05-05-2010, 12:43 PM

I am currently troubleshooting a problem for a friend and would appreciate some help.

The basic problem is when they connect to the internet wirelessly they experience an intermittent performance problem where one minute everything is fine and they can access the internet no problem, then the next minute the connectivity performance is terrible resulting in the time it takes to move to different web sites or web pages becoming so slow that it becomes unusable.

The problem on the Mac Book has always been there from new but they haven’t had the expertise to resolve it and the Apple Store weren’t able to resolve it in the time they had.

A summary of my notes so far:

• Mac Book is just over a year old (approx 1GHz and 1 Gb memory)
• Mac OSX 10.5.8
• Safari 4.0.5
• No other applications running
• Can work fine for a time and then performance deteriorates
• No problems when connected via Ethernet
• All software up to date
• Connectivity is not lost
• Some larger software updates fail with a network error
• Turned Airport on/off
• Restarted MB and router
• Checked router configuration – looks ok
• Apple Store set static IP address as opposed to DHCP (but didn’t work)
• DELL and HP pc running windows both work fine with no problem

It seems that a lot of people have experienced problems with AirPort wireless so I know I am not alone. However, the fact that my friend cannot use the MB is crazy so I would really like to try and resolve this for them. Any suggestions or pointers would be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

Nick

05-05-2010, 01:25 PM

The symptom you describe may be attributed to poor DNS performance. In other words, the DNS server he's using. First thing to do is make sure he's using DHCP not a static IP address.

Second, he should have SSID (network name) broadcasting turned on. If he's using encryption (he should), have him use at least WPA or even better WPA2.

Turn off MAC filtering if it's on.

Now to change DNS settings: Open System Preferences, Network. Highlight Airport, and click on the Advanced settings button at the bottom. Click on the DNS tab at the top.

You'll see a box that says DNS servers. You may have an entry there that is in grey. That's the router address - leave it alone.

If there are other entries in the box, click on the small minus sign at the bottom and remove them. Before you do, write them down.

Add these entries in the box. Click the small plus sign at the bottom and add these two entries: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

OK your way out of System Preferences. Reboot the router (power off, power on) and reboot his machine.

Let us know if that helps. The two entries you made above are for Open DNS a free public DNS server which is much improved over most ISP servers.

Regards.

05-24-2010, 04:07 PM

Thanks for the suggestions and apologies for the very slow response. I haven't been able to get hold of the Mac Book to try these suggestions out!

As soon as I do I will post the results and what I found out.

Thanks
Nick