Virgin Media Wireless Macbook Issue

SHARKTICUS

SHARKTICUS

SHARKTICUS

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Joined
7 May 2009
Posts
69
Hello all,

Just looking for a few ideas please on what I can try:

In our house we have a Virgin Media 20Mbit connection. The connection is great and runs very nicely through any machines connected with an ethernet cable (currently 4 on a wired connection) and the wireless is pretty good in general for the laptops in the house (currently 3 Macs and 2 Windows laptops).

The main issue, other than having to reset the router every few days to get the wireless to work on all of the laptops is that with one of the Macs specifically, requesting anything over the web using the wireless connection is horrendously slow. Sometimes it can take about 1 minute plus to display a webpage using either Safari or Firefox. This isn't linked to just webpages though I believe.

The tricky thing is that:

1). This Mac has no problem on any other wireless connection where it gets used.
2). This Mac also has no problem if it is using an ethernet cable here instead of the wireless and displays pages instantly.
3). Other machines using the wireless connection don't have this issue (including the 2 Macbooks that I am also running).

It's a bit tricky to see where the culprit lies as everything can work in certain situations.

I've tried changing the wireless channel in case of any interference with neighbours and re-created the wireless connection on the Mac in question. I can't find any updated firmware for the router but I've only had a look around this afternoon.

The router is a Virgin Media branded Netgear WGR614v4.

Many thanks in advance for any advice,
Regards,
SHARKTICUS
 
highly unlikely to be firmware, Just a thought, but have you tried setting a dedicated IP for the computer, and then setting it up on the mac to be a static ?

apart from that, it seems like a weird problem :)

will think some more. Is it on a different OS to the other macs ?

another idea might be to search for known issues with the mac in question and the Netgear WGR614v4, you might not be the only one out there :)

hope its any help
James
 
Hi,

Thanks for the reply. The Mac was on the same version of Leopard as the other Macs but is now running Snow Leopard - with no change to the wireless issue.

I've not tried setting a static IP for the machine. The DHCP part of the router seems to work fine each time and I can't see any conflicts with any forwarded ports as they only go to my server, but I could always give it a try - nothing to lose!

It is indeed a very strange issue - I just can't seem to put any one common factor down here. Maybe I should see if I can do a dual boot on that Mac and see if Windows 7 has the same issue just in case it is something to do with that wireless card. I can always check to see if there are any other drivers for that wireless device on that Mac, but I guess it would all come through on the Apple updates anyway.

Any more ideas from anyone?

Thanks,
SHARKTICUS
 
.. Dont do windows 7 on the release candidate though, there was plenty of networking problems which came about though that, use something more "well known" to the industry like XP or Vista.
 
Interesting I have a very similar issue, except the other way round, I've never been able to overcome. I've got the 50meg connection with the supplied D-Link 615 router.
All windows PCs absolutely fine but my MacBookPro is another story. Over wireless its fine except transferring files between local computers, this timesout. Web viewing is absolutely fine.

However if I use plug in an ethernet cable webpages take 1min plus to even start appearing, however local file transfers are fine.
 
janp said:
Interesting I have a very similar issue, except the other way round, I've never been able to overcome. I've got the 50meg connection with the supplied D-Link 615 router.
All windows PCs absolutely fine but my MacBookPro is another story. Over wireless its fine except transferring files between local computers, this timesout. Web viewing is absolutely fine.

However if I use plug in an ethernet cable webpages take 1min plus to even start appearing, however local file transfers are fine.
Click to expand...

Have you tried turning off the wireless when you have the ethernet cable plugged in case there is a conflict? It might be fighting over which connection to use... just an idea!

Also, in terms of my original problem - with one of the latest reboots of the router (which I need to do every day now) the problem appears to have gone away - for now! It's also possible that the other Macbook that was having the problems had some sort of update of course (it's my housemate's Mac so not sure if she updated it, will have to ask).
 
Yeh I never have the wireless enabled if I'm using a direct ethernet cable.

I suspect its an issue with the Macbook's wireless drivers and the particular router. I remember we had a Linksys access point at work and all mac devices were getting terrible speeds with that, we switched to a lovely 2nd hand Cisco access point and the issue went away.

I might try and update to Snow Leopard (still on Leopard atm) to see if that resolves the issue. I'll let you know if I ever work it out :)
 
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