[ilovetrains]

I have a G5 and a iBook (G4). As the HD on the IBook is tiny I am constantly trying to access stuff on the G5. I use airport around the house, and from time to time it quickly accesses the HD on the other machine. However most of the time it would be faster to walk to the other machine and burn a disc than wait for it to respond and move a file.
Any ideas to speed this up?

[durandal343]

I just responded while this was getting moved into this forum.
so again
Are you accessing files or copying them?
What takes a long time - mounting the HD, accessing files, or copying files?
How big are the files you are working with?

[ilovetrains]

Really all the above. It takes forever to mount the disc image and then file transfer is pretty slow. I am trying to move digital images back and forth, not sure the size, but no more than 50MB at a time. To move a folder that size typically takes 2-3 hours.

[ilovetrains]

Does anyone have any ideas on how to make these machines talk faster. It seams strange that I can take the files and email them from one machine to the other far faster than to simply access the other machine in the finder through network and transfer the files. There must be something I am doing wrong.

[pdrayton]

Does it really take 2 to 3 hours to share 50MB? Is it really faster to send a file via email?
I'm assuming your wireless router is 802.11g and both computers are 802.11g.
I ask only because the only thing I can think of offhand that might cause what you're experiencing is having a computer with an 802.11b card on your network. It could be yours, or it could be a neighbor who is connected to your network without you knowing it.
802.11g (Airport Extreme) is backwards compatible with 802.11b (older Airport). Any computer with an 802.11b card will automatically bring your network down to 802.11b speeds (11Mbps vs 54Mbps).
What's your network setup?

[ilovetrains]

the network setup is the iBook and G5 both have airport extreme. I use a Linksys wireless router and WPA encryption. What I cannot figure out is that both machines are exremely fast accessing the internet through the router, but very slow talking to each other. I was trying to move 30 pictures from the G5 to the iBook the other night. After 15 minutes it had moved 9. I stopped the operation and just started emailing the pics from one machine to the other. 5 minutes and they were all moved.
My brilliant deduction is that for some reason when the machines talk direct they do so very slowly. Why?

[pdrayton]

Well, you've got me stumped!
I hope someone will know what's causing the problem. I'm intrigued as to what kind of broadband you have. My Cable Internet has upload speed of about 350kbps... if your service has similar upload speeds then your emailing the files would be at a speed of about 350kbps, a fraction of what you should be able to achieve by just zapping them wirelessly from one computer to another.

[Reboot]

Just a thought, are you running any anti-virus software? If so disable it.

[ilovetrains]

The G5 has Norton on it, but have not updated it I don't know when because I use the virex thru .Mac now. the ibook is running naked, I think.
We have Roadrunner, I want to say the upload speed is close to 1mb per second. They told me it was capable of faster upload (and download) nspeeds when I put it in than the typical wireless router could handle. The router is brand new, one of the latest from Linksys, super g.
Here is a thought - does Panther priortise the request from other machines and make them wait?

[pdrayton]

Reboot's question about anti-virus was a good one.
So... what versions of OS X do you have on each computer?

[ilovetrains]

10.4.3 on all.

[macnuke]

reboot got it right.
virex and norton both "inhale greatly" with Tiger.
personally, I would run the uninstallers for each.
they want to scan anything that is coming into your Mac needlessly. (slowing it)
i repeat myself here again on this topic..
your Mac with current security updates and current OS is better protected without any AVware than with it.
mainly due to the fact there are NO virus' for Tiger.
so running AV from anyone does two things...
1) uses resources ( HD and CPU ) needlessly to protect you from something that doesn't exist.
2) costs you money if you don't have free versions.
hopefully, reboots suggestion will be heeded and fix you up.

[ilovetrains]

Hmm - this is interesting. It turns out I do not have Norton AV, but rather some wuite of Norton proiducts. The only one that appears to be embedded is Norton File Saver. However, if I do a system update I get a message that Norton has detected a software update and do I want to ignore it. I cannot find uninstallers for this. What is the best to clear it out, or do I even need to?
Virex is definately on there.

[Reboot]

The uninstaller should be on the Norton System Works installer disk.