help please

 
 
JerryWilcox
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Joined  2007-04-02
Posted: 02 April 2007 08:29 PM

I have two Macs, an iBook G4 and and iMac G5. I have AT&T;DSL.

My problem is with the iMac G5. Connected to the DSL modem via Ethernet, I have extremely slow or non-existent connection. Some websites will load, others simply hang forever on “waiting for ...” or “looking up ...” Programs which connect to the internet to check for updates usually work, but sometimes report that they are unable to connect to the internet. Please note—if I plug the iBook into Ethernet or use the wireless network, that computer has no problems connecting or doing the same thing I was trying to do on the G5, so I don’t think the problem is with the DSL modem or with the ISP service itself, it seems to be just the iMac.

On the iMac I have turned off the built-in firewall, so I’m using only the firewall in the DSL modem. I’m currently at OS 10.4.9 and have completely reinstalled the OS (archive and install method) to no avail. The next thing to try is (I guess) completely reformatting the hard drive and doing a bare-bones install, but before I do that, I thought I’d ask here to see if anyone has any suggestions less of a pain than that approach. I really don’t want to reinstall all my apps, etc. if I can avoid it.

Can anyone suggest something I’ve perhaps forgotten to check for or look at or I can try?

Thanks in advance. I’ll be very appreciative of any help.

Jerry

     
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WAWA
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Posted: 17 April 2007 06:07 PM

Warning: I’m no expert.
And I just try using logic instead of knowledge about networks.
Shouldn’t you ‘inform’ your iMac on switching between Airport and Ethernet ?
Via SystemPreferences Network etc.
Maybe look in sharing to. Maybe you share via Airport and then when you put in the ethernet cable the machine shares bandwith. Don’t expect to much of these remarks just give it a try.

     
JerryWilcox
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Posted: 17 April 2007 06:21 PM

Thanks for your reply.

Perhaps I wasn’t completely clear:

The iMac has no airport card, so it can only connect via Ethernet. The iBook has an airport card and an NIC, so it can connect either way. Using the iBook in either WiFi or Ethernet mode works fine. One of the beautiful things about the Mac is that I don’t have to tell it how I’m connected—it just works. I do have profiles set up for the AT&T;service, pointing to their nameservers, etc.

The iMac, however, misbehaves severely when it is connected via the Ethernet cable.

I’ve take all routers, hubs, and third-party or builtin firewalls out of the equation on the iMac. Some things work: Radio365 streams music just fine, most programs are able to connect to check for and download updates (although sometimes very slowly), TurboTax was able to connect for updates and was able to efile my taxes with no problems.

Web browsers (I’ve tried Firefox, Safari, and Camino) work on some pages, not on others, and inconsistently at that. For example, I cannot connect to Google to check my GMail. I reach the login page, log in, and then get a blank page as a result. I cannot connect to my bank. VersionTracker Pro is unable to connect to its server at all.

I’m still at a total loss to solve this problem and still looking for help.

     
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WAWA
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Posted: 17 April 2007 06:33 PM

It is a known fact that certain websites do not work with Safari. Safari 2.0 eliminated some of the wrongdoers for me but for some sites I have to use Firefox. I know that the blog site of Google doesn’t “like” Safari.
If the problem goes beyond browsers, try eliminating the firewall on the router settings, if you feel comfortable doing so. Just for testing. I’m afraid I can’t be of any more help here, but your post certainly clarified the problem.

     
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WAWA
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Posted: 18 April 2007 05:30 AM

I found an interesting article trough MacIt.

But then I found this.