Comments on: Intel iMac wireless connection slowdown with WPA/TKIP

By: Frans

Frans — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:28:12 +0000

Thx Michael

Your solution worked perfect to me.

Frans

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:15:41 +0000

Glad I found this thread. I had a network setup which was working just fine until a few weeks ago when I instaleld Mac OS X 10.5.6 updates. After that, the wireless connections on both my MacBook Pro (Intel) machines became very, very slow. It turns out I can now replicate this problem at will: by switching from AES to TKIP, I can slow down the network. Switched to using a linksys WAP54G, which lets me specify AES or TKIP, and as long as I use AES, every device is happy.

TimeCapsule and AirportExpress don’t give the fine-grained control over this choice, and it appears Apple screwed up the TKIP implementation in their latest AirPort Extreme firmware update (2008-004, included in 10.5.6 update).

Calls to Apple produced no results; they engaged their engineers, and then … radio silence (which I guess is apropos).

By: SWK

SWK — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:22:22 +0000

Hi,

I’ve been using TKIP for a long time, but never used my iMAC on wireless network until recently.

I found that iMAC has very very slow wireless speed while my ThinkPad T60 has no issues.

I could fix the problem thanks to your blog. Also, found that TKIP was cracked and published on Nov 07, 2008 -> http://netsecurity.about.com/b/2008/11/07/wpa-encryption-cracked.htm

Now, I’m using WPA2/AES and it works great and fast. Now, WPA2/AES looks the only option for secure wireless networking in SOHO environment.

Thanks again.

SWK

By: JParis

JParis — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:47:49 +0000

Hi. I’m a new imac user, and have problems with my wireless. It will connect for a while and work just fine with full strength, but then all of a sudden disconnect. When i try to reconnect it keeps saying connection timeout. Sometimes when i restart my computer it helps or if I just turn off my airport and turn it back on it sometimes works, but other times it won’t work at all and I have to reset the router. It’s running off a WPA2 personal. Any ideas???

By: BETO

BETO — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 01:28:55 +0000

Im a new macbook owner and am having issues with internet connectivity as well. I, on the other hand, am having issues with both wireless and ethernet. I have a Netgear router that i have two other pc’s on (Alienware desktop and a Dell laptop). I can run both via wifi and cat 5 flawlessly. I have changed cat 5 ports and all and dont know what to do. I click on several websites on my macbook and then do the same on my windows pc’s and they load up instantly while my macbook is stuck halfway, with no images loaded. What’s the deal? Im really close to returning this piece of beauty. Help. Thank you.

Ps. My home connection is slow, at my neighbors house it’s slow. It’s slow here at the Library but when i went to the apple store at my local mall, it worked super fast. Im really confused.

By: Dan in Austin

Dan in Austin — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:56:03 +0000

I appreciate the quick response! Thanks for all your help!

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By: Michael G. Noll

Michael G. Noll — Tue, 06 May 2008 06:51:05 +0000

Hi Dan,

wireless connectivity (WLAN/Airport) and network settings (most likely TCP/IP for you) are two different kinds of things.

Even if you can successfully connect to your WLAN with the iMac, you must still make sure that the “normal” network settings. Think of correct WLAN settings/connectivity as an equivalent of proper physical cabling in cable-bound networks. In both cases, you still have to set up your computer in terms of network configuration.

In other words: if you use DHCP, is DHCP enabled for your iMac? If you don’t use DHCP, you might have to set the iMac manually to a correct IP address etc.

Another thing to keep in mind: sometimes the DNS settings are the problem. Can you ping the IP address 4.2.2.2 but you can’t ping http://www.google.com? Then most likely your DNS is messed up.

(to ping a host, open the Network Utility and go to the “Ping” tab; then just enter “4.2.2.2″ or “www.google.com” into the network address field and click the “Ping” button)

Hope this helps,
Michael

By: Dan in Austin

Dan in Austin — Mon, 05 May 2008 22:19:02 +0000

I have the 24 inch Imac and I am experiencing the weirdest thing. My Airport finds my network connects completely and when I try and pull up a web page via Safari I get an error message stating the server quit responding.

Keep in mind that when I run a diagnostics it shows me as completely connected with a strong signal!

All my laptops are able to connect AND pull up a web page just not the IMAC. Both Apple and DLink are stumped. I just want to pull up a website on my Imac via wireless but I cant but ALL my other boxes can! Any suggestions?

By: Daniel

Daniel — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:36:53 +0000

I can’t believe it , I’ve finally got Leopard on my brand new iMac, which was supposed to come with it pre-installed! A friend who has Leapord came over and saw my screen and icons and said, ‘that doesn’t look like Leopard, you should reinstall.’ We did, and now everything works great (including printer, Bluetooth A2DP and Spotlight, which hadn’t been working prior). Airport works, too, but it was working before thanks to the WPA fix. Somehow my Intel iMac, purchased in December from the San Francisco/Marina Mac Store, came with a faulty OS installation. I wasted soooo much time trying to fix it when I just needed to reinstall (w/o erasing my HD). Maybe this can help others having similar problems. Happy Mac-ing!