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[tudela]

FW 1.11
Channel Width 20/40
N only
WPA2 Personal
AES only


On my Macbook Pro, which is Draft N enabled by Leopard...I only see 130mbps.

Has there been any success stories of anyone getting 300mbps connection speed?  If so, what changes need to be made on the Macbook Pro?

And no, Macbook Pro does not have an Intel Wifi chip....and neither can the driver be updated from the manufacturer of the built-in wifi card (Atheros).  I've also read the sticky on this forum for 300mbps connections.

Thanks for any help!  Its been a great router thus far, and hopefully I can get this ironed out.

[tudela]

oh well...it seems that 300mbps for mac OS X is only attainable if using 5Ghz band.

[gociii]

I do have a 300Mbps wireless link with my MacBook Pro.... however not using the DIR655 router, but a TrendNET router (TEW-631BRP).

[gociii]

However I have just notice not on OS X Leopard... since I am dual booting this thing with WinXP.

OS X Leopard goes up to 130Mbps while WinXP goes up to 300Mbps... Apple should answer this one...

[Lycan]

The 130 might be your PHY rate and the 300 is the connection rate, or the drivers for the card for OSX are limiting the channel width to 20.

[Neblinio]

Is it possible to get 300mbps connection rate using a channel width of only 20mhz? I don't think so, however I can't understand how gociii's trendnet router can achieve this 300mbps rate with OS X Leopard. I assume it uses 40mhz channel width with this router, so I don't think this is a limitation imposed by the wireless driver in Leopard.
I think the problem is some kind of compatibility issue with Leopard and DIR-655, that's my guess.

[Lycan]

Or the OSX is looking at the PHY rate instead of the connection rate. If the PHY rate is known the connection rate could be spoofed to be 300. Or it could be as simple as you say.

[Neblinio]

To add more information, I have a MacBook and the maximum speed it reports with the 655 over wireless is 130mbps (Leopard).

I have tested to transfer a 100mb file over wireless, with the router just near the notebook. Looking at the 655's web interface and the wireless statistics, it shows the MacBook with 100% signal and 117mbps rate in the best case.

Also note that I only tested with Leopard, currently I don't have a bootcamp installation of windows.

[gociii]

"Is it possible to get 300mbps connection rate using a channel width of only 20mhz? I don't think so, however I can't understand how gociii's trendnet router can achieve this 300mbps rate with OS X Leopard."

I managed to get the 300Mbps using the TrendNET router while booting my MacBook to Win XP... on OS X 130Mbps is the best I could get from the TrendNET router... I haven't got my DIR-655 router to work yet except unencrypted...

[gociii]

To check the physical rate just go to the Status page of the router and check the speed... OS X goes up to 130Mbps... while Win XP (using Boot Camp) on MacBook Pro goes up to 300Mbps (in case of the TEW-631BRP) router... I guess it's a limitation on Apple's OS.






As regards to environment.. I do have a cordless phone placed just on top of the TEW router, but since it was installed (like 8 months ago) l haven't noticed any degradation of connectivity. I will switch off the cordless base next time around when checking the DIR-655 router.

[Lycan]

Our routers are designed to be very wireless friendly. That means our hardware bows out in a WiFi fight. I'm striving to make us more aggressive so as to not have this exact problem.

[gonif]

As luck would have it, I now own a brand new MacBook Pro (model 4,1) and I use Boot Camp to switch back and forth between Mac OS X ("Leopard" v10.5.2) and Windows XP (SP2).  I checked the router status from within both operating systems and:

Running Mac OS X...

IP Address (Name), Mode, Rate, Signal (%)
192.168.0.2 (Jekyll), 11ng, 130, 100
192.168.0.4 (iPod), 11g, 54, 100

Running Windows XP...

IP Address (Name), Mode, Rate, Signal (%)
192.168.0.3 (Hyde), 11ng, 270, 100
192.168.0.4 (iPod), 11g, 54, 100

IP addresses .2 and .3 are the same machine (i.e. my MacBook Pro).  I simply reserved separate IP addresses in my D-Link router for my Mac OS and Windows XP partitions.  IP address .4 is my iPod Touch, which is shown here just to provide some sort of constant when comparing info.

So, yeah, seems obvious that the Mac OS is limiting the speed for some reason I probably wouldn't understand even if it was explained to me using very small words.    A small glimmer of possible hope is that Apple just released a huge OS update.  The new 10.5.3 does contain Airport-related connection fixes, so perhaps they've removed this speed inhibitor (admittedly my hopes are not high).  Anyone who has applied this update care to let us know the effect (if any) on this issue?

Update: I went ahead and applied the 10.5.3 update to Mac OS X.  Router status still reports the same speed discrepancy between the two operating systems.  No change.  No clue as to the cause either.  Not my area of expertise, I'm afraid.  Far as I'm concerned, most of this stuff works because of tiny wizards living inside.  Cruel wizards that don't like me.

[tudela]

Mac OS X will not do 300 mbps on the 2.4Ghz band.

I bet you when the DIR-855 is fixed, any Mac OS X can hit 300mbps on the 5Ghz band.

[gonif]

Out of curiosity, is the band a part of the Mac hardware or the DIR-655 router?  Just seems an odd incompatibility that would affect a computer running Mac OS X and not that same computer running Windows.  Can't say I really care all that much, but it might be worth knowing for future reference.

[Lycan]

It would be a problem with the Mac card and it's drivers.