Inconsistent Wireless Transmit Rate?

Just for the heck of it this morning, I've checked the transmit rate on my MBP (late-2006). I found the rate to be fluctuating by the minutes between 100mbps - 130mbp, sometime it may go even lower, and my wife's MacBook is staying consistent at 130mbps. Both machines are located in the same room.
Notes:
* Router is AEBS (on 802.11n 2.4Ghz band, not simultaneous dual-band model).
* Recently added a new PS3 sitting next to the AEBS and it has bluetooh accessories. The PS3 is off, but can be powered on by bluetooth remote.
* My MBP is using bluetooh Magic Mouse.

Both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technology share spectrum and, more often than not, will be found co-located in close physical proximity to each other ... like your case with the PS3 & AEBS adjacent to each other. However, both are inherently resistant to other wireless devices by virtue of their use of spread spectrum techniques. As such, both will tend to fail gracefully in the presence of interference. This means that their communication protocols are very robust and include mechanisms for error checking and correcting, as well as requesting that corrupted packets be resent. Therefore the result of increasing levels of interference typically shows up as a slowing of the data rate as more packets need to be resent. In extreme conditions, such as setting a Bluetooth enabled cell phone next to an operating microwave oven, is it very likely that communications will cease altogether.
What you are seeing this may be related. Why this affects your MBP and not the MacBook could be the antenna design/placement in both of these laptops are just different enough to make the MBP more susceptible.

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Upgraded Mini: Link speed = 130Mbps, Transmit rate = 65Mbps

It was a long night last night. I finally upgraded my old Mini (Late 2006) with a compatible Atheros AR9280 wifi card. It's already been upgraded years ago to 2GHz C2D, SSD, 2GB RAM - running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. So wireless-N is really the last thing to do here.
Installed easy enough. Recognized and connected to my AEBS (2nd gen.) - but only at 65Mbps transmit rate. No matter what - apparently. Network Utility reports Link Speed at 130Mbps possible.
My network:
AEBS (2nd gen): 2.4GHz N-only, WPA2, Can't go to 5GHz - my tablets/phones not compatible, and AEBS (2nd gen) is not dual-band.
LAN-connected: Mac Mini Server (2010), Windows 8 laptop, and my NAS.
WLAN: Windows 7 laptop, above Windows 8 laptop occasionally, 2 pads, 2 phones, and the old Mini in question.
All of the above achieve transmit rates at 117-130Mbps depending on where I'm positioned (except the weaker phones and pads).
Here's what I tried and discovered last night:
[thinking it's interference/distance/signal problem]
1. Positioned the mini 6 inches from AEBS - increased signal to -22, but still 65Mbps.
[thinking it's single vs multiple data stream problem, so then...]
2. Connected the bluetooth antenna as secondary antenna on the card - increased signal, but still 65Mbps.
[thinking it's antenna problems, so then...]
3. Used 2 antennas from parted laptop. No change.
[thinking it's a problem with the wifi card, so then...]
4. Installed the card in an old Windows 7 laptop, installed drivers - Transmits at 130Mbps!!!
[thinking it's a router issue with Macs only, so then...]
5. Turned on wifi at the newer Mac Mini Server (2010) - Also transmits at 130Mbps!!!
[thinking it's Mac OS "registering" my card capabilities as the old 54g card somehow, so then...]
6. Installed fresh 10.6.8. No change.
[thinking it's driver compatibility issue with "IO80211family.kext" version 3.2 (in 10.6.8), so...]
7. Tried the Lion and Mountain Lion versions of kext above (edited as they don't natively see the AR9280) - Not compatible - No card found.
[thinking that a beer would be really good to clear my head, so...]
8. Beer, followed by sleep.
So the card is fine, antennas are fine, router setup is fine (at least for all other machines). It must be one of two things:
A: MacMini (Late 2006) hardware limitation of some kind - Although I have seen others with this upgrade online.
B: Driver/kext issue.
Anybody brave enough to take a stab at this?
Respect -

Thanks for the effort guys -
Tried these two suggestions at the same time, by disconnecting all wireless devices, and setting the AEBS to 11n 5GHz only, and rebooting AEBS and the Mini. Auto channel is the only option in 5GHz - and it chooses channel 100.
Same story: 65Mbps
I'm onto another theory now - The card is not an Apple branded Atheros card, although System Profiler accepts that it is (see above screencaps). It has the same chip, but not the same branding. Note the "Card type" is reported Airport Extreme (0x168c, 0x1c71). In other reports I have seen the second half should be 0x8f for the AR9280 card.
What also bothers me is that "Locale" is "Unknown". On the original 54g card it was "FCC". Perhaps this prevents the card from using its full capabilities?
But the main issue I can't get my head around is that in other failed upgrade efforts I have seen while searching - their card is just not recognized or unsupported, etc. My card works - but not full speed.

Transmit rate vs. Download speed: should I switch everything to 5GHZ or does it matter?

Thanks in advance for any help that you can give me. I am not well-schooled in networking so, after doing a lot of research and not being able to get clarity, I figured I would write what I understand and hope that somebody here could point me in the right direction. I have 3 airport stations (a time capsule dual band is the primary and 2 airport expresses) and they are all ethernet wired. All my devices are 802.11n capable and all the base stations are n capable. I have no strictly b/g devices, only n devices. No matter what base station a device is connected to, the speedtest.net rate is about 17mbps (I pay for 18mbps) so that is good. However, the "transmit rate" (and I don't really understand what this does) varies depending on what base station my device hooks into. Whenever I am near the time capsule (primary station), my devices hook in at 5Ghz and I get a transmit rate of about 240 to 300 and a 17mbps download speed. But when I hook into either of the other 2 aiport expresses, it shows that I am hooked into 2.4Ghz and the transmit rate is about 50 to 130, but I still get the 17mbps download speed. I know I can change both expresses to only do 5Ghz. Keep in mind, the speedtest.net test always shows about 17mbps download speed no matter what base station my device connects to. I am not sure I understand what the transmit rate indicates. I want to make my network the fastest it can be no matter what base station I use.
So, my question is should I change the other 2 airport extreme base stations to operate as 5Ghz n network only so that I have 5Ghz operating throughout my whole house which will give a higher "transmit rate" and will that make my experience faster even though I already get maximum 17mbps download speed? Also, if you could, please explain to me the difference between ISP download speed and "transmit rate" because I don't really understand the difference...I mean how does download speed affect my experience vs. how does transmit rate affect my experience? Do I really need to have a higher "transmit rate" to increase my speed or is just having 17mbps download speed necessary and the transmit rate doesn't matter?
One other thing you might need to know: I don't have any 2.4 ghz devices that might interfere with my network (my cordless phones are 1.9Ghz)
Thanks again for the help.

Think of it like this.. Change moving data in air to water in pipes.
You have a 1/2" pipe coming from the ISP into your house..
Inside your house you have 5" and 2" pipes.. (this represents the speeds or flow rate if you like, 1/2" is all the ISP gives you.. but your ethernet is a huge pipe.. think of it as infinite for this situation,, and 5" pipe that is 5ghz and 2" pipe is 2.4ghz.. this is just illustration remember it is area not diameter that matters).
If you transfer files between the computer on the TC to the TC hard disk.. you get all the 5" pipe.. very fast.
If you copy a file between computer on the TC and device on the express.. you are limited by the 2" pipe.. everything goes at the speed the 2" pipe can manage.
Now you do something with internet.. 5" pipe can get the same throughput as the 2" pipe because it is only 1/2"
Pipes btw are still in imperial even if you are in a metric country pretty often.
But I hope that illustrates the situation..
If a computer on 5" pipe and computer on 2" pipe are both trying to access internet .. they both still have to share the 1/2" pipe. In a perfect world they both get half your 18mbps if they are accessing it at the same time.. (QoS represent a flow valve that says this pipe should get more flow even if it is smaller so I shut the valve down on 5" to make sure it only gets what the 2" can get.. no more.. to be fair.).
Same as water in pipes.. the 1/2" pipe can never fill the 5" or even the 2" pipe.. the 2" cannot fill the 5" so the fastest would be everything on 5" pipes.. since you are unlikely to be able to afford a 5" pipe from the ISP then you accept everything is going to go slower when internet is involved.
Jumping out of my illustration..
Apple made 2.4ghz max out at 150mbps..
Although some of the later stuff can get better than that,, 217mbps.
The 5ghz is faster because it is has more bandwidth.. up to 1200mbps in the newest AC .. 450 on Gen3,4 TC and 300 on the older gen1,2
BUT the range is poor.. so generally better sticking with 2.4ghz for express.. they are not high power devices at all.
2.4ghz has better range and penetration.. you are going to be just fine with internet access.. and your setup is actually working really well.. There are some overheads on wireless so you do not quite hit wired speeds.

Transmit Rate on my Mac Pro and MBP

Hi,
I have a early 09 MBP and an early 08 Mac Pro. I recently upgraded both from SL to ML. Both are running on the same wireless network, set up with anAirport express. I am experiencing really erratic wifi signals on my Mac Pro (it'll drop out w/i a few min. of connecting to a wifi), though my mbp stays on the network just fine.
I opened up system profiler and wrote down the following numbers
                         MBP                              Pro
Signal/ noise      -66 dBm / -86 dBm          -84 dBm / -85 dBm
Transmit rate     117                                   26
MCS Index          14                                   9
What does these number mean? do I need a new airport card for my pro?
Thanks
Angela

If you download and use OmniDiskSweeper, It will tell you what is using the disk space.
Allan

Widely fluctuating Transmit Rate readings with AEX?

Here's the set-up for starters:
Roadrunner wi-fi router/modem at 2.4 GHz channel 11 (can't turn this off, no admin access)
New Time Capsule at 2.4GHz channel 6 and 5GHz channel 149.
New Airport Express set to extend the wireless, at 5GHz also channel 149.
Here is a link to a screen capture of my iStumble capture of the situation:
http://www.spinland.biz/images/istumble_screen.jpg
The DDW is the Roadrunner modem. The best-signal "mythreecats' is the AEX, the other two are the TC. The NETGEAR is my next-door neighbor (this is a semi-rural area, houses not very close together).
The TC is two rooms away on the same floor, the AEX is right next to me as I sit here--I can reach over and touch it from my chair.
When I alt-click the airport icon sometimes I get well over 200 on the Transmit Rate (once saw 300), but often as not it comes in below 100. Right now it's only 81. As you can see from the iStumble shot I'm getting only 52% signal strength, even though it's literally an arm's length away.
Is this normal behavior? Should I be thinking my wi-fi receiver in this MacBook Pro is having issues? I just checked my wife's MacBook (2 months old) and it's getting a Transmit Rate of 270 in the same room. Does the aluminum case of the MBP reduce signal strength?
Thanks in advance.

Okay, another data point: I just re-checked via my wife's MacBook and this time her Transmit Rate is showing only 81 and iStumble from her machine is showing the signal strength to the AEX at 47%. It's only halfway across the room from the AEX.

Transmit Rates in Leopard

+Out of frustration, I just wanted to share my AirPort woes as well...+
Option-click your Airport status in the menu bar and list your "Transmit Rate" value. I'm curious what people are able to consistently achieve in a Leopard environment.
My Transmit Rate has always been 1, even in a 10.5.0 clean install on an external firewire drive!!!! This is also displayed in the Airport Utility for Wireless Clients, 10.4.10 Tiger systems in the household have achieved 240!!!
Transmit Rate: 1
Router: AEBS Gigabit
Wireless: 802.11n, b/g compatible.
Security: WPA/WPA2 Personal
Other symptoms contributing to Airport weirdness:
• Random connections to router. When selecting a network, the password dialog box will return a "Connection timeout," "Connection failed" or even "Incompatible Security."
• "AirPort: Scanning" in the Airport status icon in the menu bar. When pages seem to load slowly in Safari, select the AirPort icon in the menu bar and as soon as the line "AirPort: Scanning" refreshes to "AirPort: On" the web page loads completely.
• The only time I achieve values at 130, I am only able to receive a Self-Assigned IP Address.
• Connecting to a Linksys WRT54GS router, slows down the transmit rate of the router and all other connected PC/MAC systems to 1 mbps.
"Solutions" that never worked for me and always resulted in Transmit Rate of 1:
• Reboot into Safe Mod (hold Shift upon boot)
• Disable IPv6 (in Router or Network settings)
• Clear PRAM (Command-Option-P-R upon boot)
• Switching to fixed channel
• Open WiFi (no security)
• 802.11 b/g only
• strong passwords
• deleted keychains
• Archive and install
• Clean install!! (this confuses me the most, it should work, right??)
• etc, etc, etc....
Dear Apple,
Please fix!!

Thanks JC, I'm about 5 feet away from the base station at the moment. I randomly used channels 1, 3, 4, 9, 10, and 11 all resulted in Transmit Rate of 1.
Next steps...install copy of Tiger to an external and verify AirPort connection in that OS. Will update as soon as I do that...

Transmit rate with time capsule

Hi, sorry for my english.
I installed my time capsule yesterday,
it works with mbp 2009 in 5 ghz and have a wpa 2 security but the transmit rate never pass 162.
I understood that time capsule can get 300 mb speed so why i get only 162?
I also use ipad and iphone 4 that connected to the 2.4 ghz wireless of the time capsule
the mbp get transmit rate of 162 even if it in the same room with the time capsule, what i should do to make that the transmit rate on the mbp will be 300?

i noticed that this problem resolved if the MBP is closed to the TC, but if the MBP is in another room the transmit rate fall in 50%.
The issue is that the 5 GHz signal strength dissipates quickly with distance and does not traverse through objects (like walls) as well as those signals at the lower 2.4 GHz band.
if i will add to my network airport express in the another room it can help me to achieve the full transmit rate that i get in the room of the TC?
Potentially, but there is no guarantee. If your goal is to add the 802.11n AirPort Express Base Station (AXn) wirelessly, there will be some overhead required to maintain the extended network. This will reduce the overall bandwidth. In addition, the AXn would need to be within a strong enough signal range of the TC, in order to extend the 5 GHz radio as it would experience the same signal that your MBP gets now to attempt to extend.
Two options: 1) Connect the AXn by Ethernet, or if that isn't practical, 2) Consider using Powerline adapters. These take advantage of your home's electrical circuit to create a pseudo Ethernet one. You would then place one of these adapters at each router and connect them by Ethernet.
Both of these options remove the bandwidth loss for extending the wireless network wirelessly.

Wi-fi transmit rate

Hi,
I have Time Capsule 2TB (2011) and two MacBook Pro - 1st 15'' early 2008 and 2nd 13'' late 2009. Both of them are connected to the Time Capsule and the 13'' MBPro hase the transmit rate about 270-300 and the 15'' just 130. How can I get higher transmit rate on the 15'' MBPro?
Both MacBooks have OS X Lion (latest update) and the Time capsule also the latest firmware...

jakudo wrote:
I've tried that and the 15'' older MBP still showed just 130, where the 13'' showed 300
The 13'' MBP shows Chanel: (DTS 5GHz). What is the "DTS". The 15'' MBP doesn't show "DTS". Could this be the problem why it has lower Transmit rate?
Are you using the same wireless name on both 5ghz and 2.4ghz?? I recommend you change them.
If you still have issues change the security to off, just to test. I don't think any N wireless card in the Mac that works at 5ghz will work at less than 300mbit.. but of course with 5ghz you need to be close to the TC.. how close are you??
Open a terminal and type airport -I
It will show you the current setup of the wireless. Here is mine.
revs-hs-mac-pro:~ Revs$ airport -I
     agrCtlRSSI: -50
     agrExtRSSI: 0
    agrCtlNoise: -85
    agrExtNoise: 0
          state: running
        op mode: station
     lastTxRate: 54
        maxRate: 54
lastAssocStatus: 0
    802.11 auth: open
      link auth: wpa2-psk
          BSSID: 0:26:44:a7:4e:bf
           SSID: TG782T
            MCS: -1
        channel: 1
DTS stands for Data Teminal Send.. it is a term used in settings of modems and wireless.
I have no idea why it is popping up though unless you need the ssid DTS..

Basics on optimizing transmit rate

I am running 7.3.1 firmware and everything is "working", but I want to have a consolidated list of things to "tweak" in order to maximize transmit rate. I will describe what I currently have set up, and would appreciate any input on other items that can help speed things up to take advantage of what the AEBS can provide.
-802.11n only (5 G)
-channel 40 (similar speed w/ channel 36 .. but not a lot of testing here)
-wireless mode: "create a wireless network"
-DHCP (so "share a public IP" is selected)
-NAT
-security: WPA2 Personal
With these settings, when I am right next to the AEBS, on my MBP I have the following connection stats:
-Signal: -31
-Noise: -94
-Rate: 300
When I go 20 feet to the next room, I drop all the way down to:
-Signal: -75
-Noise: -92
-Rate: 108
I admittedly am in a cement apartment in Africa, but I still would like to learn about how to optimize the transmit rate.
Further questions:
-Does the "noise" at -92 seem to indicate I am getting too much intereference? What sort of numbers would indicate I am not interefering? I know the signal will lessen when there are obstructions, thus reducing from -31 down to -75, but should I see less noise (larger "negative") if things are "running well"?
Thanks,
iveand

Interesting. It seems to me that because of the cement blocks, you don't want to be using 5Ghz because it cannot penetrate through certain materials, including wire mesh. Try switching to 2.4Ghz.
Where in Africa are you? I grew up and did research in Ghana.

Transmit rate is sometimes slow after waking up from sleep

I have been having intermittent problems with my wifi network at home ONLY on my MacBook. I have several other devices accessing the network, both wired and wireless. What will happen is after sleep it gets really slow or inoperable access to the network. If I turn airport off and on it works better. I have Applecare and have gone around and around with Apple about this. They even tested my card for a day in their store and had no problems. I updated my system software, deleted all network prefs and keychains, etc. etc. This was with an AEBSn (not dual band). Finally I decided to upgrade to a Time Capsule so I could get dual band functionality. I am using the old AEBSn to extend the wifi to a guest house and a very old 802.11g Express to only join the network (not extend) to connect an older usb printer to my network.
I was extremely impressed with the Time Capsule for a few hours today and then I had the SAME PROBLEM. This time I knew about the option-clicking of the airport menu. My normal transmit rate is 130 for the MacBook where it is sitting now. I quickly checked it when the slowdown happened, which is the last time I woke it from a longer sleep and the transmit rate was 1! I turned the airport off and on and it jumped back up to 130 and acted happy again. What is going on here?

I don't know what changed over time but I don't have this problem anymore. The Time Capsule has been great. I have it on top of a free-standing bookcase to avoid overheating and give better reception. It has been wonderful. I only have a few dead zones in obvious places (like right next to exterior walls that are steel-framed).

Late 2007 Macbook Pro 802.11n slow transmit rate

I have a Netgear Rangemax N router. But when I connect to the network and option+click on the wifi, my PHY Mode says "802.11n" but my transmit rate is only 54. When my Macbook air connects to the same router, the PHY Mode is still 802.11n, but my transmit is 170. What is happening that my Macbook Pro is connecting slower than the Macbook Air when on the same network?

When I read "crash," "distorted line across my screen," "it gets really hot," and "2007 17" MacBook Pro," the first thing that comes to mind is logic/graphics board. Visit your local Apple Store, and see if they can validate this suspicion or not. The SMART utility reading usually precedes a drive failure, but it's hard to conclude what's happening here.
In the meantime, make sure you're completely backed up. If you don't back up, purchase an external HD, and back up with SuperDuper. Preserve your machine by running things at lower temperatures (under 160•F), and keep an eye on iStat.
Oh, and tell us the problem when you know.

Fluctuating Transmit Rate

I have been using my Airport Extreme for a few months now, and apart from having that annoying hissing sound that seems to be benign, all has been well. However, a few days ago I found that I was having problems streaming Netflix to my Apple TV and my iPad2, both using the 5GHz wifi. I spoke to Netflix and they noted that at certain points my internet was dropping to 1.5 mbps. I have a steady 15mbps connection and it's healthy whenever I run speed tests and my ISP reported no issues. So I opened the Airport Extreme utiity and I noticed that when I stream Netflix, my transmit rate always fluctuates (anywhere from 65 down to single digits). The really strange thing is, this only happens in the evening. My iPad and Apple TV have no issues in the morning. I've decided to wire my Apple TV since I use that a lot, but why would this suddenly start happening?
Is it possible my router is faulty? Wouldn't it just not work if that was the case? Or is it more like my neighbor got a new router and his or her signal is messing with mine.

Yeah, I've tried all that. This morning, the signal seems stable. It could be that when there are more people around, the signal weakens. Netflix streams perfectly over wifi on both my iPad and AppleTV. Since that's the case, I have to assume that it's something that is outside of my control.
The AEBS is pretty much in the exact middle of the house, where it has been since I bought it and where all previous routers have been.
It's been cold and dry here lately (-30 C/ -22 F) so it may have to do with more people using electricity to heat. That's really the only thing I can think of that has changed.

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and Transmit Rate

Since I upgraded to Lion the transmit rate has dropped from being reported at 450 in Snow Leopard to 216 sometimes 349 in Lion. Nothing has changed hardware-wise apart from upgrading to Lion only.

Tried unsuccesfully to remove my previous post.
This the correct EDITED version:
This is an older post, but…
A visit to the original applejack at sourceforge.net yesterday, and drilling down through its links, does not specifically that there is no current version for Lion 10.7.x.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/applejack/?source=directory
I know that it's not uncommon for an author of freeware not to keep the site updated, however.
Does anyone have definitive information on this?
~~~~~~~~
EDITED to remove a reference to some misinformation I had received.
Sorry.

Inconsistent wireless printing

Does anyone else have inconsistent wireless printing from macbook pro and iphone?
I can print from my Epson Workforce 545 wirelessly from my PC's fine, my iprint Epson app from my iphone works as well, and to the printer email address but only sometimes from my macbook Pro and iPhone.
On my iPhone and iPad I get "No Airprinters Found" and on my macbook Pro, it says printer not connected and looking for printer.
I can ping the printer IP address and it responds.
I have updated my firmware on my router, printer, mac and looked for Lion updates but nothing helps. Please help, this is very frustrating, i bought the new printer to use the Airprint capability and wireless printing feature without going thru all the other printing apps etc.
Thank you

personally i dont have this problem - i use an app print and share which lets me print from the ipad or iphone
and obviously print direct from imac
also if youu bought an airprint printer there shouldnt be a problem, i take it you have compared settings on all devices as well?

Export/share wmv "inconsistent audio sample rate"

I've never used iMovie before today. I successfully imported a mini DV clip and need to "share" it as an wmv. I keep getting an error stating "inconsistent audion sample rate". What does this mean and how do I fix it so I can save my clip as a wmv file?
Thanks much.

That error was introduced with the release of Quicktime 7.2. Flip4Mac released a beta with the fix for that particular audio error thing HERE. I don't think the final is ready yet, just the beta, but it's working for me. Don't be "put off" by it, but, before you can download the beta, they ask you to fill out some registration info so you can report back any problems you might encounter.

Inconsistent Wireless Transmit Rate?

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