Macintosh Wireless Latency

eddief1

eddief1

Expert Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2008
Messages
1,523
Reaction score
301
Hi Guys

We have a strange problem. A couple of clients who have mac's are suffering from latency on their wireless networks. We have changed routers, AP's etc.

Can I pls ask everyone who has a mac to run a test for me.

From your mac can you ping your ADSL router or Wifi AP and post results here pls.

We are seeing latency over 40ms on the local wifi network, but with windows machines it's fine, sub 2ms
 
Sorry to hear about your issues, here's what i get on a 2012 MBA running maverics

64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=2.917 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=3.403 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=3.131 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=4.934 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=3.378 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=4.065 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=4.252 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=4.137 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=12.914 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=10 ttl=64 time=4.229 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=11 ttl=64 time=3.837 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=12 ttl=64 time=4.457 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=13 ttl=64 time=1.925 ms
 
you sure your network isnt somehow looping? What's the wireless network topology like?
 
eddief1 said:
Hi Guys

We have a strange problem. A couple of clients who have mac's are suffering from latency on their wireless networks. We have changed routers, AP's etc.

Can I pls ask everyone who has a mac to run a test for me.

From your mac can you ping your ADSL router or Wifi AP and post results here pls.

We are seeing latency over 40ms on the local wifi network, but with windows machines it's fine, sub 2ms
Click to expand...

Make sure they have the latest updates installed. There was a patch when I had awful wifi with my MBA 2013, it seems to have been resolved now (for me at least). There is a long-running thread on the Apple forums with people having this issue though for the MBA 2013 models (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5100655?start=1470&tstart=0).
 
I did some investigating yesterday. I can confirm that DrJohnZoidberg's link above is exactly the problem I am seeing.

I urge all MacBook Air users to run a ping in terminal to their local gateway and check the latency, this should tell you if this problem is affecting you. The latency I have seen on 4 mac book's is terrible. 1-2ms on windows machines...30-100ms on Mac's
 
eddief1 said:
I did some investigating yesterday. I can confirm that DrJohnZoidberg's link above is exactly the problem I am seeing.

I urge all MacBook Air users to run a ping in terminal to their local gateway and check the latency, this should tell you if this problem is affecting you. The latency I have seen on 4 mac book's is terrible. 1-2ms on windows machines...30-100ms on Mac's
Click to expand...

Mine has been okay for the last few OS updates. Had issues a few months ago but haven't seen it again.

I still however will get sudden spikes, but generally it's below 5ms.

Code: 
PING 192.168.40.5 (192.168.40.5): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=2.384 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=2.317 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=1.715 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=1.919 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=2.484 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=2.500 ms
[B]64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=77.687 ms[/B]
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=2.232 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=3.688 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=4.798 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=10 ttl=64 time=1.697 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=11 ttl=64 time=1.522 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=12 ttl=64 time=1.947 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=13 ttl=64 time=1.793 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=14 ttl=64 time=4.722 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=15 ttl=64 time=2.061 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=16 ttl=64 time=1.813 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=17 ttl=64 time=1.523 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=18 ttl=64 time=2.916 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=19 ttl=64 time=1.725 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.40.5: icmp_seq=20 ttl=64 time=6.486 ms
^C
--- 192.168.40.5 ping statistics ---
21 packets transmitted, 21 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 1.522/6.187/77.687/16.037 ms
 
Im connected to my main router via a range extender. How should I run the ping test? Will this make a difference to the results?
 
Last edited:
Try changing your MTU settings.

I can't remember the exact value but there is a magic number.

Also try disable IPv6 and see if it makes any difference.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X