Extremely slow Airport Extreme

Is my Airport Extreme just dying? Experiencing extremely slow downloads and intermittent dropping of internet across multiple laptops & iPhones. Did a side-by-side wifi speed test (w/ SpeedSmart app on iPhone) of Airport Extreme connected to Verizon FIOS modem vs. FIOS modem's built-in wifi. Airport download 0.23Mbps vs. built-in 7.23 Mbps. Upload, Airport 0.53 Mbps vs. built-in 7.83 Mbps. Routers about 18” apart, iPhone in same position for both tests.
I updated the firmware in the Airport, rebooted (several times - Airport and modem). Get close-to-normal downloads for short while, then problems recur. Any thoughts appreciated.

How old is the extreme? What model from the base please.. A1xxx and what firmware is it running?
How is it setup? It should be in bridge to the FIOS plugged into it by ethernet.. and should be setup to create a wireless network with a different name to the FIOS and on a different channel. Auto should allow the channels to be determined by the router at start up it is not always going to work right.
It is also a question of what iphone as later ones can do 5ghz which is faster on the airport than 2.4ghz is on the FIOS.

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Painfully Slow Airport Extreme Issues

So I replaced a 54G Belkin wireless router this weekend with a new Airport Extreme thinking I would like to be able to get N speed (N-capable MacBookPro and MacBook in the house) and the benefit of connecting a hard disk.
Unfortunately, both the speed and range of the new Airport Extreme are horrible. The Belkin router performed at better speed and range and I'm close to just reinstalling it.
I've read everything on this site related to slowness but no change in set up has successfully produced better results. Any ideas?
Dragging in Chicago...

Well, the "speed" really depends on your ISP, it really does not matter if you have a G or N if your ISP has a cap on your connection G & N or even 1Gbps will have no impact on your speed.
It also depends if you are in a house or apartment. If you are in a rural area you will get better results than a heavy traffic downtown apartment building. Sometimes the AEBS will work best being in the top floor of the house, other times it will work best being in the basement of the house (mine is setup in the basement and it works just fantastic.)
Microwaves, wireless phone systems, and other wireless devices such as a cell phone tower will have a great impact in your wireless network.
Try moving the AEBS around the house you will find some spots to provide better coverage than others...
P.s.- have you tried to set the "N" to 5Ghz and to interference robustness??
Message was edited by: Sonicray

Slow airport extreme

My airport extreme base station which is approx. 3 yrs. old, is running slow or not connecting at all. I'm running several devices, not all at the same time. What is the capacity of this unit for the number of device ? Does it refresh every so often? Thank you.

System Prefs->network->airport->tcp/ip.......
1> I set the tcp/ip settings manually. (was default at auto)
2> I set IPv6 to "off" (was default at auto)
Safari pages seem to load at faster/normal speeds now.
I just got my new MacBook Pro 2.16 ghz core duo last week. I eventually noticed the internet browsing speed difference between wireless and wired..like these other people. The airport connection could barely load some pages sometimes while the cabled connection loaded pages fast. The signal is strong, and it is connected to the network, and internet, and all sharing works, even the windows box. The airport card was just choking on something.
I have a netgear wireless router MR814v2. not an apple airport base station. So it would not show in airport admin utility as 1 guy suggested.
anyways, seems ok now after making those 2 adjustments
/me knocks on wood.
MacBook Pro 2.16ghz core duo 17" Mac OS X (10.4.7) 2 GB RAM 7200rpm hd

Slow Airport Extreme 5th Gen Data Transfer

Airport Extreme Slow Data Transfer
When transferring files between PC – Nas, Nas – PC, & PC – PC my speeds are extremely slow (1.3 – 3.3mbps). Files range in size from 350mbps to 4gb. Here is my set-up:
Acer Aspire 5532 Win 7 x64 (internal 5ghz nic)
Toshiba Toshiba Satellite C655 Ubuntu 12.04 (internal 5ghz nic)
Gateway GT5418E Win 7 x64 (USB 2ghz nic)
Iomega 2TB Nas
Seagate GoFlex Home 3TB Nas
5th Generation Airport Extreme
Firmware Version: 7.6.3
Wireless Security: WPA2 Personal
Channel: 149 (automatic), 11 Automatic
Radio Mode: 80211.n Only (5ghz) – 80211n Only (2.4ghz)
Multicast Rate: High (also tried low and medium)
Use Wide Channels: Checked
2nd Generation Airport Extreme 5ghz extended network
It doesn’t seem to make a difference if I am using the extended network or sitting 5 feet from the primary (either band) with the extended disabled. I ran a LAN Speed test: averaging 12 – 16mbps write and 20+ read. Any advice would be helpful!
Thanks!

Hi madtytan,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
These settings will help ensure maximum performance, security, and reliability when using Wi-Fi.
For more information on this, take a look at this article:
iOS and OS X: Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4199
Best of luck,
Mario

AIRPORT EXTREME RUNNING EXTREMELY SLOW., AIRPORT EXTREME RUNNING EXTREMELY SLOW.

why is a brand new airport extreme running extremely slow. Worked fine before the firmware update.

I nearly fainted when I just read your post. I bought the new airport extreme on June 24, 2011, just as the store was closing -- 8:45 PM. At home it worked well right out of the box, but the next morning it has been nothing but trouble. I wracked my brain to figure out what could change overnight, and your suggestion that it was updated by firmware is logical. Oddly, it works well with my desktop, which is less than two feet away (I don't use ethernet), but in the next room over it is fast only sporadically. I replaced the prior extreme because it suddenly quit, and the genius spent some time diagnosing it and concluded it no longer worked.

Slow Airport Extreme on wifi

I have a new Macbook with a factory installed airport extreme card (80211). It is very slow linking to the internet. It is constantly going in to scanning mode. I have to click on that to turn Airport on and even then it takes forever to have a page download. It has happened in other locations too so I don't think it's my Internet connection....Any ideas?

Steve,
There is no such thing as a "factory installed airport extreme card." I think you intended to say your Macbook has Airport. Can you tell us how you are trying to connect to the Internet? Do you have a wireless router (that is what an Airport Extreme is) and if so what kind?
Airport is Apple's implementation of 802.11X WiFi, however in order to make it work it has to wirelessly connect to WiFi router which is connected to Internet (DSL or Cable) modem.
This link is information on Airport Extreme.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB053LL/A?fnode=MTY1NDA0Mg&mco=MjE0NDc3Ng
If you don't have a router connected to your Internet Modem then your Macbook will continue to scan and not connect until it can locate a WiFi router.
Regards,
Roger

Slow AirPort Extreme Connection

I'm having a slow wireless connection problem using AirPort Extreme Base Station for a last few weeks. It's possible that this problem started when I installed OS update 10.4.7., but I'm not totally sure.
When I'm connected to the Internet via LAN, I have no problems with the speed. However, when I'm connected wirelessly, pages loads very slowly as if there were 10 other computers on the network. It takes long to get to the web page, and once the page starts loading, it loads in several steps with pauses between the steps. The speed of downloading a file appears to be OK once it starts although it still takes a long time to get it started.
It happens with Safari, FireFox, and IE. My G3 iBook 600MHz behaves the same way with OS 10.3.x.
I tried both soft reset and hard reset of the base station, and re-installed the firmware v.5.7. I tried the different channels and encryptions, switched between wireless b and g, turned off all the cordless phones in the house, and brought the iMac right next to the base station to minimize the interference.
With all these, the wireless connection is still very slow although the signal strength is at full strength.
I'm wondering if anybody is having a similar problem after installing OS 10.4.7. update. I would appreciate any suggestions to solve this problem.

After all the trial and error, finally I've figured it out.
First, I removed DNS Server address from the box at Network Preference/ Airport/ TCP/IP location. This immediately improved the web page loading speed. In addition to this, I also set my IPv6 to "off."(Default was "automatically")
With combination of these two network settings, I'm back to the full speed.
In the past, I wrote down DNS Server address in the box when Safari was having problems finding web address, and I always had to click load button twice to load a particular page. Back then, providing the DNS Server address solved the problem.
I suppose when Apple fixed this problem during one of the updates, it ended up making the network slower unless DNS Server address was left blank.
If you are still having slow connection problem, try this setting.

Ridiculously slow airport disc transfer speed

I just set up a new AirPort Extreme on my existing network, and the airport disk feature is unbearably slow. The finder locks up for nearly a minute just connecting to the disk, and then again when i open a folder. It took over a minute to copy a 60k file.
I'm using a MacBook Pro (2ghz Core Duo)
Wireless Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x168C, 0x86)
Wireless Card Firmware Version: 1.1.8.5
Right now the APE is set up to extend an existing network but I initially set it up as a new network and had the same problem. Is this really the best transfer speed i can expect?

No.
Depending on which network settings you have, you should be able to move 150-400 Megabytes to an Airdisk in a minute.
You are probably seeing either a network problem, or disk errors causing the AEBS to retry.

Slow Airport and Cable - like dial-up!

Recently replaced a (physically) broken Powerbook G4 with a new one. Same Airport Extreme, same Cable connection. Worked fine at first. Now Safari 2.0.2 and IE 5.2 are both loading pages really slow. Daughter has a Powermac G4 on the same Airport with no problems. I've tried reverting Airport software from 5.6 back to 5.5.1. No help. I've tried trashing cache, tried trashing icons... no help!
Suggestions? TIA

If you haven't already, you might want to do a search on 'safari loads pages slow', as there has been discussion about this, with a number of suggested solutions.

Agonisingly Slow Airport Express Connection...

After hours of trying (days actually) i still can't resolve this, so hopefully someone out there can. Running an iBook G4 with Airport Express hooked up to a cable modem, the connection speed - at best - is about 10 kbps, and is usually worse than a dial-up. If the computer is hooked up directly to the modem, speed is as it should be - about 190kbps - so the problem is not the ISP or the modem. Testing on a friendly neighbour's wireless network, my iBook also hits those speeds - so the prob is not with my iBook.
I have tried changing channels and inference robustness in case of interference. The firmware is 6.3 and Airport software is up to date. I have hard reset the Airport but still no joy.
My question is, is there a perhaps a software or a permissions conflict or something that be slowing this down? Is there a way of taking the iBook back to a time before it knew of wireless, and trying to install everything again? Is it possible the Airport is just broken?
If anyone could help i would be extremely, and expressly, grateful.
B
iBook Mac OS X (10.3.9)
iBook Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Hello all,
Well the Airport has worked in the past, and now it is working again, after lengthy calls to customer service. What happened is this. Instead of just unplugging the modem for a few minutes to try and reset things, I read on these forums that to solve a potential MAC problem (i don't know what that is, but apparently it can affect cable modems and conenction speed) you need the modem unplugged for half and hour or more. So i unplugged it from the electricity overnight. When i plugged it back in, it seemed to die. All the LEDs came back on and stayed on without blinking, like it had frozen. The cable customer service tested it from their end and said it had died. But as the cable guy was coming over to fix it, it unfroze (after maybe an hour of being frozen) and hooked up to the airport at top speeds again.
So, two conclusions.
ONE - Dodgy modem, not dodgy airport.
TWO - If you have a speed problem with a cable modem, you might need to unplug everything for a while, not just a few minutes.
I hope this helps. Thanks to everyone for the advice. These pages remind me why i have a Mac, which after screaming at my airport (unjustly as it turns out) i had almost forgotten.
Cheers,
Bedevere

Slow Airport Express connectivity

My Comcast Blast service is consistently giving me 95-99mbps download speeds and 9.99 upload speeds on ehternet. I understand wifi will be slower than this, sometimes by half. My problem is the airport express (latest model) seems to max out at 20.5 mbps download and usually acheives 9-12mbps uploads. I doubt the upload speeds are correct (who cares it is close to 10). The download speeds being only 20% of my hardwired speeds seems extreme though. The channel the wifi is running on doesn't see too crowded or anything and I cannot account for the large disparity.The item that is hardwired with ethernet is a PC with Windows 7 and everything on wifi (iPhone 5, iPhone 6, 2 ipad mini with retina displays and a 2013 MBA) all are consistent at 20up/10down on wifi.
Any ideas?
Thanks!

Apple's Wireless Diagnostics may supply some additional helpful information. Run it while you're having trouble remaining connected.
To use it, hold an option key while you click your Mac's Wi-Fi icon, and choose Open Wireless Diagnostics...
The following authentication dialog will appear:
Authenticate with your Admin password, then click the Continue button in the following:
The network analysis and diagnostic tests will take several minutes to complete:
When it completes, if your wireless network is functioning properly the following will result:
If something is amiss, supposedly the results will be different and you will be presented with helpful information.
Assuming your connection is "working as expected" select Continue to summary and click Continue:
Ignore the pre-populated text field, which is provided as a place for you to type in additional information should Apple ask for it in the course of obtaining technical assistance from them. Apple has no way of knowing where your router is located in your home, and certainly doesn't know if you even have an upstairs bedroom closet.
Click Continue.
The next step will also take a few minutes:
When it finishes, you will be presented with a summary that may or may not be useful to you:
The above result is uninteresting, but if there are additional actions for you to consider they would be included in the screenshot above.
The WirelessDiagnostics-xxx.tar.gz file deposited on your Desktop can be dragged to the Trash, or you may wish to expand it and examine its contents. It's up to you. The files in it contain extensive information about your system and are primarily intended for use by Apple in the course of troubleshooting. If you want to examine them yourself, the information I personally find most useful may be found in the file named wireless_diagnostics-nnnnnn.log where nnnnnn = some random characters. If you want to post the contents of that file here for others to examine, omit or obscure any information you might consider personal.

Slow Airport Express - again

I use a PC and a Powerbook to connect wirelessly to a ZyXel router. No problem there until I move the Mac to the next floor (no I can't run a cable nor can I move the PC) - the router signal drops to zero bars - although iStumble still shows 30+% signal. So I had an Airport Express I was not using and wired this to the router via Ethernet. Well I get a reasonable signal on the next floor 30+% and can connect (3or4 bars) but veeery slow data rates. And when I move back downstairs next to the AX, data rates are still extremely slow - so it's not related to signal strength. I've toggled interference robustness - changed channels - torn my hair - looked at back postings. Still can't figure it out. Anyone possibly help please? Connecting wirelessly directly to the router itself I can get around 3Mb..... provided I am on the same floor of course.

Suggest you raise this in the Airport forum. Sounds like an issue between the AE and your router. They need to get along better.

Randomly slow Airport connection on MacBook C2D

Hi.
Seems I am lucky because my brand new MacBook C2D can connect to WiFi access points!
I have a "surprising issue" though : after a few minutes of connection, the connection gets very very slow.
If I turn Airport off then back on, it all goes back to normal .... for a few minutes
My MacBook is uptodate, with AirPortExtremeUpdate2007001 installed.
I spent over an hour with Applecare Today, but the issue is still there.
We zapped the P-Ram, moved the "SystemConfiguration" folder to the desktop, restarted the router several times with no lasting effect.
The access point is a Netgear DG 834 GT, configured with WPA security and an access list, on an occupied WiFi channel. 3 other Macs (2 MacBook Core Duo, 1 MacBook Pro 17 Core Duo) and one Sony Vaio connect to it without any problem.
The MacBook C2D can connect to my home network (powered by a 802.11g Airport Extreme) at full speed without any issue either.
Should I buy an Ethernet cable, wait for the next Airport update ?
Does anyone experience the same kind of issue ?
Thanks un advance.

I have the exact same problem you are describing. Randomly, I experience EXTREMELY slow connections. Sometimes the connection is so slow it seems I am not connected. I have had this problem since I bought my MacBook C2D in the fall. This problem has occurred at many different access points, including my netgear router, coffee shops, and several different universities.
My husband owns a MacBook Pro, and sometimes we will be side by side on our computers, which supposedly have the same software (I am running 10.4.8 and currently have all the updates as does he), same processor, and he never has trouble with his wireless connection. So it is definitely my computer, not the routers.
I have called Apple support twice to descirbe the problem. They suggested I send the computer in to get the airport card replaced. At this moment my wireless is working. However, this is the first time since yesterday morning that it has worked. I don't think apple will replace the card unless the problem can be reproduced. And the problem seems to be entirely random.
I would be very happy if someone figures out what is wrong.
Thanks.
MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.8)
MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Can someone help with my slow airport?

I have tried everything, but when i connect to the net via my airport, i might as well write a letter and request the info be sent that way. I have reinstalled leapard, made sure i have all the current updates, checked and changed every setting on the airport and nothing works. As soon as i plug the ethernet from my router, BANG!, i'm back in reality and using the net realtime. I get timeouts when i try to connect from time to time and sometimes it just flatout refuses to connect. Bare in mind that i have only had this gear since Monday, so i haven't had the chance to destroy anything myself...yet!
I have two new iMac alu with 2 gig in each and two new 13" macbooks with 2 gig in each and a new airport extreme.
I would really appreciate someones expertise in this area as i'm a newby...

I have tried everything, but when i connect to the net via my airport, i might as well write a letter and request the info be sent that way. I have reinstalled leapard, made sure i have all the current updates, checked and changed every setting on the airport and nothing works. As soon as i plug the ethernet from my router, BANG!, i'm back in reality and using the net realtime. I get timeouts when i try to connect from time to time and sometimes it just flatout refuses to connect. Bare in mind that i have only had this gear since Monday, so i haven't had the chance to destroy anything myself...yet!
I have two new iMac alu with 2 gig in each and two new 13" macbooks with 2 gig in each and a new airport extreme.
I would really appreciate someones expertise in this area as i'm a newby...

Slow airport initial connection

Hi,
On my macbook, it takes about 10 seconds for my airport to connect to a wireless network. This happens both with a WRT541G and an Airport Extreme router, so I am sure the problem is with my laptop. Sometimes, it will not show the network in the list of networks, but I will have to manually click on it to connect, even though it is in my preferred networks list.
Is this a known problem? Any solutions?
Thanks,
Ash

OK, I did some fiddling with the settings and I managed to get it down to 6 seconds. The problem apparently is the order of your network interfaces in your network settings.
- Open system preferences / network (I am assuming you are using Leopard).
- In the window on the left delete those interfaces you do not use (bluetooth for example - do not worry, you can alway add them later on).
- Select the symbol on the right of the minus sign and choose "set service order". Make sure that airport is first. Then press "apply".
What also made a difference for me was the fact that in my preferred networks there was a double entry, as well as some old and unused ones. Choose the advanced button for deleting unused networks and set the order.
Hope this helps,
Jan

Extremely slow Airport Extreme

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