Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

11 Dec 2020 15:25:26

Roy Rainford

The broadband speed to my MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) has been rated ‘Poor’ by the Ofcom Speed Checker over the past 2/3 weeks. Today it was: Download 4.0 Mbps, Upload 0.9 Mbps, Data Delay 486.0 ms and all Services in red,. I then did a Speed Check on my iPad Air 2 with results: ‘Good’ with all Services in green and Download 9.2 Mbps, Upload 0.9 Mbps, Data delay 30.0 ms.
Another test on my iMac (27 inch, Mid 2010) gave similar results to the iPad.
I have done a Restart on the MBP and switched the router off and on. I have checked and compared the Network settings of the MBP and iPad but can’t see any signifiant differences. I have been blaming my ISP, TalkTalk and was about to move from ADSL to Fibre but now something appears to be at fault on the MBP. Some websites fail to open, some open very slowly but this AUGW site opens normally - fast! Whoops I spoke to soon - posting this message failed twice!!
Help please - what can I check next?

Re: Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

11 Dec 2020 15:41:10

Roy Rainford

PS. to the above: The MBP is on Catalina 10.15.7 with 441 GB of storage available on the SSD and Safari is v 14.0.1
I couldn't get 'Edit' to work!

Re: Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

12 Dec 2020 12:25:04

Lionel Ogden

Are you checking your speed over wi-fi? If so quite a few things may be interfering with your reception other than your laptop. I find that my broadband speed varies significantly over wi-fi but is reasonably stable with a wired connection. This was the same on ADSL as it is now on fibre.

Re: Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

12 Dec 2020 16:21:11

Roy Rainford

Yes checking over wi-fi Lionel. However my iPad and iMac are giving acceptable speeds but the MBP has been poor over the past 2/3 weeks. All devices in the same room as the router.

Re: Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

12 Dec 2020 16:22:58

Tony Still

You can make a crude check on your WiFi by inspecting the connection from Mac to router.

Hold down the Option key and click the WiFi icon on your menu bar. You will get a list of connection parameters in grey underneath the name of your router. Amongst these is 'Tx Rate', expressed in Mbps (mega bits per second). Hopefully this is a hundred or more, as long as it is much greater than your internet speed then your WiFi is unlikely to be the problem.

If you're feeling keen, you will also notice that the WiFi menu has gained an 'Open Wireless Diagnostics' choice. Click that to open a diagnostic utility, go to its window menu and choose 'Performance'. You then get some nice graphs.

The bottom graph (called 'Signal') tells you about instantaneous signal (good) versus noise (bad, being interference). You should hope to see the Noise line being flat and very near the bottom of the graph and the RSSI (signal) line well above it and also flat. The top graph is a realtime read-out of connection speed.

Do tell us if you see anything interesting, though I expect it's your ADSL, not WiFi at the root of the problem.

Re: Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

12 Dec 2020 17:32:37

Roy Rainford

Thanks Tony. I will try your suggestions tomorrow when I am feeling brighter!
In the meantime, I don't understand how the speed problem can be ADSL when the iMac and iPad are working to an acceptable speed in the same room as the MBP.

Re: Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

13 Dec 2020 19:55:18

Tony Still

I agree it doesn't seem likely.

However, WiFi is a step in the chain so could be the issue and, more importantly, it's useful to know what macOS thinks it's seeing so it can be eliminated.

Further steps you could take are:
* Start the MBP in 'Safe' mode in case other software is obstructing Safari or macOS's networking software. If the problem goes away when in Safe mode then this is probably the cause
* Check the DNS setting in System Preferences > Network > WiFi > Advanced. A DNS issue would explain the inability to open certain web sites and sluggish response but doesn't fit all of your symptoms.

Re: Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

13 Dec 2020 20:39:52

Roy Rainford

This is before seeing Tony's latest comments:
Following Tony’s suggestions has been interesting, taking me to previously unknown places on my MBP! For ‘starters’ I did another Ofcom speed check with results: “Performing Poorly”, all services red, Download 3.2 Mbps, Upload 0.0, Data delay 494.0 ms.
The went to ‘Wireless Diagnostics’ with results: Tx rate: 585 Mbps, ‘Working as Expected” then details: ‘Crowded Wi-Fi Channel’ - Your current Wi-Fi network is operating on channels that are being used by several other nearby Wi-Fi networks.’
I followed the tips given where I could: Restarted the router, accessed the router and deleted four unused devices. Checked that it’s using a 5 GHz channel.
Did another Ofcom speed check with results: Connection Good, services green, except Video streaming (4K). Download 8.0 Mbps, Upload 0.9 Mbps, Data delay 30.00ms.
So an improvement but far from the upload speed being achieved on my iMac and iPad. Questions: could the iMac and iPad be taking priority over the MBP? Could my neighbour’s Fibre broadband on his TalkTalk service be affecting my MBP speed?
Have just checked the DNS setting - it's grayed out but is the correct number.

Re: Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

13 Dec 2020 20:46:11

Roy Rainford

Will have to 'swot up' later on how to start the MBP in 'Safe' mode. Hope it's safe without losing any data or pics!

Re: Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

14 Dec 2020 13:05:01

Roy Rainford

Did the Safe mode check this morning and what an improvement in speed. “Status Good” speed similar to iMac and iPad. So what should I look at and make adjustments on I wonder? First point- the iMac OS is High Sierra 10.13.6, the MBP OS is Catalina 10.15.7.
A software difference is that I run the Adobe Photography Plan on the MBP. However I quit the apps when not in use. Any suggestions?

Re: Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

14 Dec 2020 18:03:21

Tony Still

Presumably the speed improvement disappeared again when you restarted not in Safe mode? If so, that rather points the finger at something running on your machine.

Anything in Login Items under your account in System Preferences > Users & Groups? Anything lurking on your menu bar that could be messing with your networking?

ADSL performance can vary day by day with the weather (OK, I'm talking old cables here) so do use the iMac on the same day as a benchmark of available bandwidth. I think it unlikely that your neighbour's fibre broadband is affecting you (as opposed to his WiFi but you've resolved the busy channel issue and gone to 5MHz). I don't think the other devices will be prioritised on either WiFi or broadband when doing the same tasks as the MBP.

Re: Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

14 Dec 2020 20:10:40

Roy Rainford

Thanks Tony, yes the speed reverted to very slow!
In 'Users & Groups' - just myself.
Menu bar - one icon for Adobe opens list of photo apps but all are closed. Can't see a likely culprit in the menu bar.
I don't think it's ADSL varying. The iMac is fairly stable but the MBP is unbelievably slow. Lucky I didn't ditch my iMac but will have to ditch the MBP if this continues!

Re: Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

15 Dec 2020 09:37:09

Trevor Hewson

Roy, I don't know enough to give you detailed advice but I would have thought that Activity Monitor would be a good tool to find our which software is getting in the way.

Re: Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

15 Dec 2020 14:33:13

Roy Rainford

Thanks Trevor. I had a quick look at Activity Monitor yesterday but didn't spot a culprit. However, this morning I decided to switch off File Sharing on the iMac and WOW, this MBP is back to normal speeds. What a relief!
Many thanks to all contributors on this thread. Tony was very patient and put me through a helpful learning experience.

Re: Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

15 Dec 2020 15:39:31

Tony Still

Well done for finding the problem Roy.

I was about to post this long-shot so I will anyway in case anyone else has unexplained performance losses. I have not tried it but it does look safe enough.

Apparently some people have been having big performance losses from installing Google's Chrome browser. The root of the problem is a Google component (called Keystone) that causes a lot of activity (presumably having fallen into some error state) that is not attributed to it in Activity Monitor.

I first found this reference but it also appears here, which you might find more amusing.

Re: Broadband Speed to MacBook Pro

21 Dec 2020 20:25:12

Lionel Ogden

Very interesting, I have been a bit concerned ever since buying my recent iMac that it seemed bit slow. So I followed the link and then deleted Chrome and associated Keystone files and there seems to have been an improvement