2009 5.1 WIFI Speed

[fastlanephil]

I've noticed that my wifi speed on my 2009 5.1 Mac Pro is about half or even sometimes less than my other wifi devices. The RSSI: is -79 dBm and the Noise: is -90dBm. Ive read that these are not ideal numbers for good wifi. I did remove the original wifi card a while to try using a combo wifi/BT 4.0 card off of eBAY. I think I have the original wifi card connected back up properly but maybe not.

I do have the option of running an ethernet cable from the adjoining room through the drywall as my Mac Pro pretty much stays put. Maybe this would be better?

 

[scott.n]

What link speed is shown in Network Utility?

 

[fastlanephil]

It says 144 Mbit/s

 

[scott.n]

It says 144 Mbit/s

That happens to be the max speed for the 2.4 Ghz band with 20 Mhz channel width.

My best guess is that you have a dual band wireless-N router; your other devices are connected to the 5 Ghz band (likely with 300 Mbit/s link speed) but your Mac Pro is connected to the 2.4 Ghz band. Try forcing it to connect on the 5 Ghz band.

More generally it could just be an issue of interference, in which case you could try different wifi channels.

 

[w33z3r]

Also look in System Information under Network > Wi-Fi and see what the supported channels of your card are. The router could be using a channel for 5ghz that your card does not support.

This is what happened to me when I bought the TP-LINK WDN4800, manually changing the 5ghz channel to one of the card's supported fixed the issue.

 

[fastlanephil]

My wireless router is an Apple Airport Express which is dual band. Yes, the other devices are at 5Ghz and the Mac Pro is at 2.4 Ghz. The base station is set to transmit either automatically. No Luck.

Here's the Mac Pro system report for wifi.

 

[w33z3r]

My wireless router is an Apple Airport Express which is dual band. Yes, the other devices are at 5Ghz and the Mac Pro is at 2.4 Ghz. The base station is set to transmit either automatically. No Luck.

Here's the Mac Pro system report for wifi.

Oh ok I see the problem. Because both of your access points are labeled "Phillip's Wi-Fi" the computer is automatically connecting to one of them and you are unable to manually select which one.

If you rename the access points to "Phillip's Wi-Fi 2.4G" & "Phillip's Wi-Fi 5G" it will let you manually select which access point you connect to.

 

[fastlanephil]

Oh ok I see the problem. Because both of your access points are labeled "Phillip's Wi-Fi" the computer is automatically connecting to one of them and you are unable to manually select which one.

If you rename the access points to "Phillip's Wi-Fi 2.4G" & "Phillip's Wi-Fi 5G" it will let you manually select which access point you connect to.

I'm assuming the renaming of the access points would be done using the Airport Basestation software. It looks like that is not an option. You can change the "automatic" setting to both access points to certain numbers but it doesn't affect the speeds.

 

[w33z3r]

I'm assuming the renaming of the access points would be done using the Airport Basestation software. It looks like that is not an option. You can change the "automatic" setting to both access points to certain numbers but it doesn't affect the speeds.

Sorry I don't have an airport, but it looks like if you select the radio button for "5GHz network name" and set that as "Phillip's Wi-Fi Network 2" you should be able to see the different access points.

Leaving the radio button unchecked appears to just use the default name of "Phillip's Wi-Fi Network" which overlaps the 2.4ghz access point name.

 

[fastlanephil]

OK. I do now have two access point options in the finder wifi pull down menu. My iPad Air and 2009 MacBook Pro have similar speeds of about 50 DL & UL using either access point. The Mac Pro seems to be doing a little better over all with the #2/5 Ghz connection but now the DL speed can vary from 5 to 38 Ghz but the UL speed is always about 40 Ghz.

I'm wondering if it's maybe a hardware issue with the wifi card in my Mac Pro and I should try cleaning and reconnecting the wires.

 

[fastlanephil]

I decided to go the ethernet route. I'm now getting 92+ Mbps up and down with my 100 Mbps fiber connection.