Airport extreme keeps dropping connection and its driving me crazy

we are having drops in both the wireless AND wired connections.
i have been through new cabling, the slowly isolate each element of the network... and every time AEBS. eliminated all outside sources of interference, swopped channels... everything.

it's the airport which is the loose cog.
not feeling to good about the amount of length of time from the start of this thread with no input from Apple.
shameshame.

Yep, yep yep -
Airport: scanning....

MacBookPro3,1
OS 10.5.2

drops constantly. lost valuable info and time on countless occasions.
Was replacing a G4 Powerbook with this new machine for Intel to run AutoCAD, and now have all these issues that is making me want to return the machine and just wait for a newer model, or blasphemes of all blasphemes....just go out and buy a dreaded PC for AutoCAD work.

I am using the exact same Airport Express and everything else is the same regarding my internet connectivity except the machine or OS version. My G4 still runs wireless fine through the same Airport Express.

5,6,7,8,9 times now (thank you copy/paste!) I have been booted off in typing this brief email.

Customer support call in the morning - still time to return this Mac, thankfully.

ps...If you can read this post then I was able to connect for a few seconds...send for help!

For the record, switching to Time Capsule from my UFP AEBS did NOTHING to fix my constant dropouts.

THIS MYSTERY NEEDS TO BE SOLVED AND FIXED, APPLE!!!

Grrr Arrgghh.

I too am having the same problem. I had a G3 iBook hooked up to a network with limited issues. Just bought the new MacBook Pro, reset the airport extreme base station and my airport express to try and "start fresh." No such luck.

I can surf the net, but with limited interruption, and loading times are much longer than they should be with the new MacBook Pro. Also, the new issue that I never had before is the CONSTANT interruption with the airport express. I have airtunes hooked up to my Apple Hifi to play iTunes wirelessly through the remote speaker, well there is no way to do that now. A song will play for about 2-3 seconds and then the signal is interrupted. It is truly brutal.

I never had a problem when airtunes was hooked up through my old G3. I'm wondering if the software update that I downloaded in the airport utility made everything go out of whack.

This is extremely frustrating and discouraging. I really hope that Apple responds with an answer, advice, or a new software update soon. Otherwise, I will be shopping for an entirely new network system from a different manufacturer soon.

I have a brand new MacBookPro4,1. I'm running 10.5.2. This is my Airport info:

Wireless Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0x8C)
Wireless Card Locale: USA
Wireless Card Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (4.170.46.3)
Current Wireless Network: 2WIRE179
Wireless Channel: 11

I have an AT&T 2wire gateway wireless router. My wireless connection works fine for a few minutes then drops out. My girlfriend has an ibook running 10.4.11 and she has zero connection problems.

WHAT'S THE DEAL APPLE???????? FIX THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!

ANYBODY HELP!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!

Have you guys seen the other thread about Widgets? Cody Porche accidentally found that when he removed the Widgets he had running, his network worked again. I thought it was a crazy idea, but sure enough, I removed all my Widgets and no drop outs for 3 days now (prior to which, I had experienced dropouts every 15-20 minutes or so).

Here's the link:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6826234#6826234

It seems there are some Widgets that access the internet constantly to update info and when they do, it interrupts the network connection somehow (if this is a flaw that was brought out by 10.5.2 or whatever). I just took them all off to be safe for now, but I think the offending one I had is "RadarInMotion", which accesses the internet to update the weather satellites. Turns out I added it around the same time I started noticing the dropouts too. I havent gotten the cajones to turn it back on yet and verify. I just want to be 100% sure Im totally up and running again before I start adding back.

I would suggest that everyone remove their Widgets and see what happens. Like I said, I thought this guy was delusional, but it fixed my problem! 🙂

Please post your experiences!

WOW!!!

Who knows if this will last, but I deleted all of my widgets and eureka! I deleted all of my widgets, restarted the computer and it seems to have helped. I immediately played a song on iTunes through my remote speaker using airtunes, loaded multiple web pages, about 7 or 8 tabs, and had no interruption. If this lasts I am truly grateful to cody. However, this is still something that needs to be addressed by Apple, I mean seriously, my iPhone should not be running the web and email better than my brand new MacBook Pro.

One thing I forgot to mention before is that when I click on the wifi symbol, the airport is ALWAYS scanning. This is something that was never shown on my old G3 iBook, maybe the iBook didn't have that setting? Does this mean that the airport is constantly searching for the network? It seems things are running better now with the widgets deleted, but the airport is still constantly scanning. Is this going to be draining the battery or this just a new profile on the new Mac's?

More tips and advice are always welcome.

Oh and one other thing, Cupertino, FIX THIS!!!

I hope it continues to work for you! Just out of curiosity, which Widgets were you running?

Also, as I mentioned before (either here or on another thread).. the scanning thing is MEANT to happen. It only starts scanning when you click it--to create a list of accessible networks available at the time that you click it.

For people to say that their Airport is ALWAYS scanning is exactly like saying the refrigerator light is ALWAYS on.

Gotcha, on the airport scanning that is. Thank you for the answer on that.

The widgets I had running were:
Dictionary
Wikipedia
Plasma Tube
VelaClock Deluxe and
World Clock

In the time between this post and my last post I was shopping on iTunes and listening to the 30 second preview through my remote speaker and had some hiccups. That could just be the preview buffer though?

Besides some of your interruption, did you also experience web pages loading slowly?

I've done all the obvious things for improved signaling, I don't have cordless phones and the airport extreme base station is only about 10-15 feet away. Your thoughts?

Thanks to everyone for all of their advice.

The hiccups could be a lot of things... The slow web pages are probably tied into your hiccup problem too. I'd be more concerned if the Airport bars in the Finder menu keep dropping to full gray.

Was the constant Airport signal dropouts (all gray bars, no connection) your problem before removing the Widgets? Are you experiencing this problem now?

I'll have full wifi bars and slow loading. I will also have full wifi drop out and get the all too familiar "you are not connected to the internet" error message.

However, most of the time the status is full wifi bars, but extremely slow loading.

This is still happening after the widget removal, not as much, but it shouldn't be happening at all.

Last night I tried a side by side with the new MacBook Pro and my old G3 iBook. I went to a website that I know is a little slow to load. After the entire page had loaded on the G3, the MacBook pro sat idle not loading a thing. And yes, I cleared the cache.

My suspicion is that **** airport utility software update. This is getting old, really fast.

I've been having the same problem since 10.5.2.
I was hopeful when I read the widget trick but I didn't have that many widgets.
I removed currency. I have calculator, clock, calendar, istats.
I am sorry to say my wi-fi connection still drops every 5-8 minutes. Turning airport off then on solves it but that's annoying.

I had the same issue after the update to 5.3.1 Although strangely windows machines with wireless cards seemed ok. I seem to have corrected the problem by changing settings in access control
for the mac address of my macbook wireless card. From a mac (on ethernet) go to airport utilities and double click on the airport icon. Select 'airport' then 'access'.Under mac address control select timed access. Add the mac address (if not there already) with +, of the problem machine. Set any access restrictions you want , I set mine to all day everyday. The setting that was there when I had the problem should have been fine but re-doing it seemed to clear the problem somehow. If this works for you let me know

joel

First off, thank you for the suggestion.

However, when I go into the airport utility and select the extreme, the drop down box for access only has two options. "Local" or "radius" are the only options, there is no "timed access" option. I tried changing the access to local and adding "my computer," but then that disconnects my airport express and I cannot use my remote speaker.

Your thoughts?

I have had other issues - migration, and installing windows to name a couple.

I have spent realistically at least 10 hours with 6 different tech support people trying to solve these problems. I am sending the machine back for a replacement...who knows if anything will be better in the next one, but according to the tech guys I have exhausted everything they can do - it is airport's issue for the internet issue, it is my Powerbook G4's issue for the migration, and it is my windows install disk that is the install problem. All have been tested in various ways, installed on other computers, run on different wireless connections, etc...