Very bad internet connection with MP. Please some help

[compute]

Hi everyone

I'm hoping someone can help me out here, i have very poor internet connection on my MacPro (2010).

I use a wireless connection and my airport icon only shows two bars in connection strength. The weird thing is that on all my Macbook laptop i have full connection range sitting in the same room as where my MacPro is set up.

Could someone help me out a bit please, i tried getting help from my internet provider trough the help desk but he told me he had no idea how to set up or reset a Mac.

What he did told me was that for my mac i should change a few digits in my IP address for example if my address is 193.156.0.1 then i should change the zero with 50 (ex. 193.156.50.1). Only i have no idea on how to do this or if this is even true?

All help is greatly appreciated

 

[MacVidCards]

Have a look at you airport card. It has 2 or 3 little brass snaps where the antennae s connect. If one has been knocked off it can cause the issue you list.

You can update to a newer 3 antennae card for like $20 and gain N band

 

[compute]

i checked the airport card but all seems ok.

Does anyone know how to change the range of the digits (i assume its the IP adress) the help desk guy was talking about?

He was also talking about opening different ports...but how do i do that

 

[brand]

Hi everyoneWhat he did told me was that for my mac i should change a few digits in my IP address for example if my address is 193.156.0.1 then i should change the zero with 50 (ex. 193.156.50.1).

Does anyone know how to change the range of the digits (i assume its the IP adress) the help desk guy was talking about?

You can't just pick any public IP address you want to use it doesn't work that way.

 

[compute]

You can't just pick any public IP address you want to use it doesn't work that way.

Thats what i thought, he told me that i had to change the "0" into a 50 for my internet to work properly on mac

With my MP my connection strength is constantly changing from only one block to three blocks to 4 and back down...

 

[brand]

With my MP my connection strength is constantly changing from only one block to three blocks to 4 and back down...

That doesn't have anything to do with the Internet connection.

 

[mcfx]

What he did told me was that for my mac i should change a few digits in my IP address for example if my address is 193.156.0.1 then i should change the zero with 50 (ex. 193.156.50.1). Only i have no idea on how to do this or if this is even true?

All help is greatly appreciated

That's some bad advice for you. Changing the third octet of your IP address would put you in a different subnet than the one assigned via DHCP by your router making you unable to communicate with anything on your network, including your with your router which gives you internet access.

Also, changing the IP address would not help you get better signal.
I would double check if your airport antenna is ok, also make sure signal is not being obstructed to/from your mac pro (i.e: concrete walls or think walls in general will attenuate radio signal, the further away from the router the fainter the signal becomes)

 

[crjackson2134]

I'm wondering if you used to have a strong signal with this machine, and if for some reason, you suddenly developed signal strength problems?

 

[Tesselator]

Hi everyone

I'm hoping someone can help me out here, i have very poor internet connection on my MacPro (2010).

All help is greatly appreciated

Signal Strength which is what your number-of-bars problem is indicating has to do a lot with environment, antenna placement, and relative proximities - besides of course power output. I can use the signal tester in my Android phone to see that the throughput speed drops exponentially with every meter I move away from the router. At just 3 or 4 meters away the throughput is around half what it is with my phone sitting half a meter from the router. So these devices are super weak to begin with!

Machine to machine wireless (802.11 whatever) has always been problematic for me. Using the router based doods have so far always been trouble free tho - with caveats as mentioned above. Part of the problem is the antenna design. They output hemispherically or spherically and if we can focus them (directionally) then given the same amount of wattage we can drastically increase the point to point signal strength - by orders of magnitude even. I got interested in this some years ago and found that by building a DIY antenna (out of a Pringles can no less) transmission and reception conducive to a decent throughput was achievable up to a full mile away. The same equipment given the provided antenna had troubles at even 2 meters from another device most of the time.

Signal boosters and repeaters are other types of devices which can drastically improve things although a little more complicated to build. I didn't try any of these myself but some designs looked pretty simple. At the time there were also more than a few commercial products available for sale - so I dunno how superior something I designed might be - although as an individual I don't have to worry too much about FCC restrictions.

It was fun reading up on all that and gave me a nice hobby for a week or so. So that's what i recommend for you as well. Whip out your search engine and go hunting for "DIY WLAN antenna mods" and "WLAN signal boosters and repeaters".

 

[compute]

thanks for replying everyone!

i'd be surprised if the poor signal weakness/strength has anything to do with walls because i "always" used to have full signal strength in the office where my MP is located, the MP is still sitting where it has been for years and we didn't do any changes in the house or anything.

Like mentioned before, when i take my (older) macbook into the office it has full signal strength in comparison to the MP.

Could this be a router problem or is this less likely (guessing it is since i have full range on my macbook)

Sorry for all the question but as you guys probably have noticed i'm a complete noob when it comes to the more technical part of computers.

 

[theSeb]

Alt (option) click on the wifi (airport icon) in the top right corner and take a screenshot of what you see there, for both the Mac Pro and Macbook.

 

[Nyy8]

The easiest solution would be to just drill a hole in the wall, and run an Ethernet cable.

 

[crjackson2134]

Okay, the fact that your laptop has better signal reception is no surprise. It has less case obstruction compared to a big hunk of aluminum shielding. I've had similar issues in the past with WinPCs, and Linux PCs. There could be better compatibility between the laptop card and the router radio, it can be simple as repositioning the router and/or router antenna(s). I once had a problem like this where I had to replace my BCM wireless card with a cheap Intel model. Totally solved my problems. You might have some sort of RFI between your MP and the router. Could be another electrical device in the house is interfering with the MP's signal.

Anytime there is a signal strength problem, it can usually be corrected by antenna solutions as mentioned by Tesselator already.

 

[chris.k]

thanks for replying everyone!
.... because i "always" used to have full signal strength in the office where my MP is located, the MP is still sitting where it has been for years and we didn't do any changes in the house or anything.

All the Wifi Radio frequencies are shared by everyone in your vicinity.

The fact that *you* did not change anything, does not preclude that one of your neighbours didn't change something; or add something, or change the frequency they're using to be the same as yours, or install a new router, install a new computer, etc..

If your neighbour goes and buys a new Internet router for his home, he could have caused this. All Wifi devices use the same general bands of radio frequencies (and use multiple 'channels' in each frequency). Your other neighbour too, and the other one, and the guy across the street, and the guy 2 houses down, etc... can all interfere with you, simply by existing and having Wifi devices of their own.

Since the radio spectrum Wifi uses is a total "free for all", (loosely regulated and requires no licence to use), given enough devices, you can see that there's no guarantee that "Wifi" will work at all.

1. Do as TheSeb Suggests. Give us a screenshot of holding ALT-clicking the Wifi icon in your menu bar. This tells us the Signal to Noise ratio, as well as the 'channel' the wifi is running on. Look for other SSIDs/Wifi Networks in your area too.

2. Change the Wifi Radio Frequency to a different channel... (assuming the cause is do to interference-from-another-neighbours-modem)... your ISP can help you with that, assuming you bought your Internet Router from them.

- CK.

 

[compute]

Ok guys thanks for all the tips and explaining. I'll post a SS tomorrow when i'm back home. Hope this will clear things up a bit.

@NYY8: drilling a hole would be a good idea if only my office wasn't located on the 4th floor (we turned the attic into a home office, the router is based on the 2nd floor. Nonetheless i never had any problems until recently)

I'll post SS tomorrow.

Thnx again!

 

[Photovore]

Okay, the fact that your laptop has better signal reception is no surprise. It has less case obstruction compared to a big hunk of aluminum shielding.

This was my first thought, though I may be naïve. When I first powered up my Mac Pro, 10' from my wireless router, I had horrible reception, and I decided that it just wasn't reasonable to expect an antenna inside a big, thick, GROUNDED aluminum chassis to do much good. I decided that airport was just dumb for a MP and wondered why they put the antenna inside the case (old G5 at work I think has an external plug-in antenna dongle-thing).

But, it did work for you at all reasonably, at first? That is enlightening....

 

[flowrider]

(old G5 at work I think has an external plug-in antenna dongle-thing).

Yep, you just triggered a memory. My old Power Mac had an external White Tee Antenna in the back. As i I recall, it was a push in thing and it's retention was really not secure.

Lou

 

[Photovore]

Yep, you just triggered a memory. My old Power Mac had an external White Tee Antenna in the back. As i I recall, it was a push in thing and it's retention was really not secure.

Lou

That's it!!

[Yes, no secure retention, although I imagine most users didn't move their computer around much once installed. On the other hand, mine gets moved around quite a bit -- but, my 4,1 doesn't have a place for that Tee. Wonder how much better reception would be if it did. Just threw an ethernet cable very untidily across the floor instead, with nails to hang it over doorways when it stays at home for a while....]