Home network

I am planning creating a home network at my house so I can get a better signal for my Apple devices. My wifi speed is not that great so hoping that this will help.
I have new Imac couple of Ipads Iphones and 2 x apple tv's, my homesharing on the ATV's keeps dropping out. Im suspecting this is because of my wifi speed.
My question is what do I need to do to get my Imac and ATV to work without homesharing dropping out, I have a Asus RT-66 wifi router aswell as my modem from my provider. Currently I have ATV connected to router via Ethernet but Imac is connected via wifi as its upstairs in my house.
Would connecting Imac direct to router via ethernet make a big difference? Do i need to give imac and ATV static IP adresses? if so how?

Hello and welcome to the forum! Let me try to get your thread started.

First, provide us w/ some more information: 1) What iMac (year) are you using; 2) What OS X is installed; 3) Where are you located (at least country - put that under your avatar); and 4) Who is your ISP and are you on cable or DSL?

Second, I've looked @ your router on Amazon - dual band w/ 802.11n protocol, so should provide plenty of speed w/i your home network (make sure that you have done any firmware upgrades, if applicable). For starters, you should try to configure your network using DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) rather than using static IP addresses.

Finally, you need to test the incoming DL (download) speed of your network from your ISP - this is going to be your 'bottleneck', i.e. if too low (e.g. under 5 Mbps), then you will have problems - this may be improved by your ISP, likely at more cost. BUT, go to Speed Test where you can test your DL speed on your iMac and also obtain an app for your iPads & iPhone to test their speeds - SO, will await your response to the questions above and proceed from there - Dave

RadDave,

The Imac I have is only one year old and running on X Yosemite software, I am in the UK and my provider is BT.
My average speed ranges from 4mbps - 6mbps. I have a DSL connection.
Basically all im wanting is to be able to to watch ATV without homesharing dropping out all the time.
Is there a way to connect ATV direct to Imac to access movies and music etc... without streaming?

Thanks

So you are trying to share TV and music using one router on 2 ATV's and five other devices on a 4-6Mbps DSL line. That is not enough speed if you are having them all access the internet at one time especially if they are streaming.

Your intranet - network with in your home - if setup correctly - should run fine.

Attaching an ATV to you iMac - not sure if that can be done - but it won't solve the issue. The bottleneck is your DSL modem.

Try doing some troubleshooting. If it where me I would try one ATV and the iMac. Shut all the other devices off or sleep them - iPads, iPhones any other devices using the internet except the ATV and iMac. See what happens. That setup should stream okay. If it does, add another device, check and keep adding to see when the problem occurs.

If the initial experiment - 1 ATV and the iMac has problems streaming, make sure they are close enough to your wireless router - has an unobstructed signal. Can the iMac go in the internet and load pages fast? These are all troubleshooting ideas.

What I am trying to do is eliminate the wireless router and the DSL modem because they could be the issue. It may all be your slow internet speed.

Lisa

Lisa,

I have 2 ATV's but i only use 1 of them.
My ATV is connected directly via ethernet cable to router, my imac is connected via wifi as it is upstairs. Would it help if I ran a cable from router to imac so it was also connected via ethernet?
The pages on my imac load instantly.

Any ideas why my homesharing constantly drops out, ATV is running up to date software,



Thanks

jodisch1 said:

The Imac I have is only one year old and running on X Yosemite software, I am in the UK and my provider is BT.
My average speed ranges from 4mbps - 6mbps. I have a DSL connection.
Basically all im wanting is to be able to to watch ATV without homesharing dropping out all the time.
Is there a way to connect ATV direct to Imac to access movies and music etc... without streaming?

Click to expand...

Hi again - glad that Lisa has joined your thread - but first, I agree w/ her concerning your provider's DSL connection - you're really sitting on the fence for streaming, especially video - I have a Time-Warner cable modem and obtain about 20 Mbps DL speeds on my cabled iMac, wireless MBPro, and our iPads/iPhone - I still lose signal, so my policy is if I'm streaming video, I pick SD (usually a buck or so cheaper, too) rather than HD quality. SO, I'm not sure if your ISP offers different packages (i.e. upgrade for a higher price to get faster speeds) or whether you have another 'faster' ISP option in your locale?

You cannot connect your Apple TV directly to your iMac - I own two Rokus which are similar except AirPlay is an option for you (e.g. if you could get movies and/or TV shows onto your iPad, then AirPlay would be a choice) - you can use these devices either cabled to your router or over your wireless network.

Check this ARTICLE for some excellent discussion of streaming speeds needed for certain AV content.

jodisch1 said:

I have 2 ATV's but i only use 1 of them.
My ATV is connected directly via ethernet cable to router, my imac is connected via wifi as it is upstairs. Would it help if I ran a cable from router to imac so it was also connected via ethernet?
The pages on my imac load instantly.

Any ideas why my homesharing constantly drops out, ATV is running up to date software,

Click to expand...

Concerning Homesharing, I don't use the feature, so cannot comment - see if the advice HERE is helpful?

But as already stated, you cannot connect your ATV to the iMac which is a distance from your router and may not be getting much of a Wi-Fi signal, so should be examined. I would suggest obtaining a program called WiFi Explorer (inexpensive) - first image below is a screen capture from the app (my personal network SSID is blanked out) - but I use an Apple Extreme router which is a dual-band 802.11b/g/n and broadcasts 4 networks (i.e. Mine & Guest on 2.4 & 5.0 GHZ) - it's currently using the 2.4 GHz frequency on 'n' w/ a maximum transmit speed of 217 Mbps.

Also, go to the top menu bar of your iMac and if the Wi-Fi icon is displayed, hold down the Option key and click the icon - the second image shown below will be displayed w/ much information on your current network - look at the transmit rate and the RSSI and Noise, the difference (also show in the app described) will define the quality of your signal - see the chart for reference - and let's know your numbers.

You might want to also provide us information regarding your home - how many rooms separate your iMac from the router, where is the ATV located (i.e. the one cabled to your router), and what is the construction of your walls (e.g. studs/plaster, brick, stone, etc).

I know this is a lot to absorb, so please post back when ready. Dave

.

If the pages on your iMac are loading quickly then wifi speed between it and the router are probably. Ok. Does streaming content such as YouTube load in a reasonable time? If it does that sounds to me like the bottleneck might be something on your network. Here are a few additional questions:

1. If multiple devices are accessing the net simultaneously do streaming sites such as YouTube load/stream properly on the iMac?
2. If you turn off network access on all devices except the iMac and Apple TV does Homesharing still drop out?
3. Can you provide model numbers for all devices? If one of them does not support 802.11n I think the entire network slows to 802.11g speeds.

Forgive me if you've already answered these questions and I missed it.

Guys,
Thanks for all your help, I am currently oversea working returning home next week!
Thanks to you I am no armed and ready with hopefully some solutions to my problems. I will try and play about a bit by switching things off and on etc.. and see how it goes.
I will be back in touch with updates.
Thanks again for your help, I didnt realise how quick I would get a reply from posting something on here, its great!

Mu imac is basically directly above my living room in the study. Its a timber frame house with platerboard walls, I am out in the country in the highlands of scotland so, my speed is probably the most i can get for now, although there is talk of fibre been installed in my area.

I too am out in the country, there is no hope of getting fiber optic lines in the next 100 years or so, and my DSL speeds are 1.7Mbps down and 768Kbps up. So yours sound like heaven to me!

All that aside, we shall wait until you have had time to troubleshoot using some of the suggestions posted above - they are some good ones to try. Then we will go from there based on what you find.

Lisa