[eobet]

I have the following setup:

1x Airport Express connected to 10mbit ethernet broad band
1x Windows XP machine with a 400gb NTFS formatted firewire harddrive + wlan
1x Macbook Pro

(Soon to have 1x Macbook as well in the same apartment.)

With this, I have the following problems:

* I can't get more than 1.6mb/s datatransfer rate between my two computers when copying files.
* I can't watch divx movies located on the firewire disk via the wlan on my MBP without having the movies stutter
* Sometimes, I can't get a complete file listing on the MBP of my Windows XP shares (it lists only up to a certain letter).
* Sometimes, I can't copy or double-click files located in a Windows XP share on the MBP (I suspect it has to do with spaces and Swedish characters in the file/folder names, because if I rename the files and move them to the root, OS X can copy and read them).

I suspect that the first two problems have to do with the Airport Express. My two computers should be able to do 54mb/s without a problem, but can the Airport Express?

I have already disabled the interference compensation and increased some sort of packet thing to 11 and put the signal strength to 100%, but I haven't noticed any difference.

The final two problems I suspect is due to Samba. Does anyone else have these problems and know if I can configure anything to make them go away?

[OreoCookie]

Yes, AirPort Express is capable of both, the b (= 11 MBit/s) and g (= 54 MBit/s) standard. However, these are theoretical brutto throughputs, you have to keep in mind that these are the net data rates under optimal conditions are lower. Furthermore, the data rates depend on the specific architecture of your home, etc. Even if you have a signal strength of 100 %, that doesn't mean you'll get optimal throughput.

Furthermore, if there is one 802.11b device connected to your network, the AirPort Express card will switch to 802.11b (= 11 MBit/s) for all devices (that's not a peculiarity of Apple's hardware, but what is supposed to happen). Are you sure you have a 54 MBit/s card in your PC that complies with the 802.11g standard? If you want to know whether this is the case, open the Networking Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities) and select the tab `Information'. Make sure the correct network interface (en1) is selected and read off the speed of the network.

Overall, I doubt that the problem is due to Samba or NTFS.

[eobet]

My Macbook Pro is a week 12 Core Duo.

My Windows XP machine has this: WEBHALLEN.com [Gigabyte Tr�dl�st N�tverkskort .11g 108Mbps PCI (GN-WPEAG)]

EDIT: I have now also forced the Aiport Express into .11g and put the speed thing to 24 (the one I could only push to 11 before). Same thing, steady 1.6mb/s transfer rate, nothing more, despite max signal strength on both computers.

[ghporter]

Oreo, that "speed downgrade" from G speeds to B speeds would only happen with a "computer to computer" (aka "ad hoc") network. The AEBS can handle both B and G traffic simultaneously (or as close to simultaneously as to be effectively the same thing). All current wireless routers that support both B and G can do this, though some early G devices did have to switch between the two.

eobet, I'd be very interested in how you connect between the PC and MacBook Pro-what are your settings for Sharing and Network on the MBP? Samba should be much better than what you're seeing, but there are ways to accidentally subvert your file sharing, depending on how you have things set up.

[eobet]

Between the PC and MBP exists only the Airport Express network, with WPE2 security.

The Airport Express has been put on .11g mode with no compensation and 24 multicast rate. It's on channel 1 now as well (and no other wireless network share it, the only other network is on channel 11 and it is not mine).

On the PC, I have just right-clicked on the folders I want to share and enabled sharing. My MBP finds my PC via the network icon and I can mount the shared folders from there.

I have not changed any network or sharing settings on my MBP, but the firewall is enabled (didn't make any difference when I switched it off, though... still 1.6mb/s steady).

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Oreo, that "speed downgrade" from G speeds to B speeds would only happen with a "computer to computer" (aka "ad hoc") network. The AEBS can handle both B and G traffic simultaneously (or as close to simultaneously as to be effectively the same thing). All current wireless routers that support both B and G can do this, though some early G devices did have to switch between the two.

Thanks, I guess my knowledge about WLANs is a bit dated
I knew that some people had speed `problems' with their g hardware, because some others with older WLAN cards would inadvertently connect to their network.