My MacBook Pro has a terrible download speed

Hiya !

I've been using my MacBook Pro for the past 2 years, lately (2/3 weeks) I noticed my download speeds decreased dramatically. I never installed any download manager of any kind and always downloading right from Safari.

Clearly I assumed the issue was on my ISP side or the server I was accessing to get the data from.

I travelled to other countries, accessed different ISPs, going wired to wireless and vice-versa, used Safari/Firefox, Rapidshare and other servers/sites. Always very low download speeds (range from 30kb/s to 70kb/s). I am always hooked to the WEB with at least a 10Mb download ISP. In my home I am on a 40Mb service.

Ultimately I raced my MacBook Pro with an old HP Laptop (win XP), tried to download exactly the same file AND the HP goes about 10x times faster ! Up to 500kb/s, wired.

I am clueless on why I am unable to run the same speed on my Mac, I used to, but suddenly this dropped badly.
I notice also the download generally starts at high speeds and then decrease gradually to the "standard poor performance" till the download is complete.

Any idea on what I should look into ? Any settings I might be able to trigger ?

Thanks !
Andy

How much space is remaining on your hard drive? When drives begin to fill up download speeds will decrease since it takes longer for the operating system to find room and place the data on the drive.

If your hard drive has plenty of space, then it could be that your caches are full. Time to do maintenance and clean things up. For that, I suggest downloading the free OnyX maintenance tool and using it.

chscag said:

For that, I suggest downloading the free OnyX maintenance tool and using it.

Click to expand...

On this make doubly sure that you get the .v of Onyx that is compatible with your Mac, as the wrong .v can cause more trouble than its worth ....

Just thought I would throw this out there just in case.

A friend who at the time was a PC user had your same issue. Both his Wives and His computer did the same thing. It was on AT&T UVerse and the speed was like 768K DSL on download. I took over both my iBook and Netbook and got full speed on any download.

The issue was the full version of AntiVir Pro and it had installed an LSP in series with Windsock. OSX is different of course but I am wondering this, Have you installed Norton or any other AntiVirus package in OSX at all? Just curious.

Let me reply to you all in a single post:

- HD space remaining: 140GB (300GB used)
- Never installed an antivirus on this system

I did some maintenance/cleaning with OnyX but the situation remain the same.
It is so frustrating to see download to start @ 750kb/s for few MBs then dropping..600...500...300...200...100...70kb/s till download is complete.

Any other suggestion is more then welcome, I am clueless at this point....

cheers
andy

The only other thought that comes to mind is that it may be a hardware problem. A failing airport card can certainly cause the slowdowns, but before you think about changing it out, check to see that nothing else has changed in System Preferences, Network. Or, that some newly installed software is not the cause. (doubtful)

Is this over Wifi? If so can you try plugging it via a network cable and see if the issue still exists? If I missed that you did that already, sorry.

chscag said:

The only other thought that comes to mind is that it may be a hardware problem. A failing airport card can certainly cause the slowdowns, but before you think about changing it out,

Click to expand...

And maybe chuck in your install DVD and commence a Hardware Test to see if its just that ??

I use this MacBook Pro for work, thus I try to keep the system as free as possible from applications, etc. it is a very clean OS.

Always connected via network cable.
Regularly I run TechTool Pro 5, never got a problem.

Do you know of any utility that can check if my network hardware may be defective ?

Just want to say the problem seams to be solved now, at least at the moment. In the last couple of days speed is at his best, up to 1.5Mb/s at times.

Not sure why and how but it is back to normal...I hope it'll last !!

cheers
andy

Apple Hardware Test on the original install discs that came with the MBP will check out the Airport card if run in extended mode. By chance anyone 'sharing' your network legally or otherwise?