airport question

Greetings all,

I just converted to a MAC Mini from Windows. Right now I'm in the middle of doing my first Time Machine backup and I have a question.

I was able to set up my network on the time machine, but I notice that when I click on the little Airport menulet in the menu bar at the top of the screen, the first line of the drop down menu keeps toggling between:

Wi-Fi: ON
and
Wi-Fi: Looking for Networks...

It spends about 12 seconds on Wi-Fi: On, and about two seconds on Wi-Fi: Looking for Networks... Is it normal to keep searching for networks? The signal strength is very good. The Time Machine backup, however, seems to be taking a very long time, about a Gb every fifteen minutes. Could this "network searching" be slowing it down?

Thanks for any insight you can give me on this.

Kevin H.

Are you on G or N ?
Do you have your router set for manual channel or auto ?
Do you use WPA2 only encryption ?
How far away is the router from the Mini the bars in the menu are not an accurate signal strength?

osxx,

OK, I think I can answer some of these. First, I'm using the wireless router that is built into the Time Capsule. From the Airport Utility I can look at some of the properties:

1. G or N. Under the Wireless Tab in Airport Utility, the "Radio Mode" is set to Automatic. The other choices are "802.11 a/n - 802.11 b/g" and "802.11 a - 802.11 b/g." Should I be using one or the other of these two?

2. Router set for "Manual or Auto." Is that answered by 1 above? Otherwise I'm not sure about this one.

3. WPA2 encryption. Yes.

4. The Time Capsule is in the basement about 25 to 30 feet away from the computer which is on the first floor. I'm getting very good speed on web pages, it seems.

Anything else I can tell you?

Thanks,

Kevin H.

1.) leave that as it is.
2.) you have a choice of 1through 11 on G and since N is not populated enough auto seems to work fine. ( I use channel 11 for G and leave N in auto.
3.) Great
4.) i could still cause issues from time to time on installations where there is multiple floors I have had to use a couple of Airport Extremes or Express's to fill the whole house if you can centrally locate the Time Capsule it will help.
Also note on newer Mac's they will look for the N network as preferred.
You can go to
System preferences > Network > Advanced > Wi-Fi and make sure your network is the first on the list if not edit.

osxx said:

1.) leave that as it is.
2.) you have a choice of 1through 11 on G and since N is not populated enough auto seems to work fine. ( I use channel 11 for G and leave N in auto.
3.) Great
4.) i could still cause issues from time to time on installations where there is multiple floors I have had to use a couple of Airport Extremes or Express's to fill the whole house if you can centrally locate the Time Capsule it will help.
Also note on newer Mac's they will look for the N network as preferred.
You can go to
System preferences > Network > Advanced > Wi-Fi and make sure your network is the first on the list if not edit.

Click to expand...

Sorry for the late reply; Christmas stuff.

Re: 2 above. Can you walk me through setting this. Not sure I know exactly what to do.

Re: 4. I relocated the Time Capsule closer to the computer. Didn't notice a dramatic improvement in reception so I think the reception was OK and not a contributing factor.

Any help is appreciated.

Kevin H.

kjhart0133 said:

Sorry for the late reply; Christmas stuff.

Re: 2 above. Can you walk me through setting this. Not sure I know exactly what to do.

Re: 4. I relocated the Time Capsule closer to the computer. Didn't notice a dramatic improvement in reception so I think the reception was OK and not a contributing factor.

Any help is appreciated.

Kevin H.

Click to expand...

Airport Utility > Manual Set Up > Wireless > Radio Channel Selection > set to manual > Edit ( try a channel 1 through 11 for 2.4 GHz and 149 works great for me on 5GHZ )> Update