Wireless connection dropping packets---oh no it isn't.

Our windows machine fried, so we bought a mac mini (a few weeks ago). Inbuilt
wireless, you know. We put it in the spot where the windows
machine was, and the wireless connection is ropey. If I connect to our
household wireless network and then ping a remote machine
from the command line, I'll get dropped packets (only a few
percent, but dropped packets nonetheless). If I watch some video clip
on e.g. the bbc news website, I'll get 10 seconds of clip and then 3 seconds
of "loading..." and then 10 more seconds of clip etc.

We put a friend's Windows laptop (also with inbuilt wireless and also
brand new) in the same place, connected it to the same wireless network,
and it works just fine. We watch the same clip on the bbc news website
and it plays in its entireity without buffering. In fact, if we watch
the same clip on both machines simultaneously then it will play
on the windows machine and buffer on the mac.

Now I know *nothing* about wireless, so I can't even answer the
following question: Are some inbuilt wireless recievers better
than others, and all that's happening here is that I've noticed
that the inbuilt one on the mac mini is less effective in some
way, or has lower specs, than the inbuilt one on the windows laptop?

Or is this inconcievable, and the issue is something else, like
processor speed or other performance factors on the mac being
worse than on the windows machine.

If I'm right and somehow the mac mini is shipping with an internal
wireless reciever which is less good at dealing with a weakish
signal (the nearest wireless router is on a different floor and at the other
end of the house---but this didn't remotely bother either windows
machine) then what are the fixes? I thought of

1) buy a more powerful wireless router: cost of about 100 UK pounds.

2) buy another wireless router that can pick up a signal and
boost it and send it on again: also seemed to cost about 100 pounds,
at least in the random shop on Tottenham Court Road that I tried.

I am wondering about

3) buy some kind of gadget ("dongle"?) that plugs into the back of the mac
and gives me a much better reciever. I am wondering whether this
could (a) work and (b) cost less than 100 UK pounds.

Or, if my symptoms are still too vague, are there any natural tests
that I can do on the mac to fathom out what's going on? I am a mac
novice, but have a fair bit of unix experience.

Kevin Buzzard

In article <gv3f01$nb9$1@north.jnrs.ja.net>,
Kevin Buzzard <buzzard@ic.DELETE.ac.uk> wrote:

> Our windows machine fried, so we bought a mac mini (a few weeks ago). Inbuilt
> wireless, you know. We put it in the spot where the windows
> machine was, and the wireless connection is ropey. If I connect to our
> household wireless network and then ping a remote machine
> from the command line, I'll get dropped packets (only a few
> percent, but dropped packets nonetheless). If I watch some video clip
> on e.g. the bbc news website, I'll get 10 seconds of clip and then 3 seconds
> of "loading..." and then 10 more seconds of clip etc.

Macs ship with Airport Extreme, and they're pretty crappy, certainly as
receivers. When we have guests in the back room, the guests with PC
laptops don't have any trouble getting a signal; the guests with Macs
(very expensive MacBook Pros too) can't get anything at all. Now I don't
mind putting a new access point back towards there, which would probably
also cover the back yard (bonus) but, yeah, the Airport Extreme is shit.
--
Suddenly he realized that he was alone
with a giant halfwit on a dark deserted street.
-- Chester Himes

Warren Oates <warren.oates@gmail.com> wrote:

> Macs ship with Airport Extreme, and they're pretty crappy, certainly as
> receivers. When we have guests in the back room, the guests with PC
> laptops don't have any trouble getting a signal; the guests with Macs
> (very expensive MacBook Pros too) can't get anything at all.

Thanks! So now it seems that we have located the problem.

So now I'm looking for a cheap solution. Is it possible to
buy a better, external, wireless reciever for my mac mini,
and then just plug it into e.g. a USB port on the back of
the mac and boom, problem solved? In some sense this
would be the ideal solution for me, because I'm currently
contemplating changing my ISP from down-the-phone-line
to down-a-fibre-optic-cable and I've been led to believe that this
would entail throwing all my routers etc away and buying new ones,
but on the other hand I'd like to fix this mac issue ASAP.
What I'm saying is that if I buy another access point
then I might be throwing it away in 6 weeks anyway.

In article <gv3hcb$o01$1@north.jnrs.ja.net>,
Kevin Buzzard <buzzard@ic.DELETE.ac.uk> wrote:

> So now I'm looking for a cheap solution. Is it possible to
> buy a better, external, wireless reciever for my mac mini,
> and then just plug it into e.g. a USB port on the back of
> the mac and boom, problem solved? In some sense this
> would be the ideal solution for me, because I'm currently
> contemplating changing my ISP from down-the-phone-line
> to down-a-fibre-optic-cable and I've been led to believe that this
> would entail throwing all my routers etc away and buying new ones,
> but on the other hand I'd like to fix this mac issue ASAP.
> What I'm saying is that if I buy another access point
> then I might be throwing it away in 6 weeks anyway.

I can't address that, I don't know how fibre is delivered, but it would
seem to me that the only new equipment you'd have would be some kind of
"modem" just like with xDSL, no? That you could connect to a wireless
router's WAN port, no? And then add an access point.
--
Suddenly he realized that he was alone
with a giant halfwit on a dark deserted street.
-- Chester Himes

Warren Oates <warren.oates@gmail.com> wrote:

> I can't address that, I don't know how fibre is delivered, but it would
> seem to me that the only new equipment you'd have would be some kind of
> "modem" just like with xDSL, no? That you could connect to a wireless
> router's WAN port, no? And then add an access point.

When I last went to buy a wireless router, I was asked who my internet service
provider was, because they wanted to sell me one sort if my internet
was coming down the phone line and another sort if it was coming
down a cable (and in the UK, pretty much every ISP sells precisely one of these
services). I know *nothing* about wireless networking I'm afraid, and
maybe you're telling me that I've got the wrong end of the stick,
but I extrapolated from this that if I decided to change my home broadband
from ADSL to cable then I'd have to buy a new router and a new wireless router
(the things I currently have in my set-up) and so I didn't want to start
expanding on what I have if I'm going to take the plunge and change in a
few weeks.

Am I talking nonsense?

Kevin Buzzard wrote:

> So now I'm looking for a cheap solution. Is it possible to
> buy a better, external, wireless reciever for my mac mini,
> and then just plug it into e.g. a USB port on the back of
> the mac and boom, problem solved?

Yes, there must be USB wireless adaptors for Mac. This would have the
advantage that you can put it on a USB extension and reposition it for
optimum signal strength. If there aren't any, just install Ubuntu on it ;-)

> I'm currently contemplating changing my ISP from down-the-phone-line
> to down-a-fibre-optic-cable

That is, down a fibre to the street corner, then to your premises over coax,
which plugs into a modem which will have an ethernet port on it. Personally
I find Virgin Media's marketing at best disingenuous and at worst
fraudulent.

Your new router will need an ethernet WAN port, your current one will have a
DSL WAN port.

> and I've been led to believe that this would entail throwing all my
> routers etc away and buying new ones,

Conceivably you could use your current ADSL wireless router as an access
point linked to whatever new router you get.

--
<http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) (UnSoEsNpEaTm@ale.cx)
17:05:56 up 14 days, 19:45, 2 users, load average: 0.24, 0.16, 0.10
A few flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction

In article <gv3q29$qi6$1@north.jnrs.ja.net>,
Kevin Buzzard <buzzard@ic.DELETE.ac.uk> wrote:

> When I last went to buy a wireless router, I was asked who my internet
> service
> provider was, because they wanted to sell me one sort if my internet
> was coming down the phone line and another sort if it was coming
> down a cable (and in the UK, pretty much every ISP sells precisely one of
> these
> services). I know *nothing* about wireless networking I'm afraid, and
> maybe you're telling me that I've got the wrong end of the stick,
> but I extrapolated from this that if I decided to change my home broadband
> from ADSL to cable then I'd have to buy a new router and a new wireless
> router
> (the things I currently have in my set-up) and so I didn't want to start
> expanding on what I have if I'm going to take the plunge and change in a
> few weeks.
>
> Am I talking nonsense?

Not at all. You may have been misinformed, however.

My xDSL "modem" connects to the 'phone line (to my ISP) via a plain old
phone jack (RJ11); it connects to my router's WAN port via an ethernet
jack (RJ45 if you want, 8P8C). My router is a DGL 4300, wireless g and
gigabit. Very nice too, I might add.

If your ISP gives you a "modem" that connects to them via fibre, and it
has an ethernet jack for your router, then nothing will have changed
except that modem, as far as I can see. That doesn't mean I'm right,
though; like I said, I have no knowledge of fibre, or of British ISPs
either, but my first action would be to simply swap the "modems" and see
what transpired.
--
Suddenly he realized that he was alone
with a giant halfwit on a dark deserted street.
-- Chester Himes

"Kevin Buzzard" <buzzard@ic.DELETE.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:gv3hcb$o01$1@north.jnrs.ja.net...
> So now I'm looking for a cheap solution. Is it possible to
> buy a better, external, wireless reciever for my mac mini,
> and then just plug it into e.g. a USB port on the back of
> the mac and boom, problem solved? In some sense this
> would be the ideal solution for me, because I'm currently
> contemplating changing my ISP from down-the-phone-line
> to down-a-fibre-optic-cable and I've been led to believe that this
> would entail throwing all my routers etc away and buying new ones,
> but on the other hand I'd like to fix this mac issue ASAP.
> What I'm saying is that if I buy another access point
> then I might be throwing it away in 6 weeks anyway.

couple of things, there are several real neat usb wifi dongles (that i've
used/work with pc's, wouldn't surprise me if the are available for mac too),
including ones that are semidirectional (I like this one
http://www.hawkingtech.com/products/...=60&ProdID=379,
hah, they do have a mac one
http://www.hawkingtech.com/products/...=60&ProdID=380
and a link for buying online, $89, don't know if they sell/ship to the uk
tho)

installs as a seperate device (doesn't kill the existing wireless), ie at
home plugged in and works, going bye-bye, unplug the usb cable and the
built-in wireless takes over...

as for fibre, got it here, and for us there is an interface box - fios in -
cable/phone/cat5 out

Kevin Buzzard <buzzard@ic.DELETE.ac.uk> wrote in
news:gv3q29$qi6$1@north.jnrs.ja.net:

> Warren Oates <warren.oates@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I can't address that, I don't know how fibre is delivered, but it
>> would seem to me that the only new equipment you'd have would be some
>> kind of "modem" just like with xDSL, no? That you could connect to a
>> wireless router's WAN port, no? And then add an access point.
>
> When I last went to buy a wireless router, I was asked who my internet
> service provider was, because they wanted to sell me one sort if my
> internet was coming down the phone line and another sort if it was
> coming down a cable (and in the UK, pretty much every ISP sells
> precisely one of these services). I know *nothing* about wireless
> networking I'm afraid, and maybe you're telling me that I've got the
> wrong end of the stick, but I extrapolated from this that if I decided
> to change my home broadband from ADSL to cable then I'd have to buy a
> new router and a new wireless router (the things I currently have in
> my set-up) and so I didn't want to start expanding on what I have if
> I'm going to take the plunge and change in a few weeks.
>
> Am I talking nonsense?

Not nonsense, just not accurate. As you'd said you don't know anything
about this stuff, and unfortunately, most that work at stores either know
only a tiny bit more than you, or are just trying to sell-sell-sell to
you for commission.

Whatever service you use...DSL, cable, or fiber, you want to make sure
the modem has an ethernet jack. Do not accept a modem that has USB only.
It is prone to problems, and it can't easily be shared.