[ayn]

Hi, I got a 15" PowerBook a couple of weeks ago. The wireless signal strength meter on my PB is almost never full, unless I have direct line-of-sight of the access point. I've tried it with 2 different APs, Linksys WRT54G, and Linksys BEFW11S4 (version 1).

I thought at first it was because I had Airport Extreme, my iBook (dual-USB) had regular Airport and it shows full signal strength all the time. But, one of my neighbors just got a new iMac G5 and I went over to check it out. I associated the iMac and my PB to the same AP (the BEFW11S4, 802.11b), and his iMac G5 showed full strength and my PB was missing one bar. What gives?

Also, I've noticed that the AE meter shows "available" bandwidth, instead of signal strength. If I am downloading something it might drop from full-1 to 2 bars.

I am wondering if these are normal behavior, or if there is something wrong with my PB. The Airport Extreme connection is not as fast as I think it should be. (I have a Dell D600 from work with built-in .g running Gentoo Linux and it is way faster with the WRT54G).

Any idea? Maybe I should sell the WRT54G and pick up an Airport Extreme base station? I just couldn't justify the extra money, and I can do cool stuff in Linux on the WRT54G's ram drive.

Thanks for any advice!

--Andrew

[ibook_steve]

That behavior is normal. Define fast and slow. What are you trying to do that is faster with the PC than the PB?

Steve

[ayn]

output/response time in SSH, in Terminal.app in OS X, and Konsole in KDE in Gentoo GNU/Linux.

Also, web browsing response time/load time in Safari in OS X, and FireFox 1.0PR in Gentoo GNU/Linux.

--Andrew

[ibook_steve]

Do you mean you are ssh'ing to a server and the response is slower? Strange, but I don't know how you can blame that on the wireless connection. As for web browsing, Safari isn't always the fastest anymore, unfortunately. Have you tried any others? You are kind of doing apples to oranges comparisons (pun intended). Compare your PB to the iBook or the iMac you mentioned and see how it performs.

Steve

[adambooth]

I for one know that the antenna in the iBook performs better than the antennae in the PowerBook. Just through rough tests (no numbers), i see that the iBook gets greater range. It's just a fact of life. I don't really see the matter with missing one bar. If you're connected and transfers are around the normal speed, personally I don't care.

But comparing OS X software to Linux software IS comparing Apples to oranges. It's just not going to be a fair comparison. You're not only testing the wireless speed but also the applications themselves, which might be the same code base, but are still very different.

[ayn]

Yes, I do most of my work via SSH (with GNU Screen), so very fast SSH connection is very important. SSH in Terminal.app is fine on the iBook and all the other laptops I got, running FreeBSD and Gentoo. But it is slower in the PB for whatever reason.

I said in my first post that I did compare it to an iMac G5 with AE. so it wasn't really apple to orange. I've compared my PB against iBook dual-USB with Airport (not extreme), iMac G5 with AE, Fujitsu with Linksys 802.11b card, Dell D600 with built-in Centrino 802.11g, in different OSes; OS X, Gentoo, FreeBSD, and XP), and the PB is the worst performer of all.

OSes, standards, instructions sets, protocols, and everything technical aside, the bottom line is that I expect my PB with AE to have faster or at least equal connection speed than my 2-year-old iBook with a regular Airport card.

I am going to check the connection of the antenna when I get home, other than that and a defective AE card, I can't think of anything. A friend of mine has a PB with identical configs, I'm going to compare them some time this week.

I did try Firefox 1.0PR in OS X as well as Safari, same thing.

About the comment about better resception with iBook vs PB, it makes sense, the PB is aluminum.

--Andrew

[MrForgetable]

The only time I've ever gotten full strength on Airport is when I was in the room where the router lies. My bedroom is 2 rooms away and my sister's iBook gets full strength most of the time. I get between 2-3 lines depending on what's between us I suppose.

[milkmanchris]

Originally posted by ayn:
Hi, I got a 15" PowerBook a couple of weeks ago. The wireless signal strength meter on my PB is almost never full, unless I have direct line-of-sight of the access point. I've tried it with 2 different APs, Linksys WRT54G, and Linksys BEFW11S4 (version 1).

I thought at first it was because I had Airport Extreme, my iBook (dual-USB) had regular Airport and it shows full signal strength all the time. But, one of my neighbors just got a new iMac G5 and I went over to check it out. I associated the iMac and my PB to the same AP (the BEFW11S4, 802.11b), and his iMac G5 showed full strength and my PB was missing one bar. What gives?

Also, I've noticed that the AE meter shows "available" bandwidth, instead of signal strength. If I am downloading something it might drop from full-1 to 2 bars.

I am wondering if these are normal behavior, or if there is something wrong with my PB. The Airport Extreme connection is not as fast as I think it should be. (I have a Dell D600 from work with built-in .g running Gentoo Linux and it is way faster with the WRT54G).

Any idea? Maybe I should sell the WRT54G and pick up an Airport Extreme base station? I just couldn't justify the extra money, and I can do cool stuff in Linux on the WRT54G's ram drive.

Thanks for any advice!

--Andrew

Try running Macstumbler, it will give you a 'proper' signal strength reading

[az_matt]

My brand new 12" PB had problems with the built-in AE. Even when sitting on the desk not 6" away from the Linksys WRT54G basestation, the best readings I could get were ~3 bars in Internet Connect, about 20% signal strength with MacStumbler.

Finally on a day off I took it to the local Apple store, prepared to ask for a new PB. They took it back behind closed doors and came back maybe 15 minutes later with it working properly.

They told me that the AE card "was not seated properly." They said that it was "making intermittant contact and that was causing the bad range/signal strength." I smell BS, though. Because when I brought it home, suddenly I wasn't able to connect AT ALL to my basestation. After some quick troubleshooting, I determined that my AE card now had a different MAC address - and I have my basestation set to permit only manually entered MAC addresses. So it seems that they just replaced the AE card, I have no idea why they would feel the need to not tell me this? I really wouldn't care either way - if the card were seated wrong or if it needed a new AE card. I just can't figure out why they'd tell me it was seated wrong if they replaced it???

End of the long story is that with the new AE card in my PB, performace is where it should be. Maybe this helps? How bad are you signal strength readings? If the PB is new, try taking it to the Apple Store (if you have one nearby) and see what they can do...

Matthew

[ayn]

I'll take it to the store some time, I work 5 minutes from it so it's not a problem. It's only a couple of weeks old, and I know the genius pretty well. I'm on my 4th 4g 40gb ipod (which still has static problems, but that's another story), my iBook needed the mainboard replaced, so I've been there MANY times.

--Andrew