iPad 3 speed problems, good news!

[RogerSC]

I've mentioned here that I've been having radical speed test inconsistencies with my iPad 3. It used to run at about the download speed of my ISP, then the download speed became very inconsistent, but always less than about 1/2 of the download speed from my ISP.

Well, changing the SSID's on my rt-n66u seems to have really helped. The iPad is again running about the speed of my ISP download, and everything else is as before, running great.

I really didn't expect that to make a difference...the only thing that I can think of is that even though I tried forgetting the wireless network a few times, the iPad doesn't really forget it, it just partially forgets it. Otherwise, I don't see how changing the SSID could have any effect at all.

Anyways, iPad speed looking good and consistent for some time now.

Update: Oh well, back to normal crappy WiFi on the good ole iPad. So it goes...maybe iOS 7 will be better. I can take comfort that it is good enough. Interesting that 4G/LTE is better than the WiFi on this thing at this point.

 

[RogerSC]

Okay, plan B. I've now done a full restore installation of my iPad 3, followed by manually setup and manually re-installing apps, books, etc. This looks even better than the last try *smile*.

Time will tell. It wouldn't be much fun to have to do this every time I change the router firmware, think I'll stay with 374.32 for a while and see if things are indeed stable. This seems to be the only client that I have that is sensitive to changing firmware on the router, good thing. Re-installation is time consuming. While I really like using my iPad, I don't really like reinstalling and reconfiguring it.

 

[jlake]

Okay, plan B. I've now done a full restore installation of my iPad 3, followed by manually setup and manually re-installing apps, books, etc. This looks even better than the last try *smile*.

Time will tell. It wouldn't be much fun to have to do this every time I change the router firmware, think I'll stay with 374.32 for a while and see if things are indeed stable. This seems to be the only client that I have that is sensitive to changing firmware on the router, good thing. Re-installation is time consuming. While I really like using my iPad, I don't really like reinstalling and reconfiguring it.

If you have trouble again, try to reset the network settings on the iPad.

Settings>General>Reset>Reset Network Settings

http://ipad.about.com/od/iPad_Troubleshooting/ss/How-To-Fix-My-Ipad-Wont-Connect-To-Wi-Fi_7.htm

 

[RogerSC]

If you have trouble again, try to reset the network settings on the iPad.

Settings>General>Reset>Reset Network Settings

http://ipad.about.com/od/iPad_Troubleshooting/ss/How-To-Fix-My-Ipad-Wont-Connect-To-Wi-Fi_7.htm

Thanks, I've tried that several times over the last couple of months, no help there. I had initially thought that must be the right answer, it should be, but no effect. So far, nothing has had an effect that's lasted longer than a day or two.

We'll see about the restore install. There's not much more that I can do with this thing, they put a lot of effort into making it opaque. That's nice when it works, but if it doesn't there's not a lot that you can do with it.

Me and Apple aren't real sympatico at the moment *smile*.

 

[lindend]

Have you tried doing a throughput test with Ixia's QCheck and their Endpoint software on the iPad? This will rule out the WAN/ISP and give you the theoretical maximum you can obtain through the N66U.

Right now, I'm maxing out at 40mpbs with QCheck on my iPad3. Anyone getting higher numbers on their iPad3?

 

[bluepoint]

Thanks, I've tried that several times over the last couple of months, no help there. I had initially thought that must be the right answer, it should be, but no effect. So far, nothing has had an effect that's lasted longer than a day or two.

Add power off wait 10-20 seconds then power on to your ritual when upgrading/downgrading firmware after mtd-erase, reboot, manual config. That work for me when something unusual is happening.

 

[RogerSC]

Add power off wait 10-20 seconds then power on to your ritual when upgrading/downgrading firmware after mtd-erase, reboot, manual config. That work for me when something unusual is happening.

I'm not clear if you're talking about power-cycling the router or the iPad? Most likely both isn't a bad idea, though *smile*. I haven't had to do anything special for my iPad before upgrading to iOS 6.1.3, it just worked when I upgraded my router software, etc. I usually do power-cycle my router when I upgrade it, and it gets rebooted at least a couple of times in the process of upgrading as well.

Things are looking fine on the iPad at the moment, though, both on 2.4GHz. and 5GHz.. I'll see how long that lasts *smile*.

Thought I had lost one paid app on my iPad in the restore install, since it reverted to unpaid when I reinstalled it. However, when I went to buy it again (the advertisements are particularly annoying on that app), it finally realized that I had already bought it and didn't charge me to upgrade to paid *smile*.

 

[bluepoint]

I'm talking about your router of course but if you've been doing it then just ignore my post.

 

[wkweksl]

I have an iPad 3rd gen and generally runs fine with the 270 (5.00) drivers. Upgrading to the 5.1 drivers break 5Ghz throughput to 1-3Mbps. However, the SDK6 expermiental build seem to be working alright albeit slightly lesser 2.4G range thus far.

 

[RogerSC]

I have an iPad 3rd gen and generally runs fine with the 270 (5.00) drivers. Upgrading to the 5.1 drivers break 5Ghz throughput to 1-3Mbps. However, the SDK6 expermiental build seem to be working alright albeit slightly lesser 2.4G range thus far.

Interesting...when I tried the SDK6 firmware on the rt-n66u my iPad performed just as it did with the previous firmware, poorly. However since doing the full restore install on the iPad, 374.32 (which i assume uses the 270 wireless drivers) is doing fine, full speed on both 2.4 and 5GHz. So I have to agree that the 270 drivers are just fine.

 

[wkweksl]

Interesting...when I tried the SDK6 firmware on the rt-n66u my iPad performed just as it did with the previous firmware, poorly. However since doing the full restore install on the iPad, 374.32 (which i assume uses the 270 wireless drivers) is doing fine, full speed on both 2.4 and 5GHz. So I have to agree that the 270 drivers are just fine.

Hmm.....had tried all the 3xx based firmware and all performed poorly until this SDK6. Still there's some incompatibility between the 2 and ironically they're both using broadcom chips. Like you said, better luck with the upcoming iOS 7.

 

[RMerlin]

Check which channels you are using, especially on the 5 GHz band. Some devices like low-numbered channels, others prefer the high numbered ones. Could be that the router reboot involved in the flashing process made your router switch to a different channel.

 

[jlake]

Hmm.....had tried all the 3xx based firmware and all performed poorly until this SDK6. Still there's some incompatibility between the 2 and ironically they're both using broadcom chips. Like you said, better luck with the upcoming iOS 7.

I don't think the problem is with your iPad. I think the .3xx is broken for many devices.

The reason why you see mixed results between forum members is because a compatible adapter can have a positive influence on non-compatible adapters. Some forum members might have a mixture of compatible and non compatible. To test properly, one needs to test an individual adapter while all other adapters are disabled (or unplugged).

For example, my Broadcom BCM43236 adapters have terrible performance when they are the only adapters on my 5 ghz. However, if I connect my Apple TV (3rd gen) to 5ghz, the Broadcom BCM43236 adapters immediately work work well. Or I should clarify to say that they work well with .257 after 48 hours of testing. With previous .3xx firmware, they would work well as long as Apple TV was connected, but only for 24 hours.

If I unplug the Apple TV from the electrical outlet, the Broadcom BCM43236 adapters immediately fall back to 54 Mbps link speed and "real" file copy performance suffers.

I don't think the Asus engineers are able to grasp the concept that individual adapters must be tested alone without any other adapter connected. They need to change their test procedures. .3xx should have stayed beta.

 

[wkweksl]

I don't think the problem is with your iPad. I think the .3xx is broken for many devices.

The reason why you see mixed results between forum members is because a compatible adapter can have a positive influence on non-compatible adapters. Some forum members might have a mixture of compatible and non compatible. To test properly, one needs to test an individual adapter while all other adapters are disabled (or unplugged).

For example, my Broadcom BCM43236 adapters have terrible performance when they are the only adapters on my 5 ghz. However, if I connect my Apple TV (3rd gen) to 5ghz, the Broadcom BCM43236 adapters immediately work work well. Or I should clarify to say that they work well with .257 after 48 hours of testing. With previous .3xx firmware, they would work well as long as Apple TV was connected, but only for 24 hours.

If I unplug the Apple TV from the electrical outlet, the Broadcom BCM43236 adapters immediately fall back to 54 Mbps link speed and "real" file copy performance suffers.

I don't think the Asus engineers are able to grasp the concept that individual adapters must be tested alone without any other adapter connected. They need to change their test procedures. .3xx should have stayed beta.

Interesting findings. Tough one for firmware developers nowadays having to contend with diverse mobile chipsets and closed sourced drivers.

 

[RogerSC]

Interesting...after the full restore install, my iPad 3 is still behaving nicely. So I'm calling it "fixed" for the moment. We'll see what happens in the future, but for the moment, it's doing really well, like it used to before iOS 6.1.3.

Don't know what role the router and firmware are playing in this, hard to tell, but as I said, I've changed the firmware many times before iOS 6.1.3 with no ill effects on the iPad performance.

Time will tell. Next time I change the router firmware, I'll probably have forgotten about this *smile*.