Virgin Media broadband and Macs

[Mr Pants]

Right so my net is still being a complete nightmare on the Mac.

Not sure what to troubleshoot. Router seems okay, I've checked for packet loss and it's okay. It's just slow as f**k often, sometimes the page will load to say 80-90% then just stop.

I'm even starting to think it may be my faithful Macbook lol.

I have the 20mb package with Virgin. Tried SpeedTest several times. A handful of times I've had either 1 or 2 mb which is just shocking. At the time of writing this I have 9mb. I'm upstairs so I know I'm not gonna get 20mb but still. My Dad uses the old laptop which I set up Virgin broadband on so I checked that earlier and got 17mb speed without any of the lag / non loading. With the Mac right next to it I got 10mb speed after doing the test straight after I did it on the Windows laptop.

Really is driving me mental because I use the net for personal work at home as opposed to just general browsing.

Is there any problems I could be having or is it a case of getting a Virgin engineer out? I'm thinking of upgrading to 50mb but that seems pointless at present!

 

[BenWall]

Is this with both Airport and Ethernet?

 

[Mr Pants]

Just Airport but I haven't tried Ethernet because of where the router and cables are located I could never use it as a connection I guess I could use it for testing.

I actually think it's easier to surf the web on my iPhone at the moment!

 

[Tom]

What router is it?

 

[Mr Pants]

One of the standard ones Virgin offered at the time. Netgear WGR614v6 as far as I can tell. (Just got into work, but I'm sure that's the one).

I'm all for investing in a better, new router, but the net is fine on both the Windows laptop and my iPhone. This morning pages wouldn't even load on the Mac, but they'd load fine on the iPhone in the same position.

 

[DMS]

Your broadband will have nothing to do with the issues you're having, especially if the other machines all have a decent connection.
You've either got a s**t or misconfigured router or you've got a configuration problem somewhere on the MacBook.

 

[Soup]

I'd go for a new router. Me and my dad both have seperate ISP networks coming into the house, i have an N1 Belkin and he has this old fashioned dlink, thing that he got from the isp. (We all run PoweMac's or Macbook Pro's)

We are on the same packages, paying the same amount yet his is always slower than mine and often randomly drops.

Invest in a new router, those free ones are rubbish!

 

[Mr Pants]

Your broadband will have nothing to do with the issues you're having, especially if the other machines all have a decent connection.
You've either got a s**t or misconfigured router or you've got a configuration problem somewhere on the MacBook.

Yeah I agree. I'm starting to lean towards the problem being with the MacBook now. The net is fine on the Windows laptop, sometimes it's not like instant page loads but that's because it's an old laptop that in general is slow. There's no lags with the page loads though, and downloading music and videos etc has always been very quick. The net on the iPhone is also pretty quick, and again, rarely any issues with pages not loading or being suuuuper slow.

I don't really know what to troubleshoot. The router is couple years old now, and only on 'g' rating, but when I ran SpeedTest on the Windows laptop I got 17 MB/s which is pretty decent for the 20 MB package. So I would assume that's configured okay.

It's just so frustrating. I invested in the Mac as I thought it would make me more productive at home but it's being a right PITA at present.

 

[Mr Pants]

If I do just get a new router what would people suggest?

 

[Soup]

I use a Belkin N1, connected to my Airport extreme.

Belkin have new routers now though - http://www.belkin.com/uk/networking/compare/

 

[Mr Pants]

Airport Extreme isn't a direct replacement for a router is it? I believe I'd need 'Virgin Modem > New router > Airport Extreme' to have have the set up you mention? I don't really wanna pay £142 for AE just yet. I should still be able to get good performance with a new N rated router right?

 

[Tom]

Airport extreme is a router, bloody good one at that. Especially the dual band versions.

I have a Belkin N1 but i paid £4.97 for it and i have ADSL.

 

[Mr Pants]

I really don't know what to do now lol.

I had a look over at MacRumours and this thread might be what I'm experiencing?? http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=791280&highlight=wireless+router

 

[Soup]

Airport Extreme isn't a direct replacement for a router is it? I believe I'd need 'Virgin Modem > New router > Airport Extreme' to have have the set up you mention? I don't really wanna pay £142 for AE just yet. I should still be able to get good performance with a new N rated router right?

All you'd need is your VM Modem and then the AE.

I don't have a separate Modem so i use my Belkin N1 as one for now.

 

[Mr Pants]

Oh okay. So I can either try AE for like £140 or a decent Belkin one that shouldn't be more than £50.

 

[Mr Pants]

Think I might just pop to my local Apple store and have a word with them in there. Then get either the Airport Express or Extreme kit. Being Apple products I'd hope that they can give me solid performance with my MacBook.

 

[Mot!]

Try and get a refurb AE or even a time capsule as they're exactly the same with the addition of a hard drive..

 

[spirez]

I'm with virgin and have the Netgear DG834G. My Mac connects fine but I can't for the life of me connect the xbox over wifi.

Not a fan of netgear routers. My old one caused me problems too.