I have a new MBA (4GB), which I am very pleased with but I can't figure out why its wifi transfer speeds seem much slower than my Mac Pro. The MBA gets a max of about 250 kb/s while the Mac Pro gets over 1000. I'm wondering whether there's some adjustment that would speed up the MBA.
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New 13" MBA slow wifi
- Thread starter glhiii
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I found this thread last night, a Sunday, but decided to wait to post until today. Last night I checked my download speeds from Cox Communications' high speed Internet service and my speed was only about 8 Mbps. I realized, though, that download speeds via a cable high speed Internet service are characteristically much slower during the weekend than they are during the week. The reason is that the cable company puts a number of its customers' on each node and the more of them who are active on a given node at once, the slower each customer's download speed will be. This morning, Monday, I confirmed this by running my go to Internet speed test from Speedmatters.org, the same utility I used last night, and my download speed jumped up to 21 Mbps.
If you are experiencing slow download speeds, it is unlikely that even your 802.11g wireless network is the culprit. Theoretically, an 802.11g network is capable of speeds up to 54 Mbps. Typically, such networks will download data at between 24 and 36 Mbps. Thus, if you are worried about Internet download speeds that seem too slow, it is unlikely that even an 802.11g wireless network has detrimentally affected them. Of course, an 802.11n wireless network is even faster than that.
If you are experiencing slow download speeds, it is unlikely that even your 802.11g wireless network is the culprit. Theoretically, an 802.11g network is capable of speeds up to 54 Mbps. Typically, such networks will download data at between 24 and 36 Mbps. Thus, if you are worried about Internet download speeds that seem too slow, it is unlikely that even an 802.11g wireless network has detrimentally affected them. Of course, an 802.11n wireless network is even faster than that.
I have actually noticed the reverse. My new MBA 13" seems to fly on the internet and with large downloads compared to my old MBP 15". Granted, I am on extremely fast ISP from my University. However, I don't think that has anything to do with the fact that the old machine took longer to download large items, while this new MBA downloaded the Office '11 from the online store in about a minute. The old MBP got nowhere near these speeds on large downloads. For general browsing, it seems about the same.
In my professional opinion... something is wrong.
Running a similar side by side comparison between my 13" MBP and 13" MBA I get the exact same values on each. But in practice, if I run them both simultaneously, the MBA usually wins somehow getting much higher throughput, as if it gets higher priority and the MBP ends up waiting its turn.
I have the same issue on my MBA 11. Side by side with my 2007 C2D blackbook, I get over 10 mb/s on the older one and about 1.3 mb/s on the MBA. Weird really. Have reset things, deleted the profile and reconnected, etc.
Apple support's idea was to take it to an Apple store and try it there; if it's slower than their network. My concern with that is I'm not sure how fast the store networks are - if they are only getting 1.5 in the store, I'm not sure things will look different enough ...
Cheers
Apple support's idea was to take it to an Apple store and try it there; if it's slower than their network. My concern with that is I'm not sure how fast the store networks are - if they are only getting 1.5 in the store, I'm not sure things will look different enough ...
Cheers
In my professional opinion... something is wrong.
Running a similar side by side comparison between my 13" MBP and 13" MBA I get the exact same values on each. But in practice, if I run them both simultaneously, the MBA usually wins somehow getting much higher throughput, as if it gets higher priority and the MBP ends up waiting its turn.
Yeah, although when I run the same test on the first floor of my house, it works fine. I am using it right now. Its something environmental it seems.
Thanks for the update. I had a hunch that your slow wifi speeds weren't being caused by your MBA's Airport card, or chip, or whatever it is in the MBAs.
When I said environmental, I meant that it was still a hardware/software problem, its just not 100% reproducible everywhere.
Just a quick question. For those of you who had/have slow WiFi, is it like it's sometimes very fast and sometimes very slow? Mine was very snappy yesterday (ST test matched my iMac) but today, out of sudden, it started to crawl. Did that for about an hour, now it's back to normal. I ran ST on iMac when it was slow and it also got lower score in ST than normally but not as much as MBA.
I know I'm probably worrying too much and it's very possible that it was an issue with ISP (yeah, my ISP sucks) but I'm just curious. Also, MR probably ain't the best site for testing as it crawls quite often I know time will show if it has any real issues and it does weird that sometimes it works and suddenly it doesn't.
I know I'm probably worrying too much and it's very possible that it was an issue with ISP (yeah, my ISP sucks) but I'm just curious. Also, MR probably ain't the best site for testing as it crawls quite often
I know time will show if it has any real issues and it does weird that sometimes it works and suddenly it doesn't.Yes I am experiencing the same, super fast or super slow. Have had my 11'' air a few days and its my first mac. Unfortunately I have no idea how/where to check my speeds, so if someone can point me in the right direction? thanks
just to add I'm on sky broadband max
just to add I'm on sky broadband max
No slowdowns today, yayyy! Looks like it was just an ISP error like I expected.
Another issue though, my MBA drops WiFi couple of times a day. It drops it for only a second and reconnects almost immediately (<5 seconds). Again, I'm not thinking that it is the MBA because my router is pretty far away and sometimes the signal is only two bars. However, my iMac has never done that and it is in the same room. I'm going to another location on weekend where the router is closer so I guess I'l see it there. Doesn't really bother me that much as it only last for couple seconds but not something I want to experience everyday (has happened twice a day everyday, usually the drops are close to each other).
Another issue though, my MBA drops WiFi couple of times a day. It drops it for only a second and reconnects almost immediately (<5 seconds). Again, I'm not thinking that it is the MBA because my router is pretty far away and sometimes the signal is only two bars. However, my iMac has never done that and it is in the same room. I'm going to another location on weekend where the router is closer so I guess I'l see it there. Doesn't really bother me that much as it only last for couple seconds but not something I want to experience everyday (has happened twice a day everyday, usually the drops are close to each other).
Do you have another computer that you can use to compare your Internet download and upload speeds to those of your MBA? Absent such a comparison, it seems to me that your slow speeds are most likely being caused by your ISP, not by by your MBA. I just ran a speed test from the SpeedMatters.org site on my 13 inch Ultimate MBA, which showed that I had a download speed of 18 Mips and an upload speed of 3.5 Mips. At times, my download speeds approach 30 Mips and never fall below 10 Mips.