Mac airport 802.11g slow as molasses
 

My wife decided she wanted to replace her old Windows PC bought in 2001 with a Mac. We bought her a new Mac mini, and it is pretty easy to set up. However we notice right away that the network speed is really slow. Slower then dialup modem speed. We had her old PC with a linksys 802.11g card with the antenna hanging out the back of the card sitting in the same spot where the mac is, and that worked great. The speed was easily ten times better then it is now.

So the first thing I'm thinking is the Mac mini must have a very small antenna in that tiny box, and it doesn't have the range of the PC with the larger, external antenna. The wireless router box only sits about 25 feet from the mac so distance shouldn't be an issue. So before we return this thing, is there anything I can do to boost wireless performance on these things?

Was just in Paris and Atlanta airports and getting on the net using my Dell laptop. WiFi speed was very fast using the built in system.

Sure your laptop is set up properly or there is not a conflict? Any chance its being restricted on the speed by a setting on the WiFi?

Joe A

This is not a laptop. This is a Mac mini. I don't what settings are available on the Mac, but I could not find anything relevent to network speed or signal strength.

The wireless router allows high speed connections just fine, and a windows XP PC did 54 Mbit all the time from the same location where the Mac is now.

Take it back.

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2006/03/15.15.shtml

Ed,

Sorry, am not a MAC person, but understand computers a bit. :)

Hope you get it worked out.

Moses,

Thanks for the article.

Do a hard wire highspeed connection and see if it speeds it up any, if it does then you know it's the antenna that's the problem.

I will hook it to a wire before taking it back, but the large number of people experiencing the same problem as me on the apple support discussion board seems to point towards a widespread problem.

Since Apple has initiated an Early Field Failure (EFF) Analysis, they will likely be quick to solve the problem to your satisfaction.