Are apple's wireless radios weaker than other laptops?

C

CLKeenan

Banned
Jun 24, 2006
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Boston, MA
Trying to troubleshoot an issue with the wireless in my apartments. Roommates (who all use apple products... 2x mac book pros and 1x iMac) complain they get shitty wireless speed (<10mbps) and the signal constantly drops but my Lenovo t430s gets ~50mbps down and doesn't lose signal at all when tested side by side.

Not trying to start a apple flame war, just trying to troubleshoot this issue.
 


Router model? Are you running 802.g or 802.b. Maybe try logging into the routers admin screen and try forcing 802.b and see what that does.

Edit: only say this because I had guests over with a Mac laptop and that seemed to resolve it for me. I guess it may also help to know the wireless card/chipset to know what it may support. Laptop models?
 
Router is a TP-Link WDR3600 (http://www.tp-link.com/en/products/details/?model=TL-WDR3600) / [ame=http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WDR3600-Wireless-Gigabit-300Mbps/dp/B008RV51EE]Amazon.com: TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 Wireless N600 Dual Band Router, Gigabit, 2.4GHz 300Mbps+5Ghz 300Mbps, 2 USB port, Wireless On/Off Switch: Computers & Accessories[/ame]

It's a dual band router. They get poor reception on both the 2.4 and 5ghz modes.

Not 100% sure of the MBP models, but I imagine they were bought within the past year or two. The iMac was bought 2 years ago. Sorry for not having more details info.
 
No experience with that router, but easy things to try first (things I have done for speed issues with my Netgear WNDR3700 which is similar):

1) I would first check that QoS is disabled (if enabled, may be throttling bandwidth)
2) Maybe change the channel your router is on as it maybe interfering with other routers or wireless gear close by. Change it to like channel 8 or something different than 1 or 2.
3) Good practice, but not necessarily related to the issue...I had experienced page time outs, etc. in the past using my provider's settings. To cure it, I changed my static DNS settings in the DHCP network settings to Google's:

Static DNS 1: 8.8.8.8
Static DNS 1: 8.8.4.4

4) After doing the above - on the Mac gear, maybe try turning off their wireless adapter, deleting and then reinstall it with a different name.

Other than that try support and or support forums. Make sure your firmware is up to date, but also make sure you know the correct firmware and procedure for flashing because it's easy to brick a router.
 
My macbook pro does way better than my samsung. However, I find I loose connection once every other day or so and have to reboot because if I reconnect it's unbelievably slow, like less than 500kbs slow
 
Running Bootcamp on my Macbook Air.

In Win7, this thing can connect from down the fucking street.
In Mac OS, it drops connection every time it comes out of sleep mode.
 
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