Friday, April 25, 2014
It's never Lupus.
Both my iPhone and iPad were taunting me. “There's an update! Update us! Update your precious! Preeeeeecious … ”
Why yes, I am a slave to the machine.
I downloaded and install the latest iOS for both—7.1.1. Two hours later, both devices were running the latest and greatest.
Only the wireless net-work-ing … was … … very … … … s … l … … o … … ‥ … w. Like 300 baud slow. Maybe 110 baud.
Did I mention it was slow?
I did a bunch of searches, using terms like “iOS 7.1.1 slow” and “iOS 7.1.1 sucks” and “why the XXXX is iOS 7.1.1 so XXXXXXX slow?” and most of the answers (when I could find them—there were very few incidents reported) were variations on “shut down all running apps,” “disallow background upgrading,” “disable location services,” to “restore factory settings, then restore from backup. That's the only way to make sure.”
Okay.
Shut down all apps—wireless networking still slow.
Disallowed background upgrading—wireless networking still slow.
Disabled location services—wireless networking still slow.
Sigh.
An hour to restore factory settings and reload everything back onto the iPhone and iPad. Wireless networking still slow.
XXXX!
It was then that Bunny came in. I got her up to speed, and she asked if it could be the wireless router. “Well, in theory it could be, but what ever happened would have had to happen in the past day or two,” I said.
“Because my Mac laptop is slow,” she said.
“Oh really?” I asked.
“Really.” The wireless networking on her Mac laptop was slow. “It's been that way for some time now,” Bunny said. “And I haven't upgraded any time recently.”
Yup. Slow. I shut down all the running programs (she tends to leave email and a browser running all the time). Still slow. Okay, I plugged in a network cable and the networking afterburners kicked in, bits flying around so fast the sonic booms were deafening.
So it definitely was something with the wireless router. It's been sitting there on a shelf for a year or two, just doing its thing. So, operating under the assumption that it hadn't changed, but something else in the environment did. A quick scan showed a new wireless access point nearby—perhaps interference?
A quick aside: all wireless routers can transmit on 11 different channels, and by default, they are all configured to broadcast on channel 6. My wireless router was broadcasting on channel 6.
Hmm … change the broadcast channel. Bunny's Mac is now fast.
That couldn't … no … couldn't be it, could it?
iPhone, fast.
iPad, fast.
Well. There it is.
