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wisnick · Apr 30, 2005, 01:18 PM

Has anyone noticed a difference in the signal strength airport shows in the top bar after installing Tiger?

bimmerphile · Apr 30, 2005, 01:51 PM

Nope. None on a 12" 1.5GHz.

mdc · Apr 30, 2005, 02:05 PM

my airport base station is downstairs. when i am downstairs i get full signal. in my room (up stairs, far away from the base station) i used to get about 2 bars. yesterday i noticed i have full signal in my room.

freak occurrence or increase in tiger, i do not know.

drprat · 03:06 PM

i posted a comment regarding this issue about a week ago in another thread also regarding airport reception... i personally have noticed increased signal strength (similar setup as mdc) and performance.... it should be noted however, that i haven't tested my airport anywhere else recently as i am back home for the summer.. typically i would be using wireless on campus as my entire campus is covered...

i hope that increased airport reception isn't your deciding factor between buying tiger or not... there is so much more in tiger that makes it a must buy....

pb 12" rev. c, 768mb ram, 60gig

mrmister · Apr 30, 2005, 02:14 PM

Yes, they recalibrated the signal strength--I've seen it in multiple laptops with multiple wifi sources.

gametime10 · Apr 30, 2005, 02:26 PM

Definitely improved my airport reception on my Rev. C 15" PB

powerduck · Apr 30, 2005, 02:40 PM

Originally Posted by gametime10

Definitely improved my airport reception on my Rev. C 15" PB

same here.

amazing · Apr 30, 2005, 04:15 PM

Originally Posted by mrmister

Yes, they recalibrated the signal strength--I've seen it in multiple laptops with multiple wifi sources.

By "recalibrated the signal strength" do you mean you suspect that Apple artificially changed a few wee bits in software to show more bars of reception? In other words, a cosmetic enhancement? Similar to a silicone injection--oops that analogy is a bit inflated...

I haven't seen any user tests where people measured their reception using something like iStumbler before the upgrade and then from the same location after the upgrade. It's similar to running xbench (as inaccurate as it is) before the upgrade and then again after the upgrade. User reports of more "snappiness" after the upgrade are a wee bit hard to quantify, without some actual testing.

The family sedan may do zero to sixty just as fast as the red convertible, but I bet the red convertible feels snappier.

gordo19 · Apr 30, 2005, 05:27 PM

I understand its down to the fact that the icon is now showing signal quality not signal strength.

An un scientific simplified example

for a 100% signal, you don't have any noise, so every 1 and every 0 is tx'ed or rx'ed correctly

but you could have say 50% signal, ie a bit more noise, but still a good enough signal to noise ration to get just about every 1 or 0, so you still get 4 bars on the icon.

hope this helps

MilkmanDan · Apr 30, 2005, 05:39 PM

12in Rev c 1.33 Powerbook and my reception has improved. I'm happy.

azt33 · Apr 30, 2005, 06:17 PM

^ Same here, I get 4 bars all around the house, I used to get 2 bars in my room (the router is one floor beneath me).

gordo19 · Apr 30, 2005, 06:28 PM

remember your signal reception has not actually changed, the 4 bars are just showing something different now.

only thing that really would increase your strength is an ext antenna or illegally more powerful router

v.noir · Apr 30, 2005, 06:49 PM

Are you really sure it's a purely cosmetic enhancement? I've got some more bars too. But i've also got slightly increased transfer speeds. Example:

Used to transfer stuff at about 500k/s. It sucked. Now, with my powerbook in the same place, stuff flies around at 1500k/s. Still much faster with wired ethernet, but an improvement is all good in my books.

sworthy · Apr 30, 2005, 07:56 PM

Can't remember where I heard it, but I was told that the signal strength remains the same, but tiger helps to reduce noise, which is represented by more bars. In short, you should see some improvements, though nothing amazing.

alphasubzero949 · May 1, 2005, 03:27 AM

I get all 4 bars as opposed to 2. My AX is about 100 ft. away.

Troll · May 1, 2005, 05:07 PM

Signal strength has gone down for me. I'm 3m from a D-Link base station and getting 3 bars. With Panther I had full strength.

wisnick · May 1, 2005, 06:06 PM

I used to barely be able to connect to a near-by AP with maybe one bar. Now it has full strength but I can not connect to it at all.

Apple may have changed some of the baseband processing of the radio modem which could improve the transmission capabilities. The receiver is not defined in 802.11a/b/g.

benwhanlee · May 1, 2005, 06:40 PM

i'm up to four bars everywhere in my house.

MrForgetable · May 1, 2005, 06:51 PM

same. 4 bars everywhere.

mrmister · May 1, 2005, 07:04 PM

They have changed how they rate the signal, and they have also changed (to a smaller degree) how receptive the systems are. Overall it appears to be a change for the better.

d.fine · May 2, 2005, 06:35 AM

Has improved for me. I now get +10MBps between Macs where I used to max out at 2-3MBps.

maczep · May 2, 2005, 12:54 PM

Originally Posted by gordo19

remember your signal reception has not actually changed, the 4 bars are just showing something different now.

only thing that really would increase your strength is an ext antenna or illegally more powerful router

Got Tibook 1gh with original built-in aiport card and Netgear WGR614V5 wireless.

with 10.3.8 (and earlier), I can work in the living room with full signals. The base is about 30 feet away through sheet rocks. Easy penetration

With tiger, same location, I get fluctuating bars

It will go from max down to 2, and stay there for a while and then go up to 4, and back down. I would says random time intervals.

Even at full network usage, the signals seems to jump. I

Connections seems to be solid at 2 bars. I thought it might be power saving, which makes sense, but it does it when it is plugged in. Now. If I restart using 10.3.8 ext FW drive. I get full signal and no fluctuation.

I tried hard reset on the router and got the same thing. I didn't see any interference that I can think of. TV and radios are off.

What is wrong?

MZ

Troll · May 2, 2005, 06:23 PM

Originally Posted by maczep

Got Tibook 1gh with original built-in aiport card and Netgear WGR614V5 wireless.

with 10.3.8 (and earlier), I can work in the living room with full signals. The base is about 30 feet away through sheet rocks. Easy penetration

With tiger, same location, I get fluctuating bars

It will go from max down to 2, and stay there for a while and then go up to 4, and back down. I would says random time intervals.

Even at full network usage, the signals seems to jump.

I just verified my experience with an iBook. Before Tiger, we had full signal, no variations which is to be expected with the router only 3 metres, line of sight, away. Installed Tiger and afterwards, the signal is fluctuating badly. Seems worse when Skype or iChat is launched. Same experience now with a PowerBook and an iBook.

I'm using a D-Link Router. Perhaps everyone who's having a good experience is using Apple Airports? Do you have an Airport or Airport Extreme card?

drprat · May 2, 2005, 07:03 PM

using a d-link wireless b router over here.... i haven't noticed any persistent fluctuations or such... signal and speed appear to be stronger overall...

iREZ · May 2, 2005, 07:31 PM

i got full bars compared to when i only used to get 3...pretty nice for us PB users. i wonder how much better the ibooks got?

maczep · May 2, 2005, 07:44 PM

Originally Posted by Troll

I just verified my experience with an iBook. Before Tiger, we had full signal, no variations which is to be expected with the router only 3 metres, line of sight, away. Installed Tiger and afterwards, the signal is fluctuating badly. Seems worse when Skype or iChat is launched. Same experience now with a PowerBook and an iBook.

I'm using a D-Link Router. Perhaps everyone who's having a good experience is using Apple Airports? Do you have an Airport or Airport Extreme card?

Ok. I am using regular Apple airport card that comes with it (not extreme).

On a side note, I borrowed a friend's Dell Latitude D800 with built-in wifi and set it to be a hub (using Intel PROset software) and connect Dell to the internet using ethernet cable. I then connect the PB to Dell using wireless and guess what same fluctuation while sharing the connect. That damn Dell is just few inches away.

Guess time to visit Apple support site and fuss a bit.

MZ

cambro · May 2, 2005, 09:14 PM

Originally Posted by Troll

I just verified my experience with an iBook. Before Tiger, we had full signal, no variations which is to be expected with the router only 3 metres, line of sight, away. Installed Tiger and afterwards, the signal is fluctuating badly.

I've noticed the same thing on my Ghz TiBook.

I share my G5 internet connection over airport all the time. The TiBook is right on the desk beside the G5.

After installing Tiger, the signal strength often drops to 2 or 3 bars on the TiBook even though the G5 base station is just a few feet away. I've NEVER seen that in 10.3 (signal was always pegged) and I've been using this arrangement virtually every day since 10.3 came out.

In the coffee shop, I've also noticed wild fluctuations (2-4 and back again) in signal strength under Tiger, but this also occassionally happened in 10.3.

Troll · May 3, 2005, 02:48 AM

Originally Posted by drprat

using a d-link wireless b router over here.... i haven't noticed any persistent fluctuations or such... signal and speed appear to be stronger overall...

Airport or Airport Extreme card?

jdogg99 · May 3, 2005, 08:27 AM

I too have noticed pretty dramatic fluctuations in my Airport signal. When I check the raw signal numbers with iStumbler, however, they were very constant, even when the airport menu was not. My Powerbook is about 3 feet from my router, and while the signal is usually 4 bars, occasionally I will see it at one (!) bar. Once when this happened I checked with iStumbler, and the signal strength was higher than I had ever seen it, even with one bar. Also, the noise numbers in iStumbler are always 0, so who knows what aspect of the signal Tiger is reporting.

Troll · May 3, 2005, 09:30 AM

Originally Posted by jdogg99

I too have noticed pretty dramatic fluctuations in my Airport signal. When I check the raw signal numbers with iStumbler, however, they were very constant, even when the airport menu was not.

On mine the fluctuations are definitely not just cosmetic. Mail routinely comes back and says it couldn't establish a link to the Internet and the voice quality in iChat and Skype drops right off when the fluctuations occur.

So far it seems like everyone who is having the problem is using a Titanium (old Airport card) with a non-Apple router.

amazing · May 3, 2005, 01:25 PM

here's an interesting tidbit from MacWorld UK, too bad it doesn't link to the actual apple page,

"If you're using Airport, you may think that the reception has suddenly improved because it shows more bars in the menu icon. Not so. Apple says "we revised the Airport indicator so it better indicates the performance you should get with your current connection. In this case more bars means faster throughput." My tests suggest the signal strength remains the same, but there's less noise."

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=11463

himself · May 3, 2005, 04:02 PM

Originally Posted by amazing

here's an interesting tidbit from MacWorld UK, too bad it doesn't link to the actual apple page,

"If you're using Airport, you may think that the reception has suddenly improved because it shows more bars in the menu icon. Not so. Apple says "we revised the Airport indicator so it better indicates the performance you should get with your current connection. In this case more bars means faster throughput." My tests suggest the signal strength remains the same, but there's less noise."

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=11463

I think I can confirm this assessment. I have a 667 VGA TiBook, with a D-Link Bluetooth adapter. Under 10.3.x, i would notice Airport signal interference from the bluetooth adapter on occasion (everytime I disable it, wireless performance returns to normal), but the Airport would always report 4 bars. Under Tiger, I still get interference every now and then, but this time the Airport signal indicator reflects the interference by dropping to two or even one bars. Disabling buletooth for about five or ten seconds allows Airport to re-establish a solid connection, and bluetooth can run without interfereing (at least for a while).

amazing · May 4, 2005, 11:18 AM

What disturbs me most about Apple's tweaking of the airport reception bars is that it implies that 4 reception bars on the iBook are no longer the same as 4 bars on the powerbooks. Apple knows that the reception in the PBs isn't great, so what do they do? Improve reception to iBook levels? Nope, the above quote seems to say that they tweak the bars. I daresay this is one of the 200 new improvements in Tiger.

Now, before questioning Apple's sanity, how do we find out if airport reception is measured in a standard way across the entire product line? Any way to do that? Certainly can't rely on user reports, given how people overwhelmingly talk about "my bars of reception show that I've got good/bad range."

buffman · May 4, 2005, 11:47 AM

Originally Posted by Troll

I just verified my experience with an iBook. Before Tiger, we had full signal, no variations which is to be expected with the router only 3 metres, line of sight, away. Installed Tiger and afterwards, the signal is fluctuating badly. Seems worse when Skype or iChat is launched. Same experience now with a PowerBook and an iBook.

I'm using a D-Link Router. Perhaps everyone who's having a good experience is using Apple Airports? Do you have an Airport or Airport Extreme card?

I have a D-Link 624 wireless router at home. Put Tiger on my daughter's 450 MHz G3 iMac...no problems, just slow (as expected). Has solid reception (one floor above router).
MY PB is parked 3 feet from the router, and I have a VERY jumpy signal (though when it rarely connects, it's solid). The eMac running 10.3.9 has no fluctuations, so it's limited to my 17" 1.33 GHz PB.
Any suggestions?
Mark Orlowski

mac'in it since 1982

mrmister · May 4, 2005, 02:53 PM

Mine has been fluctuating all morning--and I am five feet from the extreme base station. very annoying, and from what I can tell, the fluctuations bear no connection to my actual connection speed--even when it bumps down to 1 bar, nothing happens to my upload/download. Grrrrrr.

dialo · May 4, 2005, 03:19 PM

The bars on my 1ghz ti are far more accurate than it was in the past.

mrmister · May 4, 2005, 07:49 PM

Hmmm. I changed the channel on the base station, and now they are totally solid. I still can't tell any difference, either way, in throughput.

fisherKing · May 6, 2005, 05:40 PM

odd...
at my desk at home, i've been getting a solid 4 bars (where i used to get 3-to-4), but at my girlfriends house, where i'd get 3 bars, i now am getting 1 or 2...!

Buck_W · May 6, 2005, 10:08 PM

I'm seeing a significant improvement on my 867 Mhz TiBook. I have my router in the basement on one of my house and before I could not get any signal upstairs on the other end of the house. Now that Tiger is installed, I get a signal everywhere in the house. It's obviously weak on the other end of the house, but I am getting a signal where I had nothing before.

vinster · 02:39 AM

Originally Posted by amazing

Now, before questioning Apple's sanity, how do we find out if airport reception is measured in a standard way across the entire product line? Any way to do that? Certainly can't rely on user reports, given how people overwhelmingly talk about "my bars of reception show that I've got good/bad range."

There are. The Mac Stumbler utility shows the signal strength in numeric format and Apple has a couple of management utilities that allow you to check signal strength, noise and connection speed.

Troll · May 9, 2005, 06:19 AM

Originally Posted by Buck_W

I'm seeing a significant improvement on my 867 Mhz TiBook. I have my router in the basement on one of my house and before I could not get any signal upstairs on the other end of the house. Now that Tiger is installed, I get a signal everywhere in the house. It's obviously weak on the other end of the house, but I am getting a signal where I had nothing before.

What router are you using?

Troll · May 9, 2005, 06:21 AM

Originally Posted by buffman

I have a D-Link 624 wireless router at home. Put Tiger on my daughter's 450 MHz G3 iMac...no problems, just slow (as expected). Has solid reception (one floor above router).
MY PB is parked 3 feet from the router, and I have a VERY jumpy signal (though when it rarely connects, it's solid). The eMac running 10.3.9 has no fluctuations, so it's limited to my 17" 1.33 GHz PB.
Any suggestions?
Mark Orlowski

mac'in it since 1982

Well, there goes my theory that it's only the original Airport cards that are affected. Maybe it's D-Link routers that are the problem ... although that doesn't explain your daughter's emac working.

JKT · May 9, 2005, 10:14 AM

Originally Posted by amazing

What disturbs me most about Apple's tweaking of the airport reception bars is that it implies that 4 reception bars on the iBook are no longer the same as 4 bars on the powerbooks. Apple knows that the reception in the PBs isn't great, so what do they do? Improve reception to iBook levels? Nope, the above quote seems to say that they tweak the bars. I daresay this is one of the 200 new improvements in Tiger.

Now, before questioning Apple's sanity, how do we find out if airport reception is measured in a standard way across the entire product line? Any way to do that? Certainly can't rely on user reports, given how people overwhelmingly talk about "my bars of reception show that I've got good/bad range."

Download MacStumbler, KISMac or iStumbler (all free, and as a side effect see just how many of your PC using neighbours have wide open WiFi networks without even a WEP password to protect them

).