Special Mac edition

Jordan from Fremont: My new MacBook Pro is all of a sudden slowing down when it comes to Internet tasks. MyiPhone, oldiPod Touch, and other PCs on the network seem to be fine, nevertheless my heavily used MacBook seems to be slowing down especially in streaming video just as CNET, Netflix, and Youtube. I cleared all of my settings on Chrome and it's slow across all of my browsers. Opera seems to be slightly better but on the whole unacceptable. Is there something wrong with my laptop? Is there a quick fix?

Topher: Run some general maintenance tasks. You need to do them. Delete preferences files, remove caches, etc. See the utilities Onyx, MacKeeper, MacJanitor, and AppleJack.

Mark from Winnipeg: I have a two-story condo, plus a basement. Currently, the wireless router and modem are in the basement, and my brother's laptop is on the second floor. His connection keeps dropping, so we could move the router onto the main floor, nevertheless we have nonwireless elements down there. I did try to connect my brother with Ethernet over Powerline, yet that was worse at that time his wireless connection. I don't want to run cables along the floor and down the walls, so I was thinking of trying out Ethernet-over-Coax adapters. Are these things any good?

Topher: Yes, Ethernet-over-coax adapters can work so then, and are more reliable and faster than Powerline networking. The simplest thing is to get a wireless range extender, which should boost the signal enough to make the 2nd-floor laptop Wi-Fi usable. Nevertheless using the wires is better.

Rafe: Another solution is to set up a wireless bridge to extend the range of the wireless router in the basement. You can put the bridge, which will likely have a better Wi-Fi radio than the laptop definitely, at a location with good reception, and connect it to your laptop via Ethernet.

The Developer from Boston

Phil the Developer from Boston: There is one other answer in other words likely the cause. Some games just use a lot more bandwidth than you may expect and do hog. When I play either Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2, or Black Ops, my wife is unable to get onto the Net through either Wi-Fi or Ethernet. I know I'm doing nothing to affect the bandwidth of the house, however it for all that occurs sometimes, even when I'm not but in a game and just waiting for one to start. I think the reason is because of the voice chat aspect of those games. I by and large am playing with for the time being one friend and am connected and chatting. This can take a bunch of bandwidth on top of the game. We're on Comcast in Boston, so this actually shouldn't occur.

Rafe: Yeah, nevertheless voice chat and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) are low-bandwidth applications. They are, on the whole, very sensitive to latency. Packet delay can as a matter of fact mess up voice quality. So some routers automatically prioritize VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), and it is possible that this could interfere. Look at the QoS, or "quality of service" settings in your router. Or like as not...

Andre: While the show you took a question where the person was having a problem where one user in the house was locking everyone out of the Internet. I have recently had the same problem myself. We just bought my wife a MacBook Air with N wireless. As in the near future as she started downloading patches to her machine, I lost ALL Internet. Not even ping worked. As in the near future as the download stopped, I was fine. I bought a new N router, and nevertheless the problem is gone. The only thing I can think of is that it was simply taxing the older router to the point where it could only handle one connection at a time. With a new DLink extreme N router the problems are gone. Just a thought...

This consumer advocacy column gives innovation consumers a place to sound off on issues with their products or services, join forces with other users experiencing similar issues, and get those issues resolved with CNET's help. Rafe Needleman and other CNET editors as well examine claims companies have made in ads and elsewhere, and they take on other challenges to protect consumers' rights and save them money.