My Wireless Network is HORRIBLE

[Sam]

So my wireless network is horrible. I'm using a Comcast Modem and a Netgear RangeMax NEXT Wireless Router model WNDR3300. My laptop is a Macbook Pro 15 inch w/ Retina Display. Speed tests confirm I'm getting consistent speed but pages and videos load slowly or not at all. Reloading the page and reconnecting to the wireless network to load a page has become a norm. I've reset the wireless router and the modem and it's still horrible. Any ideas?

For what it's worth, my PS3 seems to play games online just fine.

[Ninety]

What Frequency are you on with your router? Might try 1, 6, or 12

Sometimes you have something else in the house that interferes with it.. You can also get a power line adapter.. comcast might hook you up for free.. TWC will hook you up. what about a repeater?

as far as settings.. I'm not too sure what else you could change.. besides getting a PC

[MLC]

Sounds like your laptop might be the issue. When you connect your Macbook to other networks, does this same thing happen? Do you have other devices you can connect to your wireless network to see if they experience similar issues?
Ask a friend to bring a laptop over and connect to the network, see if they have the same problem.

[bigbearbear]

If you connect your computer to the router using a Ethernet cable, do you have the same slow speed problem?

[the86d]

Try a non-Mac, like an Android. Is that faster?

[gemoose23]

Speedtest = Fine
PS3 gameplay = Fine
Laptop = Not Fine

The answer is right there....

My suggestion.. don't give into the Apple Hype.. they have their issues like any other PC.

[the86d]

Mac'in'trash. Issue resolved.

[ocabj]

My MacBook Pro wifi works just fine:

[den888]

This is an excellent suggestion, since wireless uses RF signals. If it works fine using an Ethernet cable, then something is interfering with the RF signals between the wireless router (access point) and the laptop wireless card.

If you connect your computer to the router using a Ethernet cable, do you have the same slow speed problem?

[Sam]

My fiance's laptop seems to work fine...I would connect directly to my modem but my computer doesn't have an ethernet hookup. So how do I get my apple to not suck when it comes to connecting to the internet? Changing the frequency on my router seems to make things a little more consistent.

[freonr22]

Are neighbors on same frequency/channel?

[ldivinag]

last year, bought a galaxy S3 phone.

came home and immediately connected to my wifi.

crap. i was getting less than 1Mb connection speed.

tried laptop. "normal" speeds.

tried old android phone. also normal speeds.

tried S3 again. crappy speed.

wifi is a linksys E1500.

went and returned S3 to store thinking it was a bad phone with bad wifi system.

came home. sure enough, same crappy speed.

tried laptop and old android phone. normal.

at this point, i assume it was the linksys. so i factory reset the linksys box and tried again.

again same thing. S3 crappy. other two devices. normal.

i just gave up and decided it was the S3 with the E1500 wifi box having issues.

i brought up an older wifi box running G. S3 connected with "normal" speeds. connected back to the linksys box.

yup... crappy speeds.

so i just setup two diff SSID with diff channels. upgraded the G wifi box to a newer N model.

S3 connects to it just fine.

linksys is setup for B/G/N.

new box is setup for N only...


lesson learned? devices and wifi boxes sometimes dont like to work together.

[ldivinag]

last year, bought a galaxy S3 phone.

came home and immediately connected to my wifi.

crap. i was getting less than 1Mb connection speed.

tried laptop. "normal" speeds.

tried old android phone. also normal speeds.

tried S3 again. crappy speed.

wifi is a linksys E1500.

went and returned S3 to store thinking it was a bad phone with bad wifi system.

came home. sure enough, same crappy speed.

tried laptop and old android phone. normal.

at this point, i assume it was the linksys. so i factory reset the linksys box and tried again.

again same thing. S3 crappy. other two devices. normal.

i just gave up and decided it was the S3 with the E1500 wifi box having issues.

i brought up an older wifi box running G. S3 connected with "normal" speeds. connected back to the linksys box.

yup... crappy speeds.

so i just setup two diff SSID with diff channels. upgraded the G wifi box to a newer N model.

S3 connects to it just fine.

linksys is setup for B/G/N.

new box is setup for N only...


lesson learned? devices and wifi boxes sometimes dont like to work together.

[den888]

You may be getting adjacent channel interference from another Wifi router/access point close by. Likely, your neighbor's unit.

You mentioned that changing the frequency on your router helps a bit, I would try another channel to see if it improves more. There is some adjacent channel overlap on the Wifi bands, which can cause interference.

My fiance's laptop seems to work fine...I would connect directly to my modem but my computer doesn't have an ethernet hookup. So how do I get my apple to not suck when it comes to connecting to the internet? Changing the frequency on my router seems to make things a little more consistent.

[Bryansix]

If you have a PC that has wifi then you can install this and find out which channel is best and where best to place your wifi router. http://www.vistumbler.net/

However, as others have pointed out, sometimes devices don't like a certain router or don't like it when they are in backwards compatibility mode (back to A/B/G/ in addition to N). In the rare occasion, they don't like certain types of encryption. Try switching between AES and TKIP or if those are not options then WPA and WPA2.