The Wireless Diagnostics panels update with the new live values if the Tx rate changes. What’s slightly confusing is that the Tx rate is not constant for a particular router: it will vary as the system adapts to wireless conditions with the mentality that a slow, stable, connection is better than a faster, unreliable, one. You may need to change settings or upgrade your hardware to a new router (suggestions below) to take full advantage of your ISP’s speed. As 2.4GHz usually provides longer range signals, a common error for Wi-Fi performance is to simply move closer to the unit so the laptop can pickup the (faster) 5GHz link.Īnother interesting data point to check is the Tx rate which states the maximum possible transfer speed for the current connection. If you have super-fast fiber broadband but your quoted Tx rate is only 78 Mbps, don’t be disappointed when your maximum Internet speed is also capped at 78. If you were expecting to see 5GHz listed but don’t, first check your router configuration and then try moving closer to the base station. For example, if you are running a dual-band Wi-Fi network like the AirPort Extreme, it’s worth checking that you are actually running on the GHz band that you expect. This screen is useful for quick diagnosis of the most obvious problems. The current noise and RSSI levels are also displayed here, more on that later. This includes quick access to information like the MAC address of the hardware, the Wi-Fi mode, operating band and channel. The Info tab is a simple table panel that displays information relating to the wireless connection. ![]() Access these other views from the Window menu bar item. As a standalone self-help tool, however, the assistant is not very useful in my opinion. The more interesting data for individuals can be found on different windows of Wireless Diagnostics. At the end of the process, the assistant generates a report that can be sent to Apple Support for further assistance. The first screen is the Assistant, the app’s automatic step-by-step diagnostics wizard for detecting common network problems. ![]() Although the app contains a lot of useful information, it isn’t intuitively clear what you are supposed to do with it.įrustrated by bad WiFi on Mac OS X? This guide may help you get better WiFi on your computer.įollow along below for a walkthrough of all the screens in Wireless Diagnostics that can help you analyze your Wi-Fi network and find any weak spots. It can be daunting to see so many stats at once but in reality you are only interested in a couple of numbers. Open the app by option-clicking on the Wi-Fi indicator in the menu bar and select ‘Open Wireless Diagnostics …’. If there are many nearby access points, you'll have to best guess the channel number that is least used and least adjacent to you and set your own channel number to that least used and least adjacent channel.Apple ships a little-known utility app that helps you analyze and diagnose your Wi-Fi connection, called Wireless Diagnostics.For example, if the channel number is a 6, you'd want your channel number set to a 1 or 11. You do not want your channel number set to the same channel as this one. This access point is the nearest router to you that can cause you interference. Look at the first 2.4GHz access point listed below your own in the RSSI list. ![]() If it's not, rerun your Scan tool physically seated next to your access point. Your personal access point should be listed nearest to the top as it's the closest one to your Mac. Click the RSSI tab so that the listing of RSSI's are in ascending order. To keep things simple, the RSSI is the signal strength of an access point. In your Wireless Diagnostics Scan Tool, you'll notice a heading called RSSI. ![]() You'll notice that most access points will be set to one of these three channels but you can still find out the best channel to choose from by seeing which channel is used the least in your area. These are the best channels to chose from when setting your channels in your router. Channel overlap is beyond the scope of this article but to keep things simple, the channels that do not suffer from channel overlap are channels 1, 6 and 11. Although the Scan may tell you which channels are least used in your area, the dirty little secret is that only 3 channels have the best connectivity due to something called "Channel Overlap". The 2.4GHz Wi-Fi range is a bit more complicated. Wait for your Airport Base Station to reboot and you're all set! The 2.4 GHz range.
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