Skip to main content

Optimize Your Wi-Fi Network with Mac’s Hidden Diagnostic Tool

lifehacker has an article showing us a Mac hidden tool that can show the wireless networks around you.  The tool is called: Wi-Fi Diagnostics tool.

First, you can either go to the folder /System/Library/CoreServices—or hold down the option key while clicking on the Wi-Fi icon in your menu bar and select "Open Wi-Fi Diagnostics..."
Open the tool (if you browsed for it by folder, you can copy the app to your Utilities folder or Dock first).

For Mountain Lion users only: Ignore the first screen and hit Command+N to open the "Network Utilities" window. Then Hit "Wi-Fi Scan" and you'll be presented with a list of all the networks near you—even ones that are hidden, as well as their channel, security, and signal and noise levels.

Technorati has an article on how to use this tool as well.

The "Signal" number specifies the signal strength between your Mac and the Wi-Fi access point or router. The higher this number is, the better. But note that these are negative numbers so a Signal of -60 is higher (and stronger) compared to a Signal of -80. The Noise number represents the amount of wireless noise that can interfere with the Signal. In this situation, we want lower numbers. So again, because we have negative Noise numbers, a Noise level of -94 is better than one of -90.
Finally, we can take the Signal and Noise numbers to come up with a Signal-to-Noise ratio (SNR) for our wireless connection. So for example, If I have a Signal level of -60 and a Noise level of -91, the difference between these two numbers is 31. The higher the SNR is, the better the Wi-Fi performance will be. Typically a SNR of 25 or higher will give you great Wi-Fi performance.

If you have competing networks on the same channel, you could possibly improve your reception by changing your channel on your router to one that's not used.

Click on the Performance tab if you're using Mountain Lion to see a chart of your live signal strength and noise meter (as well as network traffic). Basically, the wider the gap between the yellow and green lines, the better.

* Another article about this tool on OS X Daily.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Box Hill High School Zone

Parents are struggling with moving into a good reputable school for their kid(s). Here is the zone for Box Hill High School.   Good luck with house hunting!

Venus Bay - pipi

Location: Venus Bay, Victoria This is around 2 hours drive from Melbourne. Aim for Bay 1, turn left away from the entrance; or bay 5, turn right away from the entrance. Preparation: Map (see below) Tide Time (Check at Australian Tide Time ) Fishing License (Purchase at Kmart or DPI online ) Container (2-liter per person limit) Sunscreen Drinking water NO digging tools! (hands and feet only) Fun Part – Digging: Best time is the low tide towards the lowest tide. Pipi could be around 5~10 cm deep.

Brivis Heater - Error Code #69

My Brivis HX23 Heater broke down this week.  H01 Code #69.  This code was not even listed in the User Manual!  Searching around the web and here is what I found: Secret Reset: This is not in the User Manual.  On the networker controller press FUNCTION > 1 > 4 keys and the screen will go blank and come back on after 30 seconds, this has rebooted the main PCB and reset the fault code. Use this with caution as too much gas build up could cause an explosion. Use it only after the unit has enough time to air out the gas build up. What is Code #69 or any other unpublished codes?  The best way to find out is to open up the heater unit.   There is a little LCD on the PCB showing what error exactly is. (Note: Opening up the unit may void your warranty.)