I've got a small Apple wireless that I take with me on gigs. I usually plug into the local network and I can get out on the network, plus set up the wireless so that anyone else on a mac can leech off.

At home I come out of the cable modem directly into my ethernet port.

I've noticed that when I plug in the Airport Express my dowload times and browser refresh rates are much faster off of the Express than being directly plugged in.

Shouldn't it be faster directly plugged in to the modem? Do I need a different ethernet cable perhaps? Just curious. I've had no issues with the hardware on my Macbook Pro...

the wifi router is doing nat and your cable modem probably isn't... it could be that there's a ton of traffic and stuff that your computer firewall is needing to deal with when directly connected, whereas when you're behind a nat router, it deals with all of it for your computer (i.e. ignores it all)...

but it could really be a lot of stuff... without sufficiently looking at all sorts of variables... you can't really know.

mjb

I wonder if it's only running a half-duplex when your plugging directly into the modem? Duplex mismatches are pretty common for causing slowness and other random network issues.

I've got the Comcast modem. Wonder if I should buy a better one.

duplex mismatch IS a huge problem when it happens. I've seen 100x slowdowns.

Is there a solution?

check your adapter settings. If it's set to auto, set it to full duplex. If that doesn't fix it, it's not the problem.