[Seaking]

Hi guys, new to the forum and very new to the iMac and Macs in general, steep learning curve.

My iMac (20" 2.4 GHz core2Dduo, aluminum frame) had no probs finding my wireless network in the home so that was good. I have a unique SSID and WAP set up on the router so once I entered the SSID and key I was logged in nicely. I found that my iMac is already set up for the n protocal (older model owners have to purchase a $2 proggie to enable it). It also shows WAP2 enabled though it's not on the router.. strange.. no probs.

I ran both the iMac's N wireless and my Toshiba Laptop's G wireless on a broadband speed test and the lower G wireless beat the pants off the iMac's N speeds by a heft margin, almost double the speed, both UP and DOWNloads. (iMac has a good range with the DLINK 655 Extreme N router..)

Is there something I should be looking at specifically on the iMac to 'open' it up more? I do find it on the slow side of things. Hooking it up wired to the network also doesn't great speeds compared to the other PCs in the house. Is this the norm?

Like I said, I'm quite new at the Apple end of things, learning as I go along.. hoping to get some good info from this highly recommended site.

Cheers!

[bishopazrael]

Hello Seaking. Welcome to the forums! You'll find it a great place to be. One thing I'd suggest is to subscribe to the RSS feed in Safari. You'll see that this forum is a great place to discuss much more than just Mac's.

Anyways, as to your problem, if I understand you right, you're saying that the speed you're getting the web on the mac is slower than on a PC? I've said as much before but never really gotten a good clear answer as to why that is. Not sure why.

However one thing I'd suggest you try is on both computers, the Mac and the Toshiba both, go to Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test and test the speeds there. The other way to measure is to copy a single file, like say... a movie file. I've got a West Wing episode Im transfering from my mini in the wife's office to my lappy. 346.9 mb takes 17 minutes right now. I should be able to swing that in about 3 minutes or so, not 17. So yeah... the wifi on the mac is...... slower. Mine has always been this slow. I don't have the N, just the G, but Im a tech and my network is setup right.

So yeah, probably there's going to be a speed difference. I think some of it has to do with the way that mac's vs pc's deal with web traffic and re-requesting bad packets and such. I don't know of any way to boost it as of yet, but I am not by any stretch of the imagination the smartest guy here on the forums. Hopefully someone will have more input on it that might bring about some results.

Good luck, and welcome again.
Bishop

[Seaking]

Thanks Bishop.. I feel like such a n00be with this iMac.. simplest of things are confusing me lol but at least its starting to make sense.. File management is a pain for me right now until I get used to it and find an app similar to Windows Commander which is similar to what I used on the Amiga with Directory Opus (anyone get a pang of nostalgia there? lol)

I just did that speed test on both machines (wired to the router)

iMac: 5281 kb/s down and 881 kb/s up
PC: 7235 kb.s down and 947 kb/s up

This is an 'average' as several tests showed a huge variance in speed readings..

Shouldn't complain though.. impress 20" iMac you can carry around the house hehe

[AppleOptionFour]

Originally Posted by Seaking 

File management is a pain for me right now...

Spotlight friend...spotlight.

Others might say Quicksilver though.

Don't feel like a noob at all. Once you get the feel of OSX you'll be a pro in no time. I used XP forever and was a heavy keyboard shortcut person. With OSX however, I feel like a keyboard shortcut Jedi of sorts. Of course it took a while to break my XP habits.

Just remember. Don't think about how you do something in XP then apply that to OSX...normally there is a much quicker way. Drag and drop will be your friend before too long.