Wifi connection bad since upgrade to 10.4.10

I have noticed this as well since 10.4.10.

My MacBook (1st gen,CoreDuo,802.11g) seems flakier when connecting to my wireless router-it takes longer from sleep, and will drop out momentarily.

My iMac (3rd? gen, Core2Duo, 802.11g/n, n not activated yet :p) has had no such problems.

That's the thing, all of you are having trouble with
the driver for the Atheros chipset in the Airport
Extreme Card. If you have a Core 2 Duo ( and thus a
"N" capable card) the Airport Extreme Card in these
MacBooks is the Broadcom chipset. It could be that
since most of you don't have the new "N" capable
Airport Extreme BaseStation, that you have not
enabled the "N" capability by paying the nominal fee
to Apple and downloading the code which enables that
card. The .10 update may query the system and just
load the Atheros driver as the default driver, which
causes kernal panics and inability to join and stay
joined to your WiFi networks. There may be a fault in
the Atheros driver as well, since some of the MacMini
owners are experiencing an inability of their systems
to detect their Airport Extreme Card, and all of
those are the Atheros chipset.

I think you may be on to something there, but I'm not quite sure what you are saying. My MacBook Core2Duo was made in January '07, it's n-capable, but I haven't installed the optional 802.11n support. System Profiler indicates it's got the Atheros extension loaded, and I don't have any trouble with 10.4.10.

If it's got a Broadcom interface, I wouldn't expect it to be using the Atheros extension.

Hey boys and girls...

Well, after reading a few of the posts, I can say this:


1. I have the N activated from the factory- This is a week old macbook. (Utilities/Network Utility, choose en1 from the dropdown - if you see (802.11 a/b/g/n), you have n installed)
2. The ONLY airport driver loaded into the kernel is atheros, meaning it MUST be the active driver. See kextstat -l | grep -i airport
3. I have been monkeying with replacing extensions from previous versions. So far, I have not had a wifi dropout or kernel panic... BUT IT'S EARLY IN MY TESTING.

Here's how I replaced the extension. This is taken directly from a macfixit tutorial. NOTE: 10.4.9 still produced a wifi lockup. I have now used the airport kext (I chose all I found) in 10.4.8 and SO FAR (only tonight) I have not had a dropout. IT COULD STILL HAPPEN THOUGH, SO YMMV:

Reverting to older AirPort kernel extensions [Useful for: slow wireless throughput, router not recognized]

f you are experiencing dire AirPort connectivity issues after a major system update (incremental Mac OS X update or Security Update), and have exhausted all other workarounds, you can try reverting to older version of the AirPort kernel extension via the following steps: [WARNING: This workaround is risky because you should not generally mix and match kernel extensions after updates. You will also lose any AirPort-related refinements brought about by the most recent update and new conflicts can ensue. Still, in a bind, it can restore wireless connectivity where other workarounds fail.]

1. Download the Mac OS X combo updater directly precedent to your current system version if you applied an incremental Mac OS X update (e.g. Mac OS X 10.4.9), or your current system version if you applied a security update from Apple's download page.
2. Download and install the shareware application Pacifist
3. Drag the Mac OS X combo installer package (e.g. MacOSXUpd10.4.9Intel.pkg) onto the Pacifist application icon.
4. Click the triangle next to System to expand it
5. Click the triangle next to Library to expand it
6. Click the triangle next to Extensions to expand it
7. Scroll down and find the file AppleAirPort.kext. Drag it to your Desktop or another location (you will have to enter your administrator password)
8. On your Mac OS X startup drive, navigate to /System/Library/Extensions and locate a similarly named file (AppleAirPort.kext). Move it to another location for safe keeping.
9. Now drag the file from step 7 (the one that you retrieved from the Mac OS X combo install package) into the /System/Library/Extensions directory on your startup, in effect replacing the newer file (installed by the AirPort updater) with and older copy -- you will have to enter an administrator password.
10. Restart your Mac





Macbook Z0ES Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Spoke too soon. Just had a kernel panic...

Guess I'm reloading 10.4.9 from scratch....

Had the same problem, the internet would slow down, Then I would see one bar of signal then full (about four feet from the base station)

A restart would bring it back to normal for about 10-20 mins.

Yesterday I zapped the PRAM and so far it's all been normal, no slow down and signal strength as it was before 10.4.10

Fingers crossed 🙂

Unfortunately that's what I had to do... I tried the Pacifist fix with replacing the .kexts, and ended up in Darwin on the reboot! Couldn't get OSX to load right, so I ended up doing an erase and install. 😟

Alright so I called Applecare tech support for it just for the heck of it. After the usual crap that does not work, the guy suggested it was because I was dual booting with Linux using rEFIt, I proceeded to remove refit from my startup items. Rebooted, still the same thing, even had a kernel panic. Basically the guy told me to reinstall OS X that this would fix the problem. He still went ahead and sent my problem to their engineering department with all my logs. We will see what comes ou of this. When I indicated that many people have the same problem since 10.4.10 upgrade, he told me this was most likely coincidental.

Since I am not having problems (fingers crossed) with my wireless connection ( I do have the new Apple "N" basestation Airport Extreme)I cannot try anything to fix the situation. I know how it would be if I suddenly lost connection though. My entrance into the posts was to make sure everyone knew that there were two cards used, and to voice my opinion that it was definitely driver based. Hopefully Apple code technicians use these boards to help with configurations that they may not have experienced in their work stations. If all individuals that have the problem identify the Airport card ( Atheros/Broadcom ) and the router they're using, it can be helpful in ferreting out where the problem lies. I have never blamed Apple for the problems, they for sure want their products to just work, but knowledge can be helpful to them and us when we try to fix what is broken. I posted in other lines of discussion yesterday in hopes of informing about what has occurred, some of the messages were deleted by the forum Gods ,even though nothing accusatory was said. The fact remains that MiniMac users have the old Atheros card and some of them experienced their systems not even detecting the card, MacBook users had various problems, and because their machines could have either card - I tried to have people post what their card, router, etc. was in order for good troubleshooting to occur.

ok so my wireless connection to my computer has been working fantastic and i havent had any problems until yesterday morning when my macbook prompted me to update. So i did and now all of a sudden my wireless connects to the router but i cant surf the web or get on AIM. i have had my macbook for almost a year now and have been using the same router since then, I havent changed anything on my wireless router at all. It is a NETGEAR by the way.
I tried restarting the router and the cable box and everything but the wireless still isnt allowing me to surf the web. Does anyone have a solution for this?

I have exactly the same problem, it is making me crazy! I just changed to MacBook recently too (from my 12' inch PoweBook). I really miss my powerbook! I also have another problem, my computer keeps crashing, like a pc, with a grey message saying ''restart your computer pressing down the power key for a couple of seconds...''

I never expierenced any of this problems on my powerbook, i am really disappointed with my mackbook, i really thought i was going to have the untroubled expiernce as i did with my powerbook.

I also have 2 other problems, when my battery runs out, my mackbook automatically shuts down instead of going to sleep, loosing whatever work i was doing... AND my other problem is switching to other wireless networks, it doesn't do it automatically, i usually have to play around with the network diagnostics for a couple of minutes before i can get internet. AND now i have the same problem as gbraad, i constantly loose connection and the available SID's are not shown unless i restart my mac.

I am really frustrated, feeling that shouldn't exist with macs! that is why i swiched from PCs in the first place, so please help!!!

That's the exact same thing that happened to me, with the weird twist that Network Diagnostics, etc, thought I was successfully connnected (little green lights all the way)...

I have exactly the same problem, it is making me
crazy! I just changed to MacBook recently too (from
my 12' inch PoweBook). I really miss my powerbook! I
also have another problem, my computer keeps
crashing, like a pc, with a grey message saying
''restart your computer pressing down the power key
for a couple of seconds...''

This is called a kernel panic ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_panic) most of us started having them when we ipgraded to 10.4.10, if you look at the logs you should be able to tell from which module the kernel panic came (for example my last shows com.apple.driver.AirPort.Atheros(230.8.5)@0x30905000 as being the culprit)



macbook c2d black Mac OS X (10.4.10) dual boot linux

Is there any settings from my MB that I can post for people to compare against? as I upgraded to 10.4.10 as soon as it told me it was avaiable.

I have had not problems what so ever, I even took the power cable out and ran on the battery to see if that would cause a problem (which it has not)

Anyway if there is something I can post let me know.

Is there any settings from my MB that I can post for
people to compare against?

What type of wireless authentication are you using?

OPEN (no authentication), WEP, WPA or WPA2

What type of wireless authentication are you using?

OPEN (no authentication), WEP, WPA or WPA2

WPA2