how fast does your airport network go? (airport sucks)

[plunar]

according to CNET's bandwidth test, my airport express can only get it up to around 500kbps... often times as low as 100. and trust me, i feel it browsing the web. plug the cable modem directly into the ethernet port on my macbook, and i'm hitting upwards of 3Mbps. i've set the network to 802.11g only, wpa protected it, closed it, set the multicast to 24, i'm the only guy showing on channel 1 according to macwireless.com, and i just bought a brand new one today that gives me the exact same performance. i just don't ****ing get it. what the hell am i paying $130 for???

 

[SilentPanda]

Mine goes the same speed as my cable modem (or very near) 10 meg down, 1 meg up.

Is there anything between your computer and your base station. Often times various materials in between can be the culprit.

 

[mkrishnan]

Have you tried changing channels? Are you sure that you don't have interference issues in your house?

 

[plunar]

no i am literally 3 feet from the base station, in clear line of sight. i can pirate the neighbors network and get higher speeds. this is just god damn ridiculous. i expected more from the company that started pc wifi.

 

[aristobrat]

Mine goes the same speed as my cable modem (or very near) 10 meg down, 1 meg up.

Is there anything between your computer and your base station. Often times various materials in between can be the culprit.

Same here -- no problems here and my cable bandwidth is 15mb down, 2mb up. (I never quite get the full 15mb down, but regularly get 11-13mb). I have it set for B/G, although I only have G in the house, and WPA2. Never messed with closing it or the multicast.

As a basic troubleshooting, have you tried resetting the Express back to stock config, testing the speed, then make your configuration changes one at a time, testing the speed after each one? Maybe WPA slows Apples down vs WPA2?

Two free OS X tools that I use to help troubleshoot friends wireless networks are iStumbler (specifically the noise column) and Airstatz.

 

[SilentPanda]

Breathe... breathe...

Okay... just take it back if you are unhappy with it and either exchange it for a new one in case yours was a dud, or get your money back and purchase a different brand. I think I've heard of problems with every brand of wireless base station.

 

[yellow]

Try a different bandwidth tester. Like:

http://miranda.ctd.anl.gov:7123/

i expected more from the company that started pc wifi.

And it may be a defective unit.

 

[plunar]

click START to re-test
Checking for Middleboxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Done
running 10s outbound test (client to server) . . . . . 169.74Kb/s
running 10s inbound test (server to client) . . . . . . 133.83kb/s
Warning! Client time-out while reading data, possible duplex mismatch exists
Your Workstation is connected to a Cable/DSL modem
Information: Other network traffic is congesting the link

what does that mean?

Try a different bandwidth tester. Like:

http://miranda.ctd.anl.gov:7123/



And it may be a defective unit.

 

[plunar]

if it is a defect that ould make 2 in a row. not likely

 

[plunar]

This is the gap i'm dealing with.

Over craport express (both):
click START to re-test
Another client is currently being served, your test will begin within 45 seconds
Checking for Middleboxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Done
running 10s outbound test (client to server) . . . . . 74.31Kb/s
running 10s inbound test (server to client) . . . . . . 60.84kb/s
Warning! Client time-out while reading data, possible duplex mismatch exists
Your Workstation is connected to a Cable/DSL modem
Information: Other network traffic is congesting the link

Over direct linkup:
click START to re-test
Checking for Middleboxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Done
running 10s outbound test (client to server) . . . . . 404.66Kb/s
running 10s inbound test (server to client) . . . . . . 1.55Mb/s
Your Workstation is connected to a Cable/DSL modem

 

[SilentPanda]

As a basic troubleshooting, have you tried resetting the Express back to stock config, testing the speed, then make your configuration changes one at a time, testing the speed after each one? Maybe WPA slows Apples down vs WPA2?

I would try this as stated earlier. Reset it to default, change settings one by one and run the speed test each time to see what bombs it out.

 

[aristobrat]

(duplicate of what SilentPanda said)

 

[Cybergypsy]

I had the same thing happen with my macbook, bought a 800m imac g4 and it blows the pants off my macbook....and using old airport card on my imac....sold the macbook

 

[plunar]

well it actually worked for a second, i was getting over 2mbps. now right back where i was. this is typical behavior actually - i factory reset the airport, and for like 2 whole minutes i get full speed, and the wham it's like hitting a brick wall. i don't even touch anything - not even password protect it. of course, protecting it hasn't been shown to help either, so i'm at a loss. all i know is that unprotected network "casey" from somewhere else is giving me 1.5mpbs... on 1 bar.

 

[mkrishnan]

My results were...

TCP/Web100 Network Diagnostic Tool v5.3.4e
click START to begin
Checking for Middleboxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Done
running 10s outbound test (client to server) . . . . . 578.18Kb/s
running 10s inbound test (server to client) . . . . . . 3.13Mb/s
Your Workstation is connected to a Cable/DSL modem

For my iMac G5 on an Airport Extreme Base Station and cable.

But what is this "other network traffic" thing? I did not get that line. And you said you were the only box on your LAN, right?

 

[plunar]

"other network traffic"

don't know but it consistently shows up in the test

 

[mkrishnan]

Maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves here...Can you ping your router and come back with the results, please?

 

[plunar]

Maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves here...Can you ping your router and come back with the results, please?

Ping has started ...

PING 10.0.1.1 (10.0.1.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=121.565 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=142.852 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=25.314 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=396.372 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=419.169 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=198.087 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=262.821 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=387.317 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=44.396 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=334.923 ms

--- 10.0.1.1 ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 25.314/233.282/419.169/140.324 ms

 

[plunar]

something interesting:

whenever I plug straight into the cable modem, my IP address is always 66.xxx.xxx.xxx, and on the airport it's always 74.xxx.xxx.xxx.

not sure if that's suggesting something

 

[mkrishnan]

Okay, so don't waste any more time doing bandwidth testers. Don't waste any time with DNS etc (which I was going to recommend next ). The problem is definitely in between your computer and your router. I am about 2.5-3 meters from my AEBS and my average ping is 1.1 ms (i.e. ~200 times shorter than yours).

I also tend to think interference cannot be an issue... you should have lost packets, I'd think?

I'm starting to lean towards defective router.

Erm, okay, wait. Your IP address when you're on the Airport Express is a 74.xxx? I'm not sure I follow you. It should be 10.0.1.x where x is 2,3,4 most likely. Or do you mean your AE's upstream IP address is 74?

Nonetheless, I don't think any of that could explain poor pings within the LAN?

 

[plunar]

freaking hell that just sucks. chalk up two AEs in a row? weird. but i just can't think what else could be wrong....? both show the exact same symptons too. sometimes i can't even use airport config because the lag is so much.

as for ip, i mean that assigned to the ae from the cable modem.

 

[plunar]

i'm wondering about interference. there's over a dozen networks in my area.... but then that doesn't explain why they're so quick when i hijack them and mine is so slow....



.... great, now the airport is so stupid the light stays green even with no ethernet plugged into it.

 

[mkrishnan]

Mmm, who do you use for cable service? Is it possible that the cable modem is (intentionally?) doing something to frack with the router? Is there anyway to temporarily get a router from anyone else (i.e. not an Apple router), plug it in, and see what happens? Even a wired one.

 

[yellow]

When you plug directly into the router, are you using the same network cable that the Aexpress uses? Or do you have a separate one for your AExpress? You might want to consider that it's the network cable OR the port on the router. At least.. eliminate those as a possibility.

 

[plunar]

i use time warner, in manhattan. same ethernet cable.

unfortunately, i don't have access to another router. is there record of cable companies intentionally sabotaging connections to wifi routers?