2012 Airport Extreme and Slow 802.11 speeds.

[cisman]

I've been fighting some slow speeds on my wifi and and hope you guys might have some insight. I could be considered a noob.

The way I'm testing is internet speed due to us heavily using streaming in our house. I also have all my HD and SD videos ripped on my PC connected via Ethernet to the router.

When streaming suffers I do a Speedtest.net test on my wifi devices and get anywhere form .77 to 2.5 MB Down. But I go right to my PC, which is over Ethernet to the same router and it's getting 15MB to 20MB Down (expected).

My Setup:
Router 802.11N 2012 Airport Extreme
Internet 15MB Down 1MB Up

Devices Connected:
Apple TV 3 x 3
iPhone 5 x 2
iPhone 3GS x 1
iPhone 4 x 1
iPad 2 x 1
iPad 3 x 1
Xbox 360 (3+ years old)
PS3 (Early Model)

Is there some place to easily find out what kind of wifi card devices have? After reading some guides I'm regretting giving away my old Linksys G Router and might try and grab one to setup as a separate network.

Would that be the advisable thing to do now?

 

[thiggins]

Sorry, I'm not clear on your problem. Slow download speeds for local streaming or for streaming from internet?

 

[cisman]

Both really. It's not transferring the internet over wifi at the same speeds and likewise I can tell streaming from my PC is slow.

In researching I can see that the 3GS, iPhone 4, PS3, and XBOX are all G devices, which is probably slowing down my network. I'm going to try keep those off.

I really wish I didn't sell my old Linksys.

 

[overdrive31]

Looks like you need to investigate your local spectrum usage to find a better channel and also disable 40MHz mode, which in all likely-hood is the root of your problem. According to Tim's Review of the router, it doesn't support 40MHz in the 2.4GHz band, but firmware updates could have changed such since the review.

The new AC routers have got some extraordinary range and throughput, even in a crowded spectrum such as the 2.4GHz. I used to have to use two repeaters to cover just my house using my D-link DIR-825, now I can reach all corners of the property of about one acre with just the R7000, even @ full speed. The speed varies during peek hours, but still performs at least @ G speeds(~20Mbps), off-peak hours it pegs out my wireless adapters.

You might consider going 5GHz, power-line networking, moca, or try one of the new AC routers(esp. ones with external dual band antennas).

 

[sfx2000]

Play around with the channels and see what works...

Ensure you're on current firmware - right now that would be 7.7.2 for AC based airports, 7.6.4 for 802.11n based airports (TimeCapsule/AirportExtreme/AirportExpress).

Your PS3 is also 802.11g... along with the xBox, and the 3gs.

Iphone 4 single band N

Your iPads are dual band, along with the AppleTV's and the iPhone5.

Apple devices, in a dual-band common SSID environment, favor 5GHz - which depending on the use-case and location may not be the best choice - for testing, go into Airport Utility and under Wireless Options, you can set a different SSID for 5GHz to see if this changes things.

Streaming on the PS3/Xbox in 2.4GHz 802.11g will impact other 802.11N clients a bit, and likewise, the N clients can and will step on the G clients.

You should be getting similar, if not better, performance with the Airport that you had with your old 802.11g router.

 

[Marinemaster]

I have my Airport Extreme on ch 6 for 2.4 GHz and ch 161 for 5 GHz
Mine worked fine for one year set for Auto then speeds got really slow and changed as above
I am guessing neighbor router interference
I set it as above and working great since
You could try other channels also

One more thing i have mine on the latest firmware 7.6.4 Previous release did not work well. Once you update it do a full reset and set the channels manually.