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March 14, 2006
Intel Mac vs Network Performance
One of the ongoing problems with my Intel iMac has been really bad network performance. This has been a major contributor to the overall bad performance (see Intel iMac Performance). I have not tested the wireless connection (although a note a number of people have complained about it) - I am using an ethernet connection 100TX (full duplex). Based on monitoring, it seems that between 10% and 15% of packets are lost. The easiest way to see this is to try pinging a known gateway - between 2 and 3 pings from every 20 will be lost.
By working with the network gurus, we managed to pin down the problem and develop a workaround. The switch we connect to is a Cisco 3550-24PWR-EMI which was introduced to facilitate the migration to VOIP (voice over IP) VLANs. The problem is that this simply does not work with the Intel Mac. At all. In any way shape or form. The temporary workaround is to use a different switch (without VOIP/VLAN) just for the Macs. This is obviously not a long term solution but it will at least let us keep working for the moment.
I tried to use Apple's "WebChat Support" which is available 24x7 (according to Apple). I entered the chat at 5 PM yesterday and as I post, there has been no response (more than 12 hours later).
Posted by Ozguru at March 14, 2006 06:00 AM
Comments
Try disabling IPv6 for the Mac's ethernet/wireless. This has worked for us in the office.
Posted by: John at May 4, 2006 09:52 AM
