iMac - Comcast cable modem, internet glacially slow! - Mac-Forums.com

alexmoir · 10-24-2009, 03:45 PM

Hi everyone, I wonder if someone might be able to offer some advice.

I have an iMac from 2008 running OS 10.5.8. When I bought it, I initially lived on a school campus and ran it through the school's internet (which incidentally had TONS of website blocks and firewalls). The net was always very fast though.

In August of 2008 I moved off campus and got Comcast for my cable/landline/internet. From the very moment that they set it up, my Firefox and Safari run VERY slowly, particularly eBay and anything with logins. It's maddening, because I've now had three separate techs from Comcast come here over the past year and change, do a test that shows me running extremely fast according to their "findings", and they always say it's my computer. None of them has ever known anything about Macs.

Finally, the latest tech said he thinks it's some sort of hidden firewall system that's causing it, because he pointed out that, during any given internet session, the SECOND time a site is visited, it's a bit faster (still not what it should be). He could not help me, and the stuff I've googled was not of any use either. I did cancel the landline and he changed my modem to Comcast's regular cable modem box, but no visible change to browsing.

I need my internet! Does anyone have any idea why a great new Mac would run browsers so slow? Incidentally, AOL runs just fine (just the IMs and email part though).

Thanks to anyone who can help.
Alex

alexmoir · 10-26-2009, 01:46 PM

Bump.

Please help...he11, or maybe just offer a suggestion of who might know. I don't think I can call Apple, they have that pay-per-incident racket.

Kevin6432 · 10-26-2009, 01:57 PM

If anything, your computer should run faster if it's up to date. Since Safari 4 came out, there was huge difference in speed no matter what internet I was on.

Have you tried another computer on your network to see if the result is different?

Raz0rEdge · 10-26-2009, 02:02 PM

Visit Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test and see what kind of numbers you get, post back here with that information and we can start looking further..

Regards

DranktheKoolAid · 11-04-2009, 07:04 PM

I bought my imac this past summer and I'm having the same issue. I have Verizon DSL but I can't blame them because my Widows ME machine is much faster on the internet than my new imac.

Cheers, John

Mac SK · 11-04-2009, 11:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raz0rEdge

Visit Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test and see what kind of numbers you get, post back here with that information and we can start looking further..

Regards

I know several people that had this problem. After they ran speed test they found out Comcast was cheating them. The pipe line speed they where paying for was not the service they had. Comcast fixed the problem.

DranktheKoolAid · 11-06-2009, 07:37 PM

My mac is much, much faster now. Something to do with DNS. Go to OpenDNS | Internet Navigation And Security and sign up for the free DNS and then just follow the instructions or follow these directions...

These directions are for a late 2008 24" intel Imac.

Click on the Apple logo on the top left of your screen

Click on System Preferences

Click on Network...this screen will have a green light next to the way you are connected to the internet

On the lower right of this screen Click Advanced...on this same screen you will see Airport, TCP/IP, DNS... Click on DNS

On the left of this screen you will see "DNS Servers" Go to the bottom of this screen and click on the "+" sign and a blue highlighted box with appear.

Type in the following 208.67.222.222 and then click the "+" sign again and type in 208.67.220.220

On the bottom right of that screen click OK and this will take you back to the Network screen.

On the bottom right of the Network screen click Apply and that should do it.