1. Home
  2. Wireless Networking
  3. Wireless connection dropping packets---oh no it isn't.

Wireless connection dropping packets---oh no it isn't.

Our windows machine fried, so we bought a mac mini (a few weeks ago). Inbuilt wireless, you know. We put it in the spot where the windows machine was, and the wireless connection is ropey. If I connect to our household wireless network and then ping a remote machine from the command line, I'll get dropped packets (only a few percent, but dropped packets nonetheless). If I watch some video clip on e.g. the bbc news website, I'll get 10 seconds of clip and then 3 seconds of "loading..." and then 10 more seconds of clip etc.

We put a friend's Windows laptop (also with inbuilt wireless and also brand new) in the same place, connected it to the same wireless network, and it works just fine. We watch the same clip on the bbc news website and it plays in its entireity without buffering. In fact, if we watch the same clip on both machines simultaneously then it will play on the windows machine and buffer on the mac.

Now I know *nothing* about wireless, so I can't even answer the following question: Are some inbuilt wireless recievers better than others, and all that's happening here is that I've noticed that the inbuilt one on the mac mini is less effective in some way, or has lower specs, than the inbuilt one on the windows laptop?

Or is this inconcievable, and the issue is something else, like processor speed or other performance factors on the mac being worse than on the windows machine.

If I'm right and somehow the mac mini is shipping with an internal wireless reciever which is less good at dealing with a weakish signal (the nearest wireless router is on a different floor and at the other end of the house---but this didn't remotely bother either windows machine) then what are the fixes? I thought of

1) buy a more powerful wireless router: cost of about 100 UK pounds.

2) buy another wireless router that can pick up a signal and boost it and send it on again: also seemed to cost about 100 pounds, at least in the random shop on Tottenham Court Road that I tried.

I am wondering about

3) buy some kind of gadget ("dongle"?) that plugs into the back of the mac and gives me a much better reciever. I am wondering whether this could (a) work and (b) cost less than 100 UK pounds.

Or, if my symptoms are still too vague, are there any natural tests that I can do on the mac to fathom out what's going on? I am a mac novice, but have a fair bit of unix experience.

Kevin Buzzard

Reply to
Kevin Buzzard
Loading thread data ...

Macs ship with Airport Extreme, and they're pretty crappy, certainly as receivers. When we have guests in the back room, the guests with PC laptops don't have any trouble getting a signal; the guests with Macs (very expensive MacBook Pros too) can't get anything at all. Now I don't mind putting a new access point back towards there, which would probably also cover the back yard (bonus) but, yeah, the Airport Extreme is shit.

Reply to
Warren Oates

Thanks! So now it seems that we have located the problem.

So now I'm looking for a cheap solution. Is it possible to buy a better, external, wireless reciever for my mac mini, and then just plug it into e.g. a USB port on the back of the mac and boom, problem solved? In some sense this would be the ideal solution for me, because I'm currently contemplating changing my ISP from down-the-phone-line to down-a-fibre-optic-cable and I've been led to believe that this would entail throwing all my routers etc away and buying new ones, but on the other hand I'd like to fix this mac issue ASAP. What I'm saying is that if I buy another access point then I might be throwing it away in 6 weeks anyway.

Reply to
Kevin Buzzard

I can't address that, I don't know how fibre is delivered, but it would seem to me that the only new equipment you'd have would be some kind of "modem" just like with xDSL, no? That you could connect to a wireless router's WAN port, no? And then add an access point.

Reply to
Warren Oates

When I last went to buy a wireless router, I was asked who my internet service provider was, because they wanted to sell me one sort if my internet was coming down the phone line and another sort if it was coming down a cable (and in the UK, pretty much every ISP sells precisely one of these services). I know *nothing* about wireless networking I'm afraid, and maybe you're telling me that I've got the wrong end of the stick, but I extrapolated from this that if I decided to change my home broadband from ADSL to cable then I'd have to buy a new router and a new wireless router (the things I currently have in my set-up) and so I didn't want to start expanding on what I have if I'm going to take the plunge and change in a few weeks.

Am I talking nonsense?

Reply to
Kevin Buzzard

Yes, there must be USB wireless adaptors for Mac. This would have the advantage that you can put it on a USB extension and reposition it for optimum signal strength. If there aren't any, just install Ubuntu on it ;-)

That is, down a fibre to the street corner, then to your premises over coax, which plugs into a modem which will have an ethernet port on it. Personally I find Virgin Media's marketing at best disingenuous and at worst fraudulent.

Your new router will need an ethernet WAN port, your current one will have a DSL WAN port.

Conceivably you could use your current ADSL wireless router as an access point linked to whatever new router you get.

Reply to
alexd

Not at all. You may have been misinformed, however.

My xDSL "modem" connects to the 'phone line (to my ISP) via a plain old phone jack (RJ11); it connects to my router's WAN port via an ethernet jack (RJ45 if you want, 8P8C). My router is a DGL 4300, wireless g and gigabit. Very nice too, I might add.

If your ISP gives you a "modem" that connects to them via fibre, and it has an ethernet jack for your router, then nothing will have changed except that modem, as far as I can see. That doesn't mean I'm right, though; like I said, I have no knowledge of fibre, or of British ISPs either, but my first action would be to simply swap the "modems" and see what transpired.

Reply to
Warren Oates

couple of things, there are several real neat usb wifi dongles (that i've used/work with pc's, wouldn't surprise me if the are available for mac too), including ones that are semidirectional (I like this one

formatting link
hah, they do have a mac one
formatting link
and a link for buying online, $89, don't know if they sell/ship to the uk tho)

installs as a seperate device (doesn't kill the existing wireless), ie at home plugged in and works, going bye-bye, unplug the usb cable and the built-in wireless takes over...

as for fibre, got it here, and for us there is an interface box - fios in - cable/phone/cat5 out

Reply to
Peter Pan

Kevin Buzzard wrote in news:gv3q29$qi6$ snipped-for-privacy@north.jnrs.ja.net:

Not nonsense, just not accurate. As you'd said you don't know anything about this stuff, and unfortunately, most that work at stores either know only a tiny bit more than you, or are just trying to sell-sell-sell to you for commission.

Whatever service you use...DSL, cable, or fiber, you want to make sure the modem has an ethernet jack. Do not accept a modem that has USB only. It is prone to problems, and it can't easily be shared.

Reply to
DanS

Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.