Problem with WiFi of a new MacBook Pro

Add another to this long list... I just upgraded from a PowerBook G4 to a brand new MacBook Pro 2.4GHz. Usually you expect brand new things to work nice... My wireless works fine at home on a Linksys, but when I'm at work and try to connect to the Netgear wireless router, I get nowhere. I have a full signal from the router, but nothing goes through or comes in. Diagnostics says that my internet connection is fine. I watched my brother take his HP laptop and flip through web pages seamlessly on the wireless network. Firmware has been checked and is completely updated. Any computers (including Mac Pro's and iMacs) that are hardwired on the same network are working great. We've narrowed it down to the fact that any Mac that tries to go wireless just can't do it. I've got other coworkers with MacBooks and iBooks that are having the exact same issue. PC's are fine both wireless and hardwired, and Mac's are fine hardwired but just are not doing the wireless thing.

And it's not a 10.4.10 issue. I and many others here are still at 10.4.9 because I refuse to update as I have watched countless friends and other people get screwed up by that latest update.

Any thoughts?

Powerbook G4 1.67 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.10)

In my case the netgear router is connected to the new apple airport extreme base station so the netgear router is not producing the wireless signal. The new 17" macbook pro does not detect the wireless signal from the apple base station! Works perfectly well when I plug an ethernet cable between them but with airport there is no signal at all. This was the problem with 10.4.9 and now with the updated 10.4.10.
If there is anyone close to Apple is there going to be a firmware update or a software update to sort out the issue with the new macbook pros and wifi? Having all my house wireless, my speakers linked to airport express, etc having my music on my new macbook pro is not looking clever!

I vote everyone keeps this topic at the top of this list until Apple remembers that they still have customers other than the ones that are buying iPhones.

Powerbook G4 1.67 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.9)

In my case it the wifi problem has nothing to do with working on battery or not. The problem is the same with 10.4.9 or 10.4.10 of OS X.

I wonder that I don't have connection problems to get into my wlan network even with n-mode enabled. But there is no throughput at all.
I monitored the transmission behaviour when trying to copy a file over wifi with n-mode enabled. First there is a peak which transfers around 1 Mbyte of data, then the speed breaks completely down to nearly zero and I get the impression that data is transfered bit per bit 😟

I don't like to exchange my Netgear WNR854T with an Apple airport extreme basestation because the airport device don't have gigabit ports and I need them because I have wired connected servers in my home network too which I want to connect with gigabit ethernet.

I will call the Apple hotline today again and I hope the other users here will do the same that Apple will not forget about us and will priorize this issue to high level.

Is there anyone else with the Netgear WNR854T having the same problem or with a solution other than turning the router in g-mode only?

BTW, I tried various firmware versions on the Netgear device, now I work with latest 1.4.22. My glorious MBPro is updated with all patches from Apple too.

I don't have any other idea than waiting for a working firmware/driver update from Apple.

Best regards
mbpFrank

I vote everyone keeps this topic at the top of this
list until Apple remembers that they still have
customers other than the ones that are buying
iPhones.

This is a user to user forum.

You can post all you want, but software fixes are made in response to trouble tickets logged through AppleCare, not posts on the Discussions.

The fact that I am not having problems with either
Win-doze (under bootcamp on the macbook pro) or with
G3/G4 ibooks actually does say it's the intel OS X
driver. I'm not having a reception problem - I'm in
the same house in the next room. The signal strength
is strong. It's the same when in the same room. It's
obviously the driver. It can't be anything else.

OK, once again:

Just because it works under Windows does not mean Apple's driver is at fault.

To make the analogy as simple as possible, if Windows returns the answer to "2+2" as "5", that doesn't mean Apple's software is broken if it returns "4."

Wi-Fi is an incredibly complex protocol; it's amazing it works at all; view
this PDF if you want to see how complex.

I wonder that I don't have connection problems to get
into my wlan network even with n-mode enabled. But
there is no throughput at all.

Note that since 802.11n is still a draft spec, there may well be interoperability issues between different vendors' implementations.

For the time being, the best route for you might be to drop back to 802.11g; for most purposes your wired network or connection to the Internet will be the bottleneck, not your Wi-Fi connection.

Note that since 802.11n is still a draft spec,
there may well be interoperability issues between
different vendors' implementations.

Your are right but the only vendor with issues at the moment is Apple. All my other devices from HP, Qtek, IBM/Lenovo don't have this interoperability issues.
I don't care why it works in Vista native mode (boot with bootcamp) even if the driver implementation is faulty. The only important thing for me is, that it works great this way.

For the time being, the best route for you might be
to drop back to 802.11g; for most purposes your wired
network or connection to the Internet will be the
bottleneck, not your Wi-Fi connection.

Only to serve the internet you might be right that the g-mode is fast enough. But with my cable connection to the internet with 25Mbit bandwith the 1,5Mbyte transfer rate in airport g-mode is nearly a bottleneck.

But as described above I have some servers in my network. I also use my wifi connection to transfer data between my MBPro and the servers. For this I need as much bandwith as possible. For sure I can connect the MBPro with wire to the router to reach better performance but why I spent so much money for n-technology if I cannot use it and why the vendors are advertising this technology if it is not usuable at all?

Everybody with similar problems with the airport card should open a hotline call on AppleCare. Only posting in this forum will be a solution to get Apple to care about this with higher priority.

Cheers
mbpFrank

What I said is that it works under Win-doze (on my Macbook pro under Bootcamp) "and" my G3 ibook running OS X. It doesn't work on OS X on the Macbook pro. Obviously then it's the Apple supplied intel OS X driver.



MacBook Pro, MacBook, G3 iBook, dual g5 +many older macs and PCs Mac OS X (10.4.9)

I agree! I helped a friend set up her brand new MacBook Pro 2.4GHz notebook the other day. She has a Netgear Wi-Fi 802.11g/b router (latest firmware) and before the MBP the router worked fine with her old PowerBook G3. She could connect to the router just fine on the MBP with Ethernet. I could connect just fine to the router with my iPhone. However, over Wi-Fi her MBP would connect to the Netgear, get an IP address but would not surf.

After doing a quick search here and finding this thread and YOUR message (thank you), I changed the security on her Netgear to WEP (as a temporary measure until this issue is resolved by Apple) instead of WPA and the MBP connected and surfed no problem (it also worked when I tried turning security off on the Netgear).

So it would seem that the MBP running Mac OS X 10.4.10 has an issue with 3rd party routers running WPA2 security. WEP is not very secure at all, but it's better than nothing until this gets fixed.

I made another AppleCare call concerning this problem and I was told that Apple don't know about general wifi problems with routers from other vendors.

AppleCare told me that what the users are posting in this forum is not relevant for Apple. Only the AppleCare calls are relevant and they said that there are not much of these (I wonder if I read this thread).

So please, everybody with problems should place a call on AppleCare that they cannot say the problems does not exist or that this is a Netgear problem only.

Apple even did not agreed that it possibly should be a driver problem under OS X like the first rule is that Apple never cause a problem. Only other vendors 😟

I am really very glad and lucky to be a Apple customer :-(((((((
A pity that the 14 days are over and I cannot return this device any more. It would have been a better desicion to buy a Lenovo instead of this MBPro. At least from Lenovo I can expect help if there is an issue with their hardware...

May be we can collect our Call-Ref-Nr. here to have a reference to other people having the same issue.

Cheers
mbpfrank

I don't know why they would say that. I read complaints about this all over the net and I called them about it a long time ago. Maybe this is a case of selective hearing? When they were researching my problem they told me they actually looked at this board trying to find a solution and couldn't find one. They finally told me to go down to Comp USA and see if it worked with their router and if it didn't they would repair it. The problem is there is nothing wrong with the hardware - otherwise it wouldn't work under Win-doze. That's when I started posting here.

From what I gather there are several annoying issues. First is the one like I have - not being backward compatible with 811b, the 811n issue, and compatibility with WEP on some routers.

My solution thus far is to use a USB portable adapter with third party drivers whenever I run OS X. Don't know what else to do. At least Ralink has their act together.



MacBook Pro, MacBook, G3 iBook, dual g5 +many older macs and PCs Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Once again, even though I just said it two posts ago:

It may be Apple's driver; it may not be Apple's bug.

As I said, if Windows says the result of "2 + 2" is "5", Apple should not modify their software to return the same, incorrect result.

I really don't care if a router works with Windows or with PowerPC Macs, the question is whether the interoperability issue is because the MBP driver is doing something wrong or the router is doing something wrong.

If it's the Apple driver, Apple needs to fix the bug. If it's the router manufacturer, they need to fix the bug, regardless of whether "it works with Windows and my other Macs" or not.

There are specs, they need to be followed, and it's not Apple's responsibility to perhaps make their drivers less efficient because a vendor or vendors implemented the spec wrong but "it works with Windows."

I can't make it any clearer than that; it may be Apple's problem, but it is not necessarily one, and given the number of "Apple bugs" that have been fixed in the past by router manufacturer firmware revisions, I'd say the odds are pretty good it may not be Apple's fault. If third-party hardware manufacturers have bugs, that does not mean Apple does not "have their act together."

Alas, until then the only solution is to find another way to connect, and I understand how completely frustrating that answer is.

As I also said, the only way any bug will be fixed is to open an AppleCare ticket about the issue so the issue is passed along to engineering. These are user to user forums for soliciting help from fellow Mac users, not a way for issues to filter back to Apple.

You might not care whether a router works with everything except the MacBook/MacBook pro but the rest of us do. If I go to a hotel room, my job, or any other location where I need to use wireless and I am the only person who can't connect, as far as I am concerned my machine is defective and I think 90% of people in that situation would agree. What makes you think Apple is following the specs? Because they're Apple? Which part of the spec is D-Link or any of the others not following? Do you know? If the MacBook/MacBook Pro is the one having a hard time operating with industry standard routers then Apple has a serious problem and they should fix it. If they can't fix it themselves maybe they should hire a firm who can.



MacBook Pro, MacBook, G3 iBook, dual g5 +many older macs and PCs Mac OS X (10.4.9)

I am having same problem.

Gets a ip address but well not surf or nothing.Check the logs seems it sends to router but router never sends back or its not listening for it.
But I think I have come to terms its the router it will come to its end life this oct 2007 so i am trying to see if the Apple Airport Express Wireless Base Station are having this problem with macbooks to.

My Router is a D-link 714p+ they have not patch the firmware in 3 years now.
Yah it works with my imac and mac pro just laptop does not surf. But i am replacing all pcs with macs and deside to start next on routers to help me.

And the macbook pros are amazing. Yah i am switching....