What could cause different download speeds between my Windows 7 machine and my OS X.5 machine?

Question

I have a mac mini running OS 10.5.8, and a Dell laptop running Windows 7.

When I run a speakeasy speed test on the Dell, I get about 18kbps for my download speed.

On the mac, I get only about 8kbps.

Both are connecting wirelessly to the same network.

What could account for this difference, and what (if anything) can I do about it?

Some more details:

The mini is a 1.66 GHZ machine with 2 GB of RAM.

Both machines are physically only a few inches from one another.

I have installed all the latest Apple and Windows updates on the respective machines

The test was performed in both Safari 4.0.3 and Firefox 3.5.2 on the mac, and in IE 8 on the Windows box.

Answer 1

How many times have you tried it on each computer? Assuming the wireless network has much higher bandwidth than the internet connection, you can get varying bandwidth measurements with any internet connection each time you run the test. Running a quick test, I can get up to 34 kbps difference between tests (running a much higher overall bandwidth than 8-18kbps, though).

Answer 2

repeat the tests over a certain period of time for a more accurate average result.

does the problem persist with a wired connection?

p.s.: if there is no fix then i think we have a winner :)