Slow asymetric transfer speeds with Airport Extreme Base Stations
Slow asymetric transfer speeds with Airport Extreme Base Stations
Several readers with AirPort Extreme Base Stations are reporting extremely slow (in some cases 100 KB/sec or lower) asymetric transfer speeds. MacFixIt reader Rei Yoshioka writes:
"I have an AirPort Extreme Base Station running in bridge mode, a 12" PowerBook G4 with Airport Extreme, and a Power Macintosh G4 fileserver. Both Macs are running 10.2.6.
"Downloads from the file server to the PowerBook via Airport Extreme with v5.0.4 firmware shows 22.1MB file transferred in 146 seconds (way too slow). Uploading the same file back to the fileserver takes only 26 seconds (still seems slow compared to the advertised 54 Mbps).
"The AirPort Extreme Base Station is about 2 feet away from my powerbook. Max 4 bars of reception in the menubar indicator. I've tried a few different channels. If I connect the Powerbook via Ethernet 100base-T, the file transfers in either direction in less than 4 seconds."
Users can avoid the slow asymetric speeds by engaging their AirPort Extreme Base Station with the 802.11b setting rather than the supposedly 5x faster 802.11g standard. Upgrading to the latest firmware, version 5.0.4, seems to make no difference in transfer speed - in fact, a few readers report that the problem only cropped up after applying the latest release.
If you are experiencing a similar issue, please drop us a line at late-breakers@macfixit.com.Resources