Problems with Wifi in new Mac mini

[Ramiroo]

Its been long time since I have been using Mac systems but have never encountered such problems with it. Recently I bought a Mac mini which is installed with Mac OS X Snow leopard. I connect my Mac mini to the express base station using Wifi but the performance of the Mac mini is very poor. The download and upload speed which I get on the Mac mini is very low. I am particularly not good at networking and hence it would be nice if somebody explained me why I am facing such Problems with Wifi in new Mac mini. Any suggestions/solution regarding the issue are welcome. Thanks in advance.

[Big Fish]

I would suggest that you check the express base station first because it is possible that the base station itself is not providing the required bandwidth to the Mac mini and hence you are getting low download and upload speeds. Try connecting some other device to the express base station and check the upload and download speed which is achieved on the other device. If the other device can achieve higher download and upload speed than Mac mini then the Mac mini has some problem which needs to rectified.

[Shen]

Check if the drivers for the network adapter are installed and working properly on the system. All the devices which are connected to the computer require set of drivers to be installed on the computer. If the appropriate drivers for the device are not installed on the computer then the device will not function properly and will give similar problems like the one which you are facing. Therefore check if the drivers for the network adapter are installed on the system. You can also try and update the drivers for the network adapter and check if the performance of the computer improves or not.

[Steve123]

The encryption of the wireless network must be creating problems. The operating system which you are using only supports WEP encryption for wireless network. Therefore if your Wireless network is configured to use some other encryption then the Mac mini would not be able to access all the resources of the network which could be the reason behind low performance of the Wireless network. Check the encryption of the network. If the network is using some other encryption then change it to WEP and then check the performance of Mac mini.

[Wguy2008]

Their must be some processes which are downloading data in the background. If such a situation occurs then the upload and the download speed on the Mac mini is bound to suffer. The download process can be some software update which usually takes place in background. Therefore check if their are any of the process is downloading any data from the internet in background. If there are some processes which are downloading then terminate them and check the upload and download speed on the Mac mini. If there is still no improvement then you will have to take the Mac mini to the nearest service center.

[Wyvern]

Many of the problems which are related to the Mac system are solved by doing a PRAM reset. Hence I would suggest that you try doing a PRAM reset and check if the performance of the computer improves or not. Follow the steps below to perform PRAM reset :-
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys (Apple. Option, R and P)
3. Press and hold the following keys while pressing the power button.
4. Keep the buttons pressed till you hear three startup chimes.
5. Once the 3rd startup chime is heard, release the keys and let the computer boot normally.
Hope the post helps.