Help with lousy networking on new MBPR?

My home office is quite far from my wireless access point. I'm able to get good network connection with other devices (e.g., my phone, my old laptop), but get unusable speeds with my new MBPR.

Is there some magic MacOS "go fast" setting I'm missing for the wireless? Does anyone have any troubleshooting tips?

I've been considering getting a time machine, which includes an Airport Express. I'm assuming that the 5 GHz spectrum will give me better connectivity than the 2.4 GHz that I'm getting on my current WAP. Does anyone have any experience there? Is the Airport Express good over longer distances with several walls to go through? Or should I look into one of those wireless repeater things?

(And yes, it's dumb that my WAP is far from my office. There are good reasons why it's set up that way, it would be expensive to move, and was never a problem before I got my MBPR.)

Thanks a million for any help or suggestions...

 

you could get a wireless repeater, stick it halfway between points A and B, and connect your mbpr to that.

 

I could, but to me that would be plan B if the Airport Express is likely to give significantly better coverage than a 2.4 GHz WAP. I was just wondering if anyone had experience with the Airport Express and could tell me whether it is likely to give a significant performance boost. (Thanks, by the way, Masterchef.)

 

Not sure what is the exact spec of the Airport express, but 5Ghz will not net you a stronger (longer range persay) connection. Unless your problem is due do interference, 5Ghz will not help.

 

Which make and model WAP are you using?

 

It's a 2Wire Gateway. Never heard of one? Me neither. It's the free one that came with my DSL service.

@baiii: Agreed about the range, but I thought the 5 GHz had better coverage due to the shorter wave length. Is that all wrong?

 

actually the 2.4ghz will get more interference from other devices, but it also has a better range and goes through solid objects like walls better than 5ghz band. The 5ghz band is a bit more open and they are able to get some higher network speeds that high, but its not better at getting a signal from point A to point B, its actually a bit worse.

 

I've been running the Netgear WNDR3700 for about a year and a half I think. It's dual band and the 2.4 band certainly has better range. I use the 5 GHz band on occasion just so it doesn't get lonely.

You might consider picking one up, or some of the newer models. Works great with my fibre connection (Verizon FIOS).

You should be able to disable the WIFI portion of the 2wire for testing.

 

Ok, so to sum up, there might (or might not) be some improvement by going to an airport express, but a shift to 5 GHz is unlikely to help. So I am likely looking at a repeater setup. Thanks all.

I'm still not clear why my MBPr is getting such poor networking performance compared to my phone, old laptop, Xbox, ...

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

 

not sure either. Mine seems to pick up just as good as my iPhone and my old Macbook Pros. Maybe something is screwy with the antenna in yours?

 

So to close this one out...

I picked up a Time Capsule (with built-in Airport Extreme). WiFi reception is dramatically better. Not perfect by a long shot, but now within acceptable levels.

I was surprised that configuring the Time Capsule was considerably more difficult than I'd expected. The auto-detection of settings was wrong and required me to dig through all sorts of menus to get things right. And the auto channel selection picked literally the most busy channel, and was a little tricky to fix. Also, perhaps there is a way for me to select which band I'm using when I connect, but I haven't been able to find it. Ah well, Apple usability isn't quite what it's cracked up to be in all cases.

 

Which is why I recommended the NETGEAR WNDR3700. It's easy to configure and use and has great performance. It's also highly reliable. I reboot mine like once per quarter whether it needs it or not.

 

I know i'm a bit late to the party, but just to chime in that the 2wire gateway is an absolute piece of junk when it comes to router functions. I know, i used to have one manage my network. Now it's happily serving as a router only and a Linksys E4200 is doing a pretty good job of managing the networking part.

I'm curious to know what kind of wireless adapter the MBPR has. IIRC, Apple used ok adapters in their previous MBPs, but nothing top of the line like the higher end Atheros chips or the intel 6000 series. I could be wrong though, been a while since i checked the specs for the wireless adapters in macbooks.

The WNDR3700 v2 (the v3 packs completely different hardware and isn't as good) is one of the best 2 stream routers available as well, thors.hammer is right about that.

As for getting the most out of your network, you can use this to see what other networks are in range: http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider-for-mac/. Set your router to the less crowded channel out of 1, 6 and 11.

 

The Retina model still uses a Broadcom wireless chipset. I'm not sure it's the same as what has been in the older Pro models. As you said, they're OK, and I do wish Apple would have made the switch to another brand. They must be getting a sweetheart deal on the price of the components.

 

It's likely, they are probably trying to cut costs down on some of the things people don't really look into. They are far from the only ones doing it too which is a shame considering wireless adapters cost next to nothing and those are considered high end notebooks.

 

At least on my MBP, Bluetooth is a Broadcom chipset, too. Perhaps this was the only way Apple could combine the technologies and still allow for a 3x3 wireless configuration. I believe neither Intel nor Atheros offer any kind of combined 3x3/Bluetooth module. They probably want it this way so people will buy an Airport Extreme Base Station, which can take advantage of such a setup to deliver 450 Mbps wireless.

 

I think you're right about Atheros and Intel not offering 3x3 and bluetooth in one package yet