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Darthmaul4114 · Nov 27, 2005, 12:31 AM

i have a question about different routers. when i am at school, at the place i live i am connected to a Linksys WRT54G which in turn is connected to a cable modem. it works perfectly....like everyone on my network gets aweseomly fast net (between 1.5-3.0 megabits/sec depending on time of day). when i am at home, i am connceted to a Netgear WGR614, which is connected to dsl. as of right now, i have full signal (well all 4 bars are lit up) and my internet is god awfully slow. i did a bandwidth test and it isn't that because it tested at about 1.2 megabits/sec which is still pretty fast. but pages take FOREVER to load. for example it took about 45 seconds for the macnn homepage to load. my sister's imac is the same too. but her boyfriend's dell and my dad's pc connected to it perfectly fine. also, at my neighbors house, i got pretty fast internet on his dsl line too.

i was wondering if macs have like connectivity or bandwidth issues with certain routers. almost every router i connect to is usually a Linksys (im not sure what my school uses, but its fast). my nieghbor's was a belkin and that was quick too. i just updated the firmware and everything for the netgear, and even when sitting like 2 feet from the router everything loads so slow. at least im only here for another day until i go back to school, but for winter break i don't think i can stand it. was wondering if anyone knows if it really is a hardware problem, in which case i'd probably go buy another wrt54g for my dad and hook it up here so i can surf the net propperly, or if there is a way to fix it.

thanks

bradoesch · Nov 27, 2005, 06:36 AM

The easiest way to find out is just eliminate the router. Plug the DSL modem directly into your Mac and bypass the router altogether. See what happens. My guess would be your DSL connection has issues but you'll know for sure if you try.

tooki · Nov 27, 2005, 09:16 AM

Exactly. There are far too many factors differentiating the two test situations above to be able to make a diagnosis. Narrow it down by testing just one thing at a time, rather than the whole setup.

tooki

Darthmaul4114 · Nov 27, 2005, 04:45 PM

i'm back at school so it is too late to try, but the windows machines that are on the network at home seem to work perfectly fine, and the 2 macs don't. I'll try directly plugging it in next time I am at home though

Darthmaul4114 · Dec 12, 2005, 08:17 PM

ok i'm back at home now. wireless is still as slow as ever, so I hardwired myself into the router...still slow. and now i just plugged myself directly into the dsl modem and it works perfectly fine. really fast. so i'm pretty sure that the router is the faulty connection here at home. either we have a bad router (tho im not sure cuz my dad's windows machine works perfectly fine on it), or netgear isn't mac friendly. oh well....time to buy a new router tomorrow.....

f1000 · Dec 12, 2005, 09:44 PM

Originally Posted by Darthmaul4114

ok i'm back at home now. wireless is still as slow as ever, so I hardwired myself into the router...still slow. and now i just plugged myself directly into the dsl modem and it works perfectly fine. really fast. so i'm pretty sure that the router is the faulty connection here at home. either we have a bad router (tho im not sure cuz my dad's windows machine works perfectly fine on it), or netgear isn't mac friendly. oh well....time to buy a new router tomorrow.....

Does your router have an option to switch WAN connection speeds? Try setting this option to 10, 100, or auto.

Darthmaul4114 · 11:10 PM

nope, dont see that option anywhere

i think the router just doesnt like macs. because my dad's PC and the other PCs on our network work fine, but my powerbook and our imac are horribly and painfully slow. i think it took me about 2 minutes to load google last time i opened up safari on the wireless.

tooki · Dec 13, 2005, 12:12 AM

I have seen some Netgear hubs that worked horribly with Macs (which is unquestionably a problem with the hub). It's possible that the internal switch in that router has a similar flaw. If you have an ethernet hub or switch laying around the house, try putting it in between the Macs and the router and see if it works better.

Another possible thing to try, at least on Ethernet, is that the problem is autonegotiation failure. Try manually setting the Mac's ethernet link speed to 100Mbps full-duplex.

tooki

Darthmaul4114 · Dec 13, 2005, 01:24 AM

i dont really care about the ethernet connection as i wont really use it. i'm just plugged directly into the modem right now since no one else is using the net, and i can't live with slower than dialup connection speeds because the router my dad bought is retarded. i'm going to try a linksys router tomorrow and see if the problem persists. if not, i will never ever touch a netgear product again with a ten foot stick......

i knew my dad shouldn't have saved the cash and bought a linksys to begin with.....

tooki · Dec 13, 2005, 11:04 AM

I originally had a Netgear router. It died completely, so I sent it back and got a fresh refurb. A few months later, the replacement's wireless went, completely.

I then got a D-Link, which failed after a month. The store gave me a new one, which I then returned when Tiger came out because D-Link's firmware causes it to crash the instant a Tiger Mac tries to connect...

I'm on a Linksys now, and it's been fine.

tooki

Darthmaul4114 · 08:13 PM

yea we had a d-link before we got the netgear. just got a new linksys today. works perfectly.

*edit* i just configured the router, and for some reason it will only let one machine connect at time.....
whenever i try to connect with another computer, both of them wont work. wtf