Intermittent WIFI with Leopard on Macbook

I was experiencing similar issues.

MacBook Pro 2.6GHz OSX 10.5.1
Linksys WRT150N

I would lose connections randomly. Turning off and on the airport would sometimes fix the problem, but more often, I would re-acquire the signal, but not get an IP from DHCP, or sometimes I would get an IP, but still have no connectivity.

Reading suggestions in the forum led me to checking my firmware on the Linksys (up to date), and grabbing iStumbler.

iStumbler showed 9 networks in my neighborhood. Yikes!

So I set my Linksys to run as a 802.11G network (instead of N - sigh - but I don't do much sharing over the network right now, so that's OK) on channel 4 (furthest from all the rest). It has been very stable - plugged, unplugged, waking from sleep, etc.

I would love for Apple to wave a magic wand and fix issues with their 802.11N wireless, but in the meantime, I guess I'll live in a G world.

Any macbook owners download the recent software update? I know it came about a few days ago, I'm just unsure whether or not it actually helped or what it did. I've tried to checkout some of the usual apple news sites to no avail.

With that said, I'm on winter break right now and am staying at my folks' place at the moment. They're running a Linksys router at the moment and I have to say its been stable as a rock (even the few days before the mysterious macbook update that came about). So now I don't know what to think. If I end up having to somehow return/exchange my Belkin for something else this is gonna aggravate me so much.

Definitely roll back to 10.4.9, if you can. It works.

Lol I love you Drewfasa.

How do you revert back to the previous version. I tried but it won't allow.

thanks..

Unfortunately it isn't possible to just 'revert' to a previous system. The MacOS doesn't have a 'rollback' feature the way that Windows does. What I've been doing since about 1995 is to keep a clone of my startup disk so that when I install new software (and especially an OS update) if it causes trouble for me I can simply wipe my computer's drive and copy the clone - thereby reverting.

MAC - it just doesn't work!
I have the same problem with my MacBook as most people here, and I have not found any solution yet. After a couple of minutes of good wireless connection, I get "contacting xxxx.com" (whatever web site I am trying to go to) and nothing more happens ...
So my solution right now is: a) Put the Mac in the backpack and don't take it out again until Apple responds to this issue. b) Pull out the PC from the other backpack. It runs Vista on the same wireless router that my Mac cannot seem to handle and does so without a single interruption (and so do the XP computers in my household, by the way). Sorry, Apple guys, but Windows Vista is at the moment a far, far superior OS compared to Leopard.

Our two macbooks now have consistent a internet connection after my husband updated the software on our netgear router.

Here's hoping this also work for some of you guys. Try it, you never know.

Message was edited by: ginalee

Our two macbooks now have consistent a internet connection after my husband updated the firmware on our netgear router.

Here's hoping this also work for some of you guys. Try it, you never know.

So guess what. I went home to visit family over the holidays. My mother uses a Linksys router. Amazingly, during my stay I found my connection.. stable. I got back home, became so infuriatingly fed up in the course of an hour and ended up buying a Linksys N. For half the day now my connection has stayed stable.

Don't know what to tell you guys. This has been such an annoyance over the last few months that everything is so bittersweet at the moment. My connection works, but it should've worked right in the first place. Balls I tell ya, balls.

The more this goes on, the more annoying it gets. If 10.5.2 doesn't fix things, I'm taking it in. Here's more that I have noticed:

1) Location changes are just a red herring. Wake from sleep is the main culprit. I'll open up the MacBook, it will show 4 bars, then after a couple of minutes, things will pause and the signal strength would fall. At this time, everything pauses. It's not like it drops to one bar, though. It will often just fall to three bars, and maybe two bars. Afterwards, it will rise back to 4 and the connection will be ok until a few minutes later.

2) Being plugged in helps, but it is not the end all solution. It does stave off the drop periods for a bit longer, though.

3) Again, Airport Off/On does not help, but restarts resets the cycle.

4) There's a general signal strength issue. I'll sit upstairs with the MacBook, my girlfriend's MB Pro, and my G4 iBook. The MacBook is stuck at 3 bars while the other two sit pretty at a steady 4.

Definitely noticing both intermittent reception and decreased range on my MacBook (original Core Duo with 802.11g) and my Linksys WRTSL54GS since 10.5.1.

Hi There,

I had the same problem with new macbook running Leopard. My iBook works fine without any dropouts and consistent signal strength but at the same time, macbook shows dropouts and signal changes from full bar to none. Clicking (Alt/option-wireless icon in menu bar) showed a variable connection speed. What worked for me is change airport express automatic channel selection to fixed value. I selected channel that was not being used by almost 25 routers in neighborhood. Macbook has well placed antenna that catches more neighboring wireless networks than ibook. After changing the automatic channel selection to fixed value - no more dropouts, variable connection speed, etc. I used istumbler to know neighborhood wireless network's - channel, noise, strength etc.

Apple suggest using channel that is at least 5 numbers apart, e.g. 1 & 6 but that wasn't possible due large number of wireless networks in the neighborhood. However, it is working perfect now.

I have also had some of the same Macbook problems, although very rarely. As a software developer myself, one suggestion I have for all is to be very specific about your issue. Intermittent problems like this are the worst to find. If you sent in report and I fired up a Macbook and all worked, there's nothing for me to debug. I'm sure there is some common issue many have that can help:

1. Did you do a clean install of Leopard, or an upgrade?
2. Are you using any network software, like a 3rd party VPN, that can affect connections.
3. Can you see how many other wireless routers are coming up in your Airport menu?
4. What is the brand of wireless router? What type of connection?
5. Does the problem happen if you boot clean and start right away, or after running network applications?
6. If you leave the Airport icon in the menubar, does the signal intermittently go off and on?

Here is my data:
I upgraded a Tiger OS install.
I have Cicso VPN software install, but the problem occurs when it is not running.
There are 4-5 other wireless routers visible in the neighborhood.
I have an Apple Extreme base station and I'm connecting using 802.11n.
Problem "seems" to happen after using net applications, like iChat.
My Airport signal goes full on to full off when it's flakey.

Did 10.5.2 help anyone? I noticed faster recovery after connection drops, but it's still frequently dropping the connection. It does seem to do better when I'm sitting close to the router. Again, though, it's still a weaker signal that's more susceptible to drops when I'm upstairs.