Slow Internet Connection on iMac G5 with Airport or Ehernet

I'm running 10.5.8 on a Power PC G5 iMac (ISight) with 2.5GB SDRAM and 40GB spare space on the hard disk. There's 2 ways I can connect to the internet:
Using Airport, where I get a max download speed of 3Mbps.
Using a Devolo powerline bridge where download speeds are also 3Mbps. The spec transfer rate of the Devolo device is 14 Mbps. All download speeds are measured using www.speedtest.net, and I have a 802.11g wireless router.
My ISP subscription is for 16 Mbps, which I can almost achieve on my iPad elsewhere in the house.
As a straight comparison test, I ran the speedtest on the iMac with a Windows XP machine right beside it. While the Windows machine returned a max download of 7Mbps, the same test at the same time on the iMac only recorded 2.5Mbps.
I have done all the ususl things: reset permissions, rebooted PRAM, reset the router, deleted all wireless connections from the iMac etc.
It therefore appears that, whichever means of connection is used, the iMac can only reach 3 Mbps. Is this something which could be a function of the age of the iMac (6 years) and its spec, or is there something I can do to improve the speed and return it to the higher levels I used to enjoy?

Hi Paul,
That really is a first...if you go over to the iPad discussions there are a lot of complaints about the iPads are so slow compared with the uers' Macs/PCs, etc. You must be the first person to say their iPad is faster than their iMac
It is very possible the issue is the age of the iMac, though it seems the speed is a little low for a machine connected by ethernet. I could understand the slower transfer rate on wireless since the older AirPort cards were much slower than today.
I don't have my 802.11 standard here right now, over at my daughter's house, but the transfer rates you quote for the service provider sound like the g-protocol limits in free-air. So the half-speed rate is not an unreasonable reduction.
When you say you used to enjoy higher transfer rates, was that with 10.5 or 10.4? Just curious, because improvements in OSs often carry along higher system overhead, also.
Ralph

Similar Messages

HT5304 what is the best way to connect my imac wireless with airport express or directly plugged into airport unit

what is the best way to connect my imac to internet via airport express. wireless or ethernet plug to airport? thanks

Hello quinstar,
It sounds like you would like to use either your Personal HotSpot to AirPrint from your MacBook Pro or use an Airport to do so without internet access to the home. According to the following Featured Discussion you very well may be able to use AirPrint with Personal HotSpot:
HT4356 Can I use personal hotspot as wifi to connect printer?
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4007254
Also, the Airport products to not need an active internet connection to set up a home Wi-Fi connection so that is another option as well.
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Take care,
Sterling

Comcast Internet connection no longer works with Airport Express

This is a little bit out of my depth, so I'm hoping that someone can help me.
I've been accessing Comcast High Speed Internet through my Airport Express connection for more than a year. Things were great until last week when my connection stopped working. The only way I'm able to access the internet is by connecting my iBook directly to the modem.
I tried resetting my Airport Express. I even did it manually so I could manually enter the DNS Servers and Domain Name. That worked for about two days, but now I'm back to where I need to connect directly to the modem.
Maybe there's something I'm not doing correctly. I'd appreciate any help I could get.

gerasco, welcome to the discussions,
It sounds like you are doing everything right and the AirPort Express may be acting up.
Normally, you would reset this device by plugging it in and holding in the reset button until the amber light flashes rapidly.
This time, try a hard reset as follows:
Unplug the AirPort Express
Hold in the reset button and CONTINUE to hold it in as you plug in back in to power
Release the reset button after approx 10 seconds.
Setup the Express again and see if that helps. If you continue to experience problems with the Express, it is likely that it will need to be replaced or repaired.
Please post back on your progress.

Sharing internet connection using 4200 speedstream with airport express

I have xp windows sp2 loaded on a desktop with ethernet connection to a modem and have a macbook pro laptop using airport express. I have to reset the modem to full bridge mode to access the internet when using airport express wireless connection,this disables the connection to the internet on my desktop ( the error displayed is low conductivity through the modem). To get my desk top to work on the internet I have to reset the modem and set it to optus bridge. This allows access to the internet but disables my airport express connecton.
Is there a way to allow sharing my connection to the internet without reseting the modem.

G'day mate,
The SpeedStream 4200 supplied to Telstra BigPond customers is a single user device, connect it to a 'Switch' or 'Router' to share the Internet Service or, replace the whole thing with an ADSL2+ Wireless Modem Router and get coverage all over your house.

If you have an Airport Extreme router and a slow Internet connection ...

I know that Internet connection speeds are extremely variable, but I wanted to share this post for anyone having performance problems (very slow Internet connection speeds) while using an Airport Extreme router. This may or may not help you, but it might help someone.
I have a RoadRunner Turbo account, and I was experiencing consistently slow Internet download speeds (an average of only about 300KB/sec). However, when I bypassed my router and connected my Mac directly to the Time Warner modem my download speeds were 6 to 8 times faster (up to about 2MB/sec).
After weeks of tinkering and reading Apple documents I discovered that my Airport Extreme router had an improper setting. That setting is found under: Manual Setup -> Internet -> Internet Connection -> Ethernet WAN Port. When I was experiencing the very slow speeds, my Ethernet WAN Port setting was: '100 Mbps/Full Duplex.' To fix the problem I simply changed this to 'Automatic (Default).'
This one change resulted in a huge, positive performance boost for me. I hope this post helps other people.

You use an App like Filebrowser. Details here:
http://www.stratospherix.com/products/filebrowser/

I Fixed my iMac slow internet connection

I will share with you how I fixed my iMac slow internet connection and frequently lost connection. At first, I thought it was the Airport but then it wasn't the case. I also had a Dell laptop in the same basement and it was running as fast as I expected. Here are the steps:
1/ Open Airport link on the top right window > Open Network Preferences
2/
Click + to create new Network Name and Security, I chose WPA personal - less security than the WPA2- that is why it runs faster.
3/ Go mack to step 1 and select your new network name > Apply.
May iMac is now connecting to internet as fast as I would expected.
Good luck

My iMac internet connection is not faster but as fast as it used to be. I was using WPA2 and it was really good for a year and then I got disconnected or very slow. So I created the new network bearing the same old name but use WPA and did not delete the old one, some how everything is back to normal.

How to install Lion on Mac with slow internet connection.

My father's Mac mini has a slow internet connection. I always update it by taking the update packages that I download on my iMac to his machine. Will I be able to do that with 10.7 (Lion) when it is purchased/downloaded from the Mac App Store?

It seems that Apple's license terms will allow that across Macs that share the same App Store ID, but I doubt that's the case with you and your father. Physically the update package for Lion could be moved, but the licensing issues will have to be worked out. You're not the only person who's concerned with the issue of how to download a 4 GB file for Lion.

My 2007 mac pro has a slow internet connection with lion

Hi:
I've been dealing with a severely slow internet connection with my 2007 mac pro - dual quad core. I have os 10.7.3. I use wifi.
Typically, I'll experience difficulty loading websites completely. Certain sites have a 90% failure rate to load most elements. Other sites operate quickly from time to time. Often, a site will simply fail to load at all. My cable company cannot find anything wrong with my connection and other, newer devices don't have a problem loading sites. It seems the issue is most likely related to my computer.
Interestingly, I can usually "jump-start" the connection by turning my wifi connection off and on and this will (temporarily) allow me to get an image or video to download.
Any ideas?
Thank you for your time.

Hi:
I've been dealing with a severely slow internet connection with my 2007 mac pro - dual quad core. I have os 10.7.3. I use wifi.
Typically, I'll experience difficulty loading websites completely. Certain sites have a 90% failure rate to load most elements. Other sites operate quickly from time to time. Often, a site will simply fail to load at all. My cable company cannot find anything wrong with my connection and other, newer devices don't have a problem loading sites. It seems the issue is most likely related to my computer.
Interestingly, I can usually "jump-start" the connection by turning my wifi connection off and on and this will (temporarily) allow me to get an image or video to download.
Any ideas?
Thank you for your time.

Unbearably slow Internet connection using WDS network

We have an old Airport Extreme (saucer, 802.11b/g) and an Airport Express (802.11n, b/g compatible). We're using the Extreme as a WDS main, and the Express as WDS relay. Wireless devices that connect to the Internet in our house include a MacBook Pro, a couple of iPhones, an iPod Touch, an XBox 360, and a PS3.
None of these wireless devices are in direct line of sight to the main base station. Typically, our connection to the Internet is decent for the XBox, which has almost a clear line of sight to the relay (Express) base station. On the other hand, the connection for the MacBook Pro, iPhones, and iPod, is extremely slow. Maybe the actual connection speeds are the same for all devices, but at least for the XBox online gaming works. (Haven't tried online gaming with the PS3 yet.)
The problem that compelled me to post this thread is the slow Internet connection to our MacBook. When our MacBook Pro is moved from its usual location to a place just a few feet away from the Extreme, download speeds are satisfactory (e.g. 10,000+ kbps measured using Speakeasy.net). However, when we sit farther away from the Extreme and are only a few feet from the Express, download speeds are dismal (200-300 kbps). The Internet connection is noticeably slow; web pages load like molasses, and watching streaming video is almost impossible. Upload speeds are usually about 7-10x faster, which is kind of strange.
Airtunes is off. We've tried setting up the Express base station as a WDS remote instead of relay, no difference. Allow wireless clients is turned on for both main and relay. Channel 1, WPA2 personal security.
Part of the problem may be due to the fact that our house is steel framed so, depending on location, the frame of the house may get in the way of our wireless network. But even if the MacBook is within 2 feet of the Express with NO walls or obstacles in between, the speed remains dismal. The line of sight from the Extreme (main) to the Express (relay) is impeded by a few obstacles but little in the way of walls.
However, if the MacBook is close to the Extreme, with good speeds, then I walk away and sit near the Express, I still get good download speeds. This lasts only a short time. Also, if I turn off Airport on my MacBook Pro and turn it back on again, speeds are back down right away.
I understand WDS cuts the bandwidth down substantially, so I decided to unplug the Express and just use the Extreme station, set to create a wireless network instead of participate as main in a WDS network. When I do this I get satisfactory speeds on the MacBook Pro, even sitting at a location where I used to get the slow speeds.
So at first I thought forgetting about WDS completely would seem to be the solution to the problem. That seems to be true for the MacBook, but when the Express is offline and the Extreme is the only base station, the XBox and PS3 now are the devices with a very poor connection to the Internet, as there are 3+ steel framed walls between the base station and the devices. When the WDS network is up, the XBox and PS3 are almost in direct line of sight to the relay station (but then I lose speed on the MacBook and other devices.)
I'm trying to find a solution that allows a good speed connection for all these devices. Right now I have to choose between a regular network with a good connection for my MacBook, or a WDS network that allows gaming but appears to be worthless for the MacBook.
Your assistance is most welcome.

I'm trying to find a solution that allows a good speed connection for all these devices.
The solution is to run an Ethernet cable from the LAN port on the AirPort Extreme base station (AEBS) to the AirPort Express (AX). Then you won't need to use WDS and you won't suffer the bandwidth penalty of WDS. Then you would configure both the AEBS and AX to create a wireless network using the same SSID (network name) and wireless encryption type/level/password. The AX should be configured to act as a bridge (not sharing a single IP address).

Very Slow Internet Connection and Backups

I have had a Time Capsule for some time now (1st generation) and it has caused nothing but headaches. I have put up with it for some time but I have a very slow internet connection and cannot leave Time Machine on or it bogs down my machine, so I only backup periodically. Specifics are provided below.
I have a poor internet connection to begin with. When plugged in directly either to my modem or through Ethernet to the Time Capsule, I get download speeds of ~ 2.9 Mbits/sec download, 0.7 Mbits/sec upload. When connected over wireless, the speeds drop to about 0.6 Mbits/sec download, 0.6 Mbits/sec upload. I feel like I am working on dial-up. I have both a Mac and a PC, and speeds are the same on both, so it does not appear to be a computer issue. I have played with various settings in the Airport, including how connected (b-n or n only), DHCP settings, etc, but nothing makes a difference. Any suggestions?

Welcome to the discussion area, bigbrianb!
Have you downloaded a utility like iStumbler to get a look at the signal strength and noise on your wireless network?
iStumbler will display most of the other wireless networks around you, so you'll have an idea of the competition for unused channels. Ideally, you want your network to be on a channel that is at least 4-5 channels away from any other network to minimize the chances of wireless interference. Is that the case there?
Your signal strength should be 50% or greater and noise less than 10% for a good quality connection on your network. Is that the case there?
There are more things to test, but this will get things going.

Slow Internet connection sharing on Macbook Pro

Hi all,
I am experiencing really slow internet connection sharing via the airport from a second machine directly. I can access the internet or web pages with excellent reliability however the download/upload speed is 20KB/s at best. If I use the Macbook Pro itself I can get up to 250KB/sec. I read that this seems to be common problem with Snow Leopard. Can someone shed some light on this?
Thanks

"... I read that this seems to be common problem with Snow Leopard..."
Can you shed some light on where you read this?

How do you fix a slow internet connection?

Seem to have very slow Internet connection on my new iMac. Others devices in the house are fine. What's the fix here?
Thank you.

Hi, this has worked for a few...
Make a New Location, Using network locations in Mac OS X ...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2712
10.7 & 10.8…
System Preferences>Network, top of window>Locations>Edit Locations, little plus icon, give it a name.
10.5.x/10.6.x/10.7.x instructions...
System Preferences>Network, click on the little gear at the bottom next to the + & - icons, (unlock lock first if locked), choose Set Service Order.
The interface that connects to the Internet should be dragged to the top of the list.
10.4 instructions...
Is that Interface dragged to the top of Network>Show:>Network Port Configurations.
If using Wifi/Airport...
Instead of joining your Network from the list, click the WiFi icon at the top, and click join other network. Fill in everything as needed.
For 10.5/10.6/10.7/10.8, System Preferences>Network, unlock the lock if need be, highlight the Interface you use to connect to Internet, click on the advanced button, click on the DNS tab, click on the little plus icon, then add these numbers...
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
Click OK.

Windows 7 Ultimate (64-Bit) fresh install, only WLAN and video driver installed but EXTREMELY slow internet connection...

I recently checked my internet connection on my Asus G53SW and found that it was extremely slow on both the LAN and WLAN connections. I checked with a different laptop (old HP Pavilion) and I get a steady 74mbps+ connection using the same LAN cable and
also with the WLAN connection. My ISP has checked their side and everything is fine.
To try and resolve the issue I tried uninstalling, disabling and tweaking various software and even tried safe mode with networking, all to no avail. I then decided to do a complete fresh install this afternoon. I have installed Windows 7 Ultimate (64 bit)
successfully onto my SSD and everything went smoothly. I have now only installed Nvidia video drivers and the (only) WLAN driver from the Asus support site.
My WLAN connection remains incredibly slow (amost half what it is on the HP and my MacBook Pro). Clearly this is an issue with either the Asus laptop or Windows but I don't know how to proceed in order to eliminate which it could be other than to try a different
o/s to W7-Ult.
Can anyone help who knows more about this than me? Perhaps someone who has had a similar or the same problem because this is giving me a severe headache!
Thanks in advance to all and for any advice.
<script id="ncoEventScript" type="text/javascript">function DOMContentLoaded(browserID, tabId, isTop, url) { var object = document.getElementById("cosymantecnisbfw"); if(null != object) { object.DOMContentLoaded(browserID,
tabId, isTop, url);} }; function Nav(BrowserID, TabID, isTop, isBool, url) { var object = document.getElementById("cosymantecnisbfw"); if(null != object) object.Nav(BrowserID, TabID, isTop, isBool, url); }; function NavigateComplete(BrowserID, TabID,
isTop, url) { var object = document.getElementById("cosymantecnisbfw"); if(null != object) object.NavigateComplete(BrowserID, TabID, isTop, url); } function Submit(browserID, tabID, target, url) { var object = document.getElementById("cosymantecnisbfw");
if(null != object) object.Submit(browserID, tabID, target, url); }; </script>

Thank you for responding. As I stated in my original post the reason I went through this process was because of an extremely slow internet connection from both the WLAN and LAN connections on my G53SW. At that time I had all of the correct drivers on the
machine. Whilst I would agree that with the machine only having a video and WLAN driver it may well not be working 'optimally', the rationale for doing this was to get the machine working with the minimum of processes to show that it was not anti-virsu software,
Steam or the like causing interference.
I have changed out both of the HDDs this evening (a primary SSD and a secondary 1Tb HDD) for a clean hybrid 1Tb Seagate drive. Once I have installed all of the Asus drivers (and nothing else) I will try the speed test again and report back.
I can now report that with a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 and ONLY Asus drivers as supplied the issue remains. On a connection where I should see around 75mbps I am actually getting around 18mbps, sometimes considerably slower. This only affects
my Asus machine.
<script id="ncoEventScript" type="text/javascript">function DOMContentLoaded(browserID, tabId, isTop, url) { var object = document.getElementById("cosymantecnisbfw"); if(null != object) { object.DOMContentLoaded(browserID,
tabId, isTop, url);} }; function Nav(BrowserID, TabID, isTop, isBool, url) { var object = document.getElementById("cosymantecnisbfw"); if(null != object) object.Nav(BrowserID, TabID, isTop, isBool, url); }; function NavigateComplete(BrowserID, TabID,
isTop, url) { var object = document.getElementById("cosymantecnisbfw"); if(null != object) object.NavigateComplete(BrowserID, TabID, isTop, url); } function Submit(browserID, tabID, target, url) { var object = document.getElementById("cosymantecnisbfw");
if(null != object) object.Submit(browserID, tabID, target, url); }; </script>

Slower internet connection when connection wireless network

Currently using a Linksys WRT54GL wireless broadband (firmware v4.30.5) router in conjunction with a Thomson Speedtouch 546i ADSL router (ISP provided).
My problem is that when I connect to the internet over the wireless network I experience a much slower internet connection in comparison with when I use a tp-cable.
Tested with various online "speed-tests" (I know they are not to be trusted, but they do give a basis for comparison):
Over wireless network : ca.6000kbits/sec.
Direct cable from pc to router (tested on both routers):12-13000kbits/sec.
Hope anyone has any idea what the problem may be, and any help is greatly appreciated.

Change the beacon to 50 ....and reduce the RTS and the fragmentation by 40 each.....these options are found under the advanced wireless settings...
Also make sure that u have the latest drivers installed for the Wireless NIC.

Internet connection not waking up with ibook

Hi. I have an ibook G4 and connect to the internet via Airport Extreme, using a router (Xbox). This has been working perfectly for months. Then recently I had to change some settings on my router. Since then I've found that the ibook won't connect to the internet again after it goes to sleep without me opening and closing the applications several times. It has also suddenly disconnected in the middle of a session once or twice. I've also found that I can't change the configurations on my airport base station without plugging it directly into the ibook, which I didn't have to do before. So far it has all worked in the end, but I hate having no idea why this is happening in case one day it goes down and I can't get it back up again.
BTW, the airport connection itself seems to be fine.
Really grateful if anyone can help.
iBook Mac OS X (10.4.1)

I'm having the same problem with my internet connection not waking up with the ibook...but I have not changed any settings on my router. Also, I didn't have this problem when I first got the machine - it just started doing this a week ago or so. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Stephanie
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Slow Internet Connection on iMac G5 with Airport or Ehernet

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for