted into Windows 7, my internet connection begins to degrade. Not disconnect or anything, just taking on like 60% packet loss or more, pings to both my default gateway (the wifi router) as well as to anything further out on the internet. My ipad, iphone, macbook pro are all fine and able to use the internet at the same time without issue, its only the imac booted into Windows 7. I can reboot with no change, still completely unusable (unable to load even a single web page) for Windows 7. reboot to OSX, no issues. Its not the router, or the ISP, its JUST when I'm in win7 using wifi. I've changed IPs, used a static DNS, measured wifi, etc. I was using this setup for almost a week before the issues started, and I'm assuming its something wrong with Windows7. Fully patched and up to date, both OSX and Win7.
I finally figured out that I can temporarily fix the problem by resetting the driver for the wifi interface under the Network Adaptor troubleshoot wizard in Windows, this buys me between 5 minutes to half an hour before the issue starts up again. Nothing else I've found will fix the issue even temporarily.
I finally ran a 50 ft ethernet cable from the imac to the router and this has for now solved the intermittent issue, but its not sustainable this way as I cannot leave the cords like this. But clearly there seems to be an issue with the wifi driver in windows that boot camp is using.
Can anyone provide some suggestions of what to look for within windows or a way to debug this more directly? I used the BootCamp assistant to burn a DVD of drivers at install time and I believe they were the most recent versions, but not sure how to check further. Device manager reports I am using the Atheros AR938x Wireless adaptor, and this is a mid-2011 27" iMac running Lion.

I'm having the same problem. Wifi loses connection after 5-ish minutes.
Wondering if it's an issue with the 802.11n drivers...? Seems a little more stable on the "g" networks.
This has been happening since the latest OS X update. I have a mid-2010 Macbook Pro 15".

Latest Windows 8.1 update under Boot Camp loses my cursor

I was having no problems running Windows 8.1 under Boot Camp on my MacBook Pro Retina (2012) with the latest Boot Camp drivers until I tried downloading Microsoft's latest major update to Windows 8.1 (KB2919355). After installing the update, I lost my cursor. The trackpad and a USB mouse both "worked" by highlighting icons and windows at random, but without a cursor I'm flying blind. It seems to be a video or screen driver issue. I chatted with Apple and spoke to Microsoft on the phone. They both suggested that I uninstall the update, which I have done. And that does bring back my cursor. The only hope is that Apple and Microsoft can work out this problem between the Apple drivers and the Microsoft update. I understand that this latest Microsoft update is a prerequisite for future Microsoft updates, so I hope they straighten this out. Is anyone else suffering from this problem?

Hi
I have exactly the same problem on my MacBook Pro Retina (early 2013). After updating from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 (KB2919355) the mouse cursor is invisible on the desktop. On the Lockscreen and Sign In screen the cursor is visible. My resolution is 1920x1200. I connected also another "normal" mouse device and I have the same effect.
When starting Windows in Safe mode the cursor is visible. When uninstalling the update KB2919355 everything works again.
See also http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-windows_update/kb291 9355-makes-mouse-pointer-invisible/b9d014f1-9ec1-4faa-a046-7b96fcd66661 .
I use the latest version of BootCamp http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1720.
Thank you to solve this issue.

Fat32 External Hard Drive does NOT mount on Windows XP Pro under boot camp

I have a gateway 160gb portable external HDD. When it came pre-formatted in NTFS. It mounted on Windows XP under boot camp or Vmware Virtual machine very well.
I then formatted it under HFS+ to use it with superduper.
Now that I want to convert it back to NTFS. I formatted it under Fat32 so that windows can recognize it and I can format it again under NTFS.
The drive mounts fine on Mac OSX leopard but not on Windows XP (bootcamp or Vmware VM). Could someone help? I need this drive to be under NTFS so that I can store work related files which can only be run on Windows and some of the files are larger than 4gb.
Thank you

Under Disk Utility>Partition select anything other than 'Current' under 'Volume Scheme', then the format field will light. However, you should have been able to format under Windows Disk Management once it was online. See:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/tips/advanced/ntfs.mspx

Windows does weird stuff under Boot Camp

I know this sounds like a Boot Camp question, but I'm pretty sure I'm better off here. Allow me to explain:
I use Mac and Windows equally on my MacBook Pro, but on occasion, I will load up Windows through Boot Camp and everything will start going crazy. By that, I mean that when Task Manager is brought up, almost all the background programs are running (even ones which don't normally run). In addition, the System background item is running around 30-50% of the memory. All of these things together causes my system to bog at 100% usage.
I assume this is Windows conflicting with hardware in some way, because this isn't a typical problem with Windows XP (not that I know of anyway). Here are a few additional facts I recently realized which might help to solve this problem:
1. When this happens, I try to shut off the computer to no avail. Explorer hangs up, then tries to shut down, then says it can't be shut down. After hitting the "End Now" button, the computer hangs on an empty screen (meaning you can see my background, you can see my cursor, but I can't access anything...Task Manager included).
2. The last time this happened was right after I disconnected my USB ported external hard drive.
3. I am running NTFS-3g with MACFuse (or whatever it is that allows you to write to the Windows drive on the Mac side) as well as rEFIt (the boot system which allows for triple+ OS booting through Boot Camp)
Usually when this weird phenomenon happens, I have to boot up the Mac side of my computer (which complains that the Windows partition is "still running" and can't mount it) and then boot back into the Windows side (this is a sketchy solution at best).
I'll pose this question on the Boot Camp support board as well in case it's inappropriate here. Please help! This isn't exactly crippling my system (no damage has been done as far as I can tell) but it's really #%@&#@$!% annoying!

I believe NTFS-3g is how the Mac drive recognizes the NTFS format (it's just a more specific name). I could be wrong on this, but I recently formatted my hard drive and had to re-setup Boot Camp. Before I installed MACFuse, I believe it was recognizing my partition as NTFS-3g
At first glance, I would agree with you on the rEFIt and MACFuse prognosis. However, when I resetup Boot Camp, I did not use rEFIt initially and still had the problem. It might be MACFuse, exept MACFuse should only be affecting how the Mac side mounts the Windows partition.
MacDrive doesn't help me here. I don't care about seeing my Mac partition on the Windows side of things.
I have a 60 GB partition, so that makes me almost 99% certain I am not running a FAT32 partition. There may be ways to run a hard drive/partition in FAT32 while exceeding the typical 32 GB standard, but I'm not aware of any.

802.11ac not recognized on Windows 8.1 Pro under Boot Camp.

I just installed Windows 8.1 Pro under Boot Camp. The issue I am having is that the 802.11ac network is not recognized in Windows. Windows only recohnizes the 802.11n network. When I boot up OSX Yosemite, It works as usual. Anyone else have this problem?

8/8.1 will install fine but there's some stuff you need to do before starting to ensure no issues
purchase a retail 8/8.1 license
use only a USB2 flash drive
get a clean 8 or 8.1 ISO
newer machines are more selective with the ISO for some reason (ISOs that worked to install Windows on many different older Macs would not work)
if you've made lots of changes, hacks and adjustments trying to get this work on your own, you should clean install OSX first, do not restore from time machine and start at step 3 to get Windows installed, you can go back later and copy files back to OSX
if you want to try without clean installing OSX, here goes
open boot camp assistant (bca) and choose option 3 ONLY if it reads 'remove/delete' Windows
open disk utility (du) and confirm that your HD now only has 1 single partition ('macintosh HD' unless you've renamed it)
restart machine and do a PRAM reset
open du and repair permissions TWICE
open bca and choose all 3 options (create, download, install)
from here, the process follows the standard boot camp instructions (http://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1636/en_US/boot_camp_install-setup_ 10.8.pdf) but pay attention to step 3 where you do have to manually reformat the boot camp partition
clean ISOs
http://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/download-windows-8-pro/
http://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/windows-8-1-download/
if you are trying to clean install 8.1, google clean install 8.1 with windows 8 key for steps like this
http://forum.notebookreview.com/windows-os-software/735517-how-install-windows-8 -1-clean-your-windows-8-upgrade-key.html

Dual monitor not working under Boot Camp on Mac Pro ATI HD 2600 XT

Recently got a brand new Mac Pro with ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card.
On the Mac side (Leopard), everything works perfectly: my second monitor (a plasma screen connected with HDMI to the second DVI of the ATI card via HDMI/DVI adapter) is fully recognized and it works as an extended desktop or in Mirroring mode.
Under Boot Camp (Windows XP Pro) however, NOTHING: the second monitor always appears in the display properties, but it is grayed out (inactive), and when I try to activate it, it switches back to being grayed out immediately and nothing gets displayed on it.
After reading all the posts I can find on the topic, I tried the following (in pretty much every possible combination - Thank god for WinClone that allows me to restore the Boot Camp basic install image without having to reinstall Windows from scratch every time):
a) Bootcamp 2.0 (installed by default by Bootcamp assistant)
b) Update to Bootcamp 2.1
1) Windows XP Pro SP2c vanilla install (from my Windows XP pro install disk)
2) Update to Windows XP SP3 (I tried with and without BC 2.1: both worked -> BC 2.1 didn't seem to be required for SP3 - maybe because this is a mac pro and not a MB or MBP)
i) ATI drivers installed by default by Boot Camp assistant (BC 2.0) or by BC 2.1
ii) Latest ATI drivers found on ATI web site specifically under Boot Camp / Mac Pro.
Note: Interestingly, the catalyst installer worked ok (provided .NET framework 2.0 is installed though), but it seems that the Radeon BootCamp/Mac Pro driver set itself from ATI's web site does NOT include a driver for the HD 2600 XT - so when I install this driver set, it tells me that no compatible hardware was found...
iii) Latest ATI drivers found under Windows XP (these did include one driver specifically for the Radeon HD 2600 XT)
NOTHING seems to work. I read posts (most of the from late last year) about ATI Catalyst utility showing a 3rd monitor at some point, but I never got any 3rd monitor showing in any of my many many trials with Catalyst. I have yet to get a single image appear on my plasma under Bootcamp Windows. I don't believe its the hardware because everything works great on the max OS X side.
I am actually considering switching to an NVidia 8800 GT just to get the dual screen to work under BootCamp/Windows XP because I really need it and I read everywhere that drivers for NVidia are far better than ATI ones.
Any advice? What should I try next before getting an 8800 ?
Is there a diagnostic utility that I can use to test my config including the GC?
Thanks!

Hi there aside from my laptop I have an iMac 20" with the same HD 2600 XT card. I recently installed the Catalyst 8.6 driver by using a driver mod from driverheaven, I use Vista 32. By installing it this way I got boosted performance and many issues with the bootcamp drivers were fixed. As you may already know the ATI drivers do not install on bootcamped macs usually but the mod tool fixes this. Its unofficial so do so at your own risk but try it out and see if you get the second monitor if not just rollback. Hope this helps and I didn't want to say too much about the 8.6 driver mod because it may not be allowed here but google will provide any answers.

Possibility of Virus Infection on Intel Macs w/ Boot Camp/Windoze?

I have never run anti virus software on my Macs whereas I would not dare run my windoze computers unprotected. But are there not viruses that are capable of trashing a hard drive to the point where the computer is un-bootable? So what happens if you are running Windoze under Boot Camp and your system gets hosed? Could that effect the computer's ability to boot OSX as well? Or is the windoze system sufficiently isolated from the OSX "side" to prevent this?

If you run Windows via Boot Camp then your Mac is exposed to all the viruses that can affect Windows as well as other Windows-based security threats.
See my "Detecting and avoiding malware and spyware" FAQ for my recommendations as well as a list of some recent Mac OS X security threats that have emerged, including Trojans, rootkits, and spyware. The FAQ also addresses some of the usual arguments against installing an anti-virus solution on a Mac that often arise in discussions of this topic.
While some believe that anti-virus solutions are not required on a Mac, I feel that's ignoring the fact that threats are emerging and that security exposures continue to be found, albeit eventually closed, in Mac OS X, as in any other operating system. Even Apple now recommends that one should "check for viruses."
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

How can I get Windows 7 Boot Camp to find my Magic Mouse?

Hey!
So I just bought a Magic Mouse and it works flawlessly in OS X.
But when I use Windows 7 Boot Camp I can't find the mouse to add it as a new device. My bluetooth works just fine and I have the Boot Camp 3.3 drivers.
I tried rebooting, turning the mouse off and on, read a bunch of guides on the internet but no one is having issues CONNECTING the mouse, only getting it to work, so my research is proving to be hard.
Can you guys help me?
Thanks!

Hi Maia,
Can you please mention your MAC model (MBA 2011, MBP, iMac?). Which OS X version?. Have you problems pairing other bluetooth devices?
You may want to try the following setps.
1.- First make sure that you have the latest EFI and software updates. Including latest bootcamp bluetooth drivers.
2.- Unpair MM in Mac OSX
3.- Do a Nvram and SMC reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
4.- Restart
5.- Pair your MM under Mac OSX
6.- Boot on Bootcamp assiging bootcamp as a starting partition
7.- Add your device.
Let me know if that worked, there are another tricks you can try but I need additional information.

Possible wi-fi connectivity solution - requires Windows under Boot Camp

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for