Wireless vs. Hard line connection - Question

Hi. I've had my Mac Mini connect wirelessly for a month or so now. Today I ran a network cable directly from the Mac Mini to the back of my Router - I guess I'm hoping to increase performance of internet video playback. Would I see any performace improvements doing this?
So my wireless is on and I ALSO have this direct connection to my router. Do I have to do anything to ensure the Mac Mini uses the hard network connection instead of the wireless?
I don't want to turn off the wireless because I still want to connect to it wirelessly with some other devices, like my iPod Touch. Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

Reliability of the connection is the major advantage of hard-wired ethernet in your situation.
If there is a major mismatch between the speed your ISP provides you (Wide Area Network: WAN) and your internal Local Area Network (LAN), then you are correct that your LAN can't really speed up internet streaming. The WAN remains the bottleneck. Unless, reliability has been an issue. Then hardwired ethernet may improve streaming at times vs. wireless.
When dealing with LAN transactions between equipment in your house, hard wired ethernet will be faster than wireless, and more reliable.

Similar Messages

How to connect Time Capsule wirelessly (without hard wire connection)

Okay, so just bought a Time Capsule, and in the process of setting it up, I am being told by Airport Utility that I need to hardwire the TC to my wireless router in order for it create a network.....
My question: Is there anyway around this? Is there anyway I can create an extended WiFi connection thru the TC without hardwiring? I have a wifi extender (NetGear universal wifi range extender WGN3000) and was hoping that TC would connect to it and act as a second extender relay.
I hope my question is clear.
Also, is my understanding correct that if the TC is not hardwired, and it does not possess a wireless connection, then in order to backup my computer, I must connect to the basestation in Airport, and during that time I will be unable to use the internet??
THanks!!

We always say to people do the first backup by ethernet anyway.. wireless takes far too long.. once you are just doing incremental then it is ok by wireless.
But wireless halves in speed for every hop.. so make sure there is only ever one wireless link between the TC and the computer if at all possible. If you join it by wireless to the network.. you will have no gain.. and lots of pain.. plus half what are already poor speeds.. so you may as well just connect to the router by ethernet.. and bridge the TC.. you can then also setup wireless .. particularly 5ghz which the rest of your network probably doesn't use so you have a faster than normal link both to internet and TC for backup.. when you are in the same room.. link at 5ghz gives great speed and poor range.. go more than one room away and it will generally fall away to nothing.

New line connection question

I am currently in the process of moving my exisiting line and broadband over from Sky to BT.
My current line is connected directly to an exchange which is over 5km away, resulting in very poor and very slow broadband. Even through streets right next to mine have infinity!
As my current line is an exchange only line (EO) I am not going to be able to get any sort of high speed broadband at any time in the near or distant future
Hence my question...
If i request to have a 2nd line installed at my property, is there any way that this line could be connected to a local street cabinet (three within a stones throw of my house) so that I could then get infinity.
Many thanks

It all depends on the current line plant.
If there are spare cables coming from the exchange via the same route your line takes, you'd be connected to one of them. if there are no spare pairs then OR MIGHT connect you to a cab but it's a very long shot.
There's no way to request this when the order is placed either.
If you want to say thanks for a helpful answer,please click on the Ratings star on the left-hand side If the the reply answers your question then please mark as ’Mark as Accepted Solution’

Drag line/connect question

Hi,
Is it possible to make a drag line question:
Attached screenshot is what we want.
We want to drag a line from left to right and when the question is right, a picture pops up.
When it is wrong a sentence telling it is wrong will show.
is this possible within Captivate ?
Joep

I managed creating matching questions for someone once (consulting task) using the interactive Drag&Drop widget from InfoSemantics. That was a question that had to lead to reporting, even with partial scoring which is not possible with the default matching question slides. And then you have total control of course. It means that you need knowledge of variables, advanced actions.
Do you need reporting, or a "zwart-wit" one if everything is correct? Or is just the appearance of the captions important? Maybe then the built in Drag&Drop will suit your needs.
Lilybiri

I want to hard line time capsule to imac so uverse router, modem, and wireless is the primary connection?

i want to hard wire time capsule to imac, so att uverse's modem, router, and wireless is the primary connection. i don't think the competing wireless features will play nice together.

If your goal is to provide Internet access to the iMac via an Ethernet connection to the TC ... and, in turn, have the TC connected by wireless to the Uverse gateway, then as you have already guessed, this combination won't work as the two routers are not WDS compatible. Your only option with this set of networking gear would be to connect the TC to the Uverse gateway by Ethernet.

I have a Airport network at home with a Time capsule connected via ethernet cable to modem. Also the network is extended wirelessley with an Airport Extreme. My question is I now wish to add a second Airport extreme but am considering a hard wire connecti

I have a Airport network at home with a Time capsule connected via ethernet cable to modem. Also the network is extended wirelessley with an Airport Extreme. I now wish to add a second Airport extreme but am considering a hard wire connection with 100 ft of cat 6 cable from the Time capsule to the second Airport extreme. Can my network operate properly to extend the network with both a wireless and wired extend functionallity?

I now wish to add a second Airport extreme but am considering a hard wire connection with 100 ft of cat 6 cable from the Time capsule to the second Airport extreme.
Excellent plan.
Can my network operate properly to extend the network with both a wireless and wired extend functionallity?
Yes, but don't get confused about the second AirPort Extreme, as it would not be configured to "extend" a wireless network.....it would be configured to "create a wireless network" using the same wireless network name, security settings and password as the Time Capsule network. Configure the second Extreme in Bridge Mode.
This Apple support document will show you how to hookup and configure the second AirPort Extreme:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4260

Is there a way to turn the wireless capabilities off on an AirPort Express? I have an AirPort Extreme as my main router and use the express to just extend it. I only really want to you use the express for hard ethernet connections

Is there a way to turn the wireless capabilities off on an AirPort Express? I have an AirPort Extreme as my main router and use the express to just extend it. I only really want to you use the express for hard ethernet connections. For whatever reason when I have my express extend my wifi at home the download speed from just the express is absolutely terrible, drops to about 1.5 mb compared to when it's on the extremes part of the network the speed goes up to 50-75mb. These terrible download speed really only affects the iPhones as my MacBook Pro usually gets the good speed no matter where it is. I don't believe there is anything wrong with my phone because if I am in the part of the house that uses just the extreme the download speeds on the iphone goes up to 50-75mb. As a note I have an AirPort Extreme on the top floor of my house (second floor) that's where my modem is located. On the first floor that's where one airport express is located. I also have another airport express in the basement that is accessed by my landlord. Any thoughts on how to fix this would be helpful.

Is there a way to turn the wireless capabilities off on an AirPort Express? I have an AirPort Extreme as my main router and use the express to just extend it. I only really want to you use the express for hard ethernet connections.
It appears that your networking goals with the AirPort Express is to use it as a wireless Ethernet bridge instead of using it to extend the wireless range of your AirPort Extreme. The latter requires that the Express Wi-Fi radios be enabled.
If you intended to use the Express as a wireless bridge, you just need to reconfigure it to "Join a wireless" network instead of "Extend a wireless network."
For whatever reason when I have my express extend my wifi at home the download speed from just the express is absolutely terrible, drops to about 1.5 mb compared to when it's on the extremes part of the network the speed goes up to 50-75mb.
In an extended network, the placement of the extending base station is critical as it can only extend the wireless network at the bandwidth at which it receives it.
Please check out the following AirPort User Tip for details on optimal base station placement.

Lion - can no longer connect to WD wireless network / hard drive.

I upgraded to Lion and now I am unable to connect to my WD wireless network hard drive. it tells me that the version of the server I am trying to connect to is not supported and to contact your system administrator to resolve the problem. Suggestions?

See #C16 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

I copied all my CD's onto a hard drive. Can I transfer each CD from the hard drive to my iPhone either wirelessly or by direct connection?

I copied all my CD's onto a hard drive. Can I transfer each CD from the hard drive to my iPhone either wirelessly or by direct connection? Do I have to make a playlist for each cd and then transfer it to my iPhone?

When you buy your new iMac you will be able to have the installation process transfer all your applications, data (including music, pictures, documents, etc) and settings to your new computer. In the past that was done via Firewire. I'm not entirely sure of the process with the new iMacs that don't have firewire. I think it can be done via ethernet and probably via tha thunderbolt cord using a firewire adapter but you'll want to check that out.
    With the your new computer properly connected to your old computer, the initial booting of the new computer will include the ability to move everything over.
    If for some reason you don't want to do that (smart if you have some horrible software issue that is causing problems) you can connect your old computer to the new one and start it in Target Disk mode where it will be seen as a hard drive. You can then manually copy over all your music and import that into iTunes (and any other data you want).
    Somebody here will surely point you to directions for connecting an older iMac with no Thunderbolt to a newer iMac with no Firewire.

How can I get connected to wireless in cmd line?

I've a wep key，and How to connect to the wireless using cmd line ?
[nicholas@LNZJU ~]$ iwlist wlan0 scanning|more
wlan0 Scan completed :
Cell 01 - Address: 00:13:46:E8:61:48
ESSID:"PT8F2"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11g
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
Quality:48/100 Signal level:-65 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm
Encryption key:on
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
12 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0
Cell 02 - Address: 00:1B:11:14:47:B6
ESSID:"PT8F6"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11g
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
Quality:51/100 Signal level:-63 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm
Encryption key:on
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
12 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0

I think something like this should work:
1) sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid [wireless network name]
2) sudo iwconfig wlan0 key [wepkey]
3) sudo dhcpcd wlan0
Another way is to enter the appropriate info in /etc/rc.conf [networking section] and /etc/conf.d/wireless and then you can just do "sudo /etc/rc.d/network restart".
This is all from memory so I could have messed something up...

Lost connection to wireless external hard drive

I had been backing up to a wireless external hard drive on my 15" mac book pro, my wife's 13" macbook and my son's imac. Now, all of the sudden, no one can access the 1 TB Mybook hard drive connected to our Airport router.
When I cut power to the router, the HD or my cable modem, we can access the HD for a while, but we all soon lose access. I now use Snow leopard, but the others use 10.5.6. Any ideas would be helpful.
We can't complete 1 backup before we lose our connection.

Thanks, Paycheck!
I formatted the drive the right way (can't remember what it's called), but I'll look into sharing based on a local machine (the imac prolly). is that a reliable way to connect and back up? I was using time machine for all 3 machines, so I'd like to continue that if possible.
How do I hang the drive off the imac and connect to it from the laptops?
Thanks again for the reply.

Connectivity Question *PLEASE HELP!*

Hi all,
PROBLEM
I have an Xbox 360 in my bedroom, which is on the 2nd floor of my house. My FiOS Actiontec Router is on the first floor of my house. My Xbox 360 does not connect/recognize the router, which leaves me unable to connect to Xbox Live and therefore unable to play online. The path between the router and the Xbox 360 goes through one ceiling/floor and a few (not sure how many) walls. I'd say that they are easily only 20 feet apart, at most.
QUESTIONS
How can I increase the range of my signal to connect with my Xbox 360?
Can I move the router to my room, depite having no cable outlets (FiOS white cords) in my room?
Is it worth the trouble to try to run a 40+ foot ethernet cable to my room, without sacrificing speed?
Are there any reliable antennae that I can attach to my router to extend the range?
Preferably, I would like to move the router to my room, but understand the challenges associated with that task. Please enlighten me (and speak English ) as I am a "noob" with all of this router stuff.
Thank you in advance!

Reason wrote:
Hi all,
PROBLEM
I have an Xbox 360 in my bedroom, which is on the 2nd floor of my house. My FiOS Actiontec Router is on the first floor of my house. My Xbox 360 does not connect/recognize the router, which leaves me unable to connect to Xbox Live and therefore unable to play online. The path between the router and the Xbox 360 goes through one ceiling/floor and a few (not sure how many) walls. I'd say that they are easily only 20 feet apart, at most.
Make sure your X-box wireless adapter supports WPA security. If it is a newer Actiontec That is the default security. WPA2 is recommended. Now if you have an older wireless adapter for the X-Box it may not support WPA or WPA2, thus not connect based on the SSID and security key affixed to your router. WEP is not secure at all, and it would be a crime in this day in age to call it security. Find out what your X-box adaptor supports. Or run Ethernet cable.
QUESTIONS
How can I increase the range of my signal to connect with my Xbox 360?
Purchase a wireless access point or router that may provide a stronger signal. Or try changing the wireless channel in use. Read this post regarding wireless connections. If it is not connecting at all, make sure you have the proper SSID and Key.
http://forums.verizon.com/t5/FiOS-Internet/Why-your-Wi-Fi-is-slow/m-p/534451#U534451
Can I move the router to my room, depite having no cable outlets (FiOS white cords) in my room?
NO. Unless you have COAX to your room, "white cords" then you could relocate the router. But remember anything that was using Ethernet would lose the connection at the previous location. You could connect a MOCA adapter to the COAX that would provide an Ethernet connection. (MultiMedia Over Coax Alliance.) Provides the Internet Protocol over COAX.
MoCA Operates with IPTV, CATV and DBS.
http://www.mocalliance.org/
Is it worth the trouble to try to run a 40+ foot Ethernet cable to my room, without sacrificing speed?
YES. PULL AN ETHERNET CABLE.
That will only help your speed. My entire house is wired Gigabit Ethernet. My daughters X-Box is on the third floor, with my wireless routers being located in the walk out basement. I run everything hardwired Ethernet, with the exception of phones, tablets, or laptops. I would not expect to get great wireless speeds for use on the gaming console. If you have FiOS, run a hard wired connection to it and take advantage of the speeds you have.
Are there any reliable antennae that I can attach to my router to extend the range?
Someone else might answer this one. The newer routers Rev. I have two antenna connections, and I am not sure how that would work out. If you have an older router such as Rev. F of below, you may wish to contact support and tell them you are not getting decent speeds based on you level of service, and they may replace your router at no charge. If it is a Revision A through D, it would be a no brainier. They are trying to get the older routers out of circulation.
Preferably, I would like to move the router to my room, but understand the challenges associated with that task. Please enlighten me (and speak English ) as I am a "noob" with all of this router stuff.
If you relocate the router to your room, remember the Ethernet connections would all be in your room. Now if you have speeds above 75/35, like the 150/65, Verizon would have run Ethernet and COAX cable from the ONT to your router. Meaning you would need both at your new router location. ONT (Optical Network Terminal) the box usually mounted on the side of the house where your phone line come in.
Thank you in advance!

Time Capsule can't backup external hard drives connected to it. Got that.

Hello Apple Support Communities! This is my first post. Hope this finds you all well My first year as an Apple user. I bought a 2-Tb TC and am running my first backup to my MacBook as I write this.
Problem statement: TC can't backup external hard drives connected directly to it, but the ones connected to the Macs that are connected wirelessly to it. Duly noted. However, the Spotlight will reindex the hard drives connected to the Mac and that will take hours; the whole backup will take days. Thus, excluding the hard drives at "System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy tab" will probably help reduce the time of backup, or just ejecting them will do too. That itself has not proven effective coz it's still taking forever (50Gb in 2 days, still going).
Questions:
1) Do I wait until my first backup to my MacBook's internal hard drive is done before I connect my hard drives to my MacBook and attempt another backup? If yes, how do I go about the excessive time Spotlight reindexing takes if I intend to backup my hard drives connected to my MacBook?
2) Is there any other way of speeding up the first-time backup?
*Note: All versions of OS and firmwares are up-to-date. TC is connected to an external wireless router. TC is intended to be used as backup device and / or file server only.
P/S: Apologee if this has already been discussed before, thus, a link to previous discussion thread would highly be appreciated)
- Shook Hashem, Malaysia.

How do I backup the externel hard drives connected to my MB. I was under the impression that that has already been done, because I've read it somewhere in a discussion that said it's done automatically unless I exclude it from a backup, which I didn't. So it's supposed to backup the external hard drivestoo because I had them connected to my MB the entire time during the backups.
By default an external drive is excluded.. the list is odd.. if I plug a drive into the mac.. it immediately is listed as excluded.
This is not the list of included.. this is the list of excluded.. remove it from the excluded list to include it.
It is kind of reverse polish notation in backups.
If I want to enter the Time Machine, should I enter it with the TM turned on or off?
Not sure what the question means. If you use the star wars display and want to recover files then use TM off.. but read up pondini.. how to do restore etc.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
15A in particular on the how to use TM.
When do I uplug the ethernet and use the wireless connection instead?
Once you have finished the main backup you can go back to wireless. The incremental backups are mostly very small.

Backup an external hard drive connected to Airport -- is this possible?

Currently I have a hub connected to my airport extreme. There are 2 external hard drives connected to the hub. One has my iTunes library on it, and the other is being used for time machine backups.
I have no problem doing the backup wirelessly to the one hard drive. In time machine, I could pick either external drive to back up to. What I am trying to do is back up the external drive too. Time machine is only seeing the hard drive on my laptop. The exclude list is blank and when I try to add the itunes HD to the exclude list (to remove it), it won't let me select it-- it is greyed out.
If I connect the itunes HD directly into my laptop, I can run the backup, but that is not very convenient. Is what I am trying to do possible? Does anyone have any ideas? Are there any other posts discussing this (I could not find any with my specific problem).
Thanks!

nealmay wrote:
Currently I have a hub connected to my airport extreme. There are 2 external hard drives connected to the hub. One has my iTunes library on it, and the other is being used for time machine backups.
I have no problem doing the backup wirelessly to the one hard drive. In time machine, I could pick either external drive to back up to. What I am trying to do is back up the external drive too. Time machine is only seeing the hard drive on my laptop. The exclude list is blank and when I try to add the itunes HD to the exclude list (to remove it), it won't let me select it-- it is greyed out.
That's correct. Time Machine will not back up a network drive (see #2 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum).
You're going to need a different app. Which one will depend on where you want the backups to go; some apps will not back-up from a network drive; others won't back up to a network drive. I don't know, offhand, of any that will do both. Perhaps Kappy, V.K., or others will.
For backups to a local disk, try either CarbonCopyCloner (which I use to make a full bootable "clone" in addition to Time Machine), and I think SuperDuper will do this as well. CCC is donationware, so you can try it for a while, then send them some $$ so they can keep it current. It can be scheduled to run automatically, and you have the choice of it keeping only current copies or to archive prior versions as well. SuperDuper has a free version, but you need the paid one (about $30) to do scheduling. I don't know if it will keep archive copies.
There are many other backup apps, some of which will handle network drives. Check Google, VersionTracker.com, or MacUpdate.com.

PS3 cannot recognize external hard drive connected to Time Machine

I am trying to keep my Elements 2TB external hard drive connected to my Time Machine (via USB), and also use it as an external media source for my PS3. When connecting the drive directly to the PS3 through the USB it recognizes it perfectly as an external media drive, but when I try to do it wirelessly through the Time Machine it does not find it. I have the drive partitioned and the folders labeled correctly, the PS3 is connecting to the internet through the Time Machine. I can connect to the external through my Macbook and see all the PS3 files when connected to the Time machine.
I am stumped. I recently installed a larger (350gb) drive on my PS3 using the external drive for backup, and everything seemed to work fine, but I swear that before the installation my old drive recognized the external on the Time Machine (I may be imagining this). Could the reformatting of the PS3 drive have something to do with it? Maybe it is not possible in the first place?
Any ideas? Sorry in advance, I know this probably more of a PS3 forum question, but PSN seems to be down today.

The drive will not "appear" on your desktop like a USB or FireWire drive that is connected directly to your Mac.
First, check to make sure that the drive is recognized by the Time Capsule as LaPastenague mentions
Open AirPort Utility , click on the Time Capsule, then click Edit
Click the Disks tab at the top of the next window
You will see your Time Capsule drive....named "Data".....unless you have changed the name.....and the other drive as well. In the example below, the Time Capsule drive is named "Backups". Another drive....."WD Drive"....is connected to the USB port on the Time Capsule.
Do you see both drives? If not, you need to perform the checks that LaPastenagure has mentioned above.

Wireless vs. Hard line connection - Question

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