When it involves supporting you troubleshoot wi-fi networking problems, Mac OS X can’t appear to make up its mind. The vintage Network Utility become suitable more often than not for community gurus. OS X 10.four got here with Network Diagnostics, which took a user-friendlier hand-maintaining approach. Lion delivered Wi-Fi Diagnostics, however concealed it away; it become in large part supposed to be utilized by AppleCare technicians or Apple Store Geniuses, who’d use it to generate distinctive log reports. Now Mountain Lion comes with a community tool—a revised model of Wi-Fi Diagnostics—that’s once more supposed for normal stop users, now no longer simply community experts.
Wi-Fi Diagnostics let you discern out why your Mac’s Wi-Fi adapter isn’t connecting to a community. It also can locate close by networks (which in flip may be beneficial for monitoring down interference problems) and offerings broadcasting their availability through Bonjour. It additionally gives a graphical the front stop to a few not unusualplace Unix community tools, tons as Network Utility did, however in a shape that the ones with out command-line revel in can use.
To release Wi-Fi Diagnostics, keep down the Option key as you click on at the Wi-Fi icon withinside the menu bar. That’ll open the Wi-Fi menu with an Open Wi-Fi Diagnostics object on the bottom; click on that object to open the utility. You also can release this system without delay from its hidey-hole: In the Finder, pick Go > Go to Folder, and enter /System/Library/CoreServices/. You’ll locate the Wi-Fi Diagnostics app in there.
However you open it, you’ll see a welcome window with 3 options: Create Diagnostic Report, Turn on Debug Logs, and Capture Network Traffic. For your troubleshooting purposes, you could forget about all 3 and rather pick File > Network Utilities (or press Command-N).
The Network Utilities window presents 4 separate tabs which are every beneficial of their very own way. Let’s undergo them one at a time.
Performance
The Performance view tracks the wi-fi connection among your Mac and the bottom station to which it’s connected. The pinnacle chart, Signal Strength, suggests the relative first-class of the connection, at the same time as the bottom, Network Traffic, suggests bytes passing again and forth. Together, those charts let you discern out the most useful region to hook up with a community or to troubleshoot useless spots in your own home or workplace.
Performance tab
On the Signal Strength chart, the higher yellow line suggests the electricity of the sign being acquired from the bottom station at the same time as the decrease inexperienced line suggests noise. The in addition those strains are from every other, the more the throughput you may receive. The better the sign level, the more potent the sign.
Noise frequently stays constant; in case you stroll round your own home or workplace together along with your laptop, that line won’t alternate at all. The yellow sign line is greater responsive, and you could watch it alternate as you circulate round (or stroll among a laptop and the direct course to a base station).
The Network Traffic chart under can be much less beneficial than the Signal Strength chart, as it simply suggests the amount of facts being transferred over your Mac’s wi-fi connection. But it is able to inform you whether or not any facts is getting through.
Wi-Fi Scan
The Wi-Fi Scan view suggests the effects of a experiment of the encircling networks, offering as tons element approximately every as it is able to with out absolutely connecting. The experiment may be up to date with the aid of using choosing Active Scan or Passive Scan from the Scan pop-up menu withinside the decrease left; it additionally updates periodically with out intervention. (An energetic experiment might also additionally locate greater networks that broadcast much less or no statistics approximately themselves.)
