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Forum Discussion

milomilomilo's avatar
milomilomilo
Follower
Dec 28, 2020

orbi ax4200

Hi is there a way to force my my iMac on my orbi satelite to use the 5GHZ band? It keeps going to 2.4 even though it's literally right next to it. The whole reason I bought the system was to speed ...
FURRYe38's avatar
FURRYe38
Guru - Experienced User
Dec 28, 2020

Distance should be a factor and it's up to devices to pick and choose which frequency they connect too. 

 

Get some distance in between the devices and RBR. 

Then try turning down the 2.4Ghz radio output power from 100% to 50% and see if this changes anything. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings

  • ekhalil's avatar
    ekhalil
    Master
    Dec 28, 2020

    You can also force iMac (MacOS) to use a specific channel (Orbi's 5GHz channel), as follows:

    1. In your iMac's terminal, type:

      sudo /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport /usr/sbin/airport -s
      This command will only work under administrator account so make sure that you are logged in as an Administrator.

    2. Turn Wifi off on your computer

    3. In your iMac's terminal, type:

      sudo /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Resources/airport --channel=**num**

      where **num** is the 5 GHz channel number to set.

    4. Turn Wifi On and connect to the network again

    5. You can check your active connection by Alt+Clicking on the WiFi icon on the OSX menu bar, re-scanning with Wireless Diagnostics or using the terminal (step 1 above).

    Good luck!