Intermittent WIFI with Leopard on Macbook

no better for me - still keeps dropping, scanning and low signal intermittently, old tiger macbook and powerbook no prob at all.

This one remains to be solved.

I also have the same issues, having recently moved away from an all-Windows environment that I've lived in for over 20 years. I'm extremely disappointed and somewhat surprised at Apple's poor quality OS releases, especially after hearing from the Mac community for decades about how superior their beloved company's product and support is compared to Microsoft.
I find dwb's comment ("no one forced you to upgrade to Leopard..") extraordinary!
He/she is quite correct, of course, but then one has to assume that when a company like Apple releases a new version of its OS that it will work, or am I just living in Apple's soft and warm, dreamy, land of make-believe?
(And I don't need to remind anyone that we all paid money for Leopard, do I?)

I'll add that our internet connection is still not working 100% in 10.5.2. It just drops, sometimes frequently, sometimes not for days. We're using MacBook, iMac and iBook. This has been going on for months + Apple refuse to admit they are culpable or that anything is wrong. Wrong. We use Apple's Extreme base station and we know it's at fault as taking the cable out and plugging in the ethernet works! This is costing my girlfriend's business money so this is serious, so I wish Apple would be serious about dealing with the issue.
My advice is; keep writing here, and also write directly to Apple.

Just a bump because there are still new topics every day that all seem to boil down to the same issue.
People may want to go back a few pages and look for the comments that have 1000's of views.
Sadly still having the problem here and it gets more irritating as time goes on.
It's hard to imagine the ill will that's accumulating through all of this.
I would imagine someone could make a nice piece of change even if they charged $5 for a software fix.

😟

Hi,

What finally might give this issue some traction is that apparently MacBook Air is affected as well. If you go out and buy the entry level MacBook Air at Best Buy, which I believe is the only one they stock, you don't get the external Super Drive. You can't even load an application or get any data out of the MacBook Air unless you have a working Wi-Fi connection or purchase the drive (which Best Buy does not stock). If we're lucky, once Geek Squad get tired of dealing with the Wi-Fi issues, perhaps Best Buy will leverage Apple to put some real elbow grease into fixing the issue.

What irritates me is that if one calls AppleCare, the treatment is as if the issue is previously unknown and having to go through fruitless motions; it wastes both parties time. That's way different than than acknowledging the issue and stating there is currently no fix available. It is clear that it is something to do with OSX on the MacBook hardware, because using Boot Camp to boot up Windows yields a solid Wi-Fi connection with the same MacBook hardware and access point.

Some posters suggested that Apple is actually meeting some standard correctly and everybody else is wrong. Some times it is better to be accommodating rather than to be correct.

One of the fixes suggested is to set one's router Wi-Fi access point advanced parameters for a fragmentation threshold of 2306 and an RTS size of 2306 instead of the defaults. That's good if it works at home where you are your own administrator, but that's not likely to be an available option at your business or school.

Bill

I did not have a problem UNTIL 10.5.2 actually.

Before then, I had rock solid wifi. I still do, as long as I'm plugged in. If I unplug then every 2 min or so it drops and re-adds.

Just got off the phone with an apple support wireless specialist who tells me that they still have nothing opened or being investigated in regards to a bug or case about this problem. I asked her what would be the best way to go about getting apple to acknowledge and look into this as a possible bug and was told that if related notes on inbound support requests aggregate to a certain level, more attention is payed by the higher up devs(makes sense I suppose). Anyway, anyone here with this issue should make sure that they voice the problem to Apple, regardless of the fact that you wont get an immediate resolution:

Apple Phone support: 1-800-275-2273

Same problems as above. New Macbook, bought 1 month ago. Downloaded 10.5.1 straight away and then 10.5.2. In brief, my downloads would hang intermittently... download the 1st 50% or so of a page and then... take .... forever.... to ... download ... the ..... remaining .... 50%.

When this happened my wifi signal would drop to 3 bars (even though I was sitting 5 feet from my wireless router). Called apple, they said it was my D-Link router. So I went out and bought a NetGear. Same problem. Ethernet works fine on the mac, and PCs connected via wireless worked fine.

Interestingly it would affect some web pages more than others .... msnmoney.com seemed very slow. Occasionally Apple.com was also very slow. Called again.

"Well, we can't guarantee that your Macbook will work with any router except airport... but why don't you bring it in so a "genius" can take a look at it"...

In the store it initially worked fine, and I got "well, it seems to be within specifications now. I can't do anything for you"

Then I just sat there and kept web surfing until it happened. When it did happen, and I showed the "genius" that it was taking >60 seconds to go to google.com and my wireless signal had fallen to 3 bars, he said that it was just the load on their Apple store router and my machine was still within specifications! I couldn't believe it!!!

I just kept sitting there and stating over and over again that #1 every other mac at the store had full wireless strength and #2 no other mac was taking 2 minutes to go to google.com
I don't know If I wore him down or what but he said "this is going above and beyond the call of duty but we will give you a new Macbook (keep in mind my mac was less than 30 days old).
He also kept saying that my machine was within specs and that they can't guarantee any router except airport.

Anyway, I am typing on a new Macbook, I have not downloaded 10.5.2 (nor will I until apple acknowledges this problem), and overall I am extremely disappointed with the Apple in general. I felt like I was begging him to acknowledge this was even a problem. He simply refused to believe there was anything at all wrong with my mac.

This is my first Mac after having spent all my time with PCs (Tandy TSR-80 was my first). Unless something changes I can't imagine recommending Apple to a friend or ever buying it again, as I am just waiting for this one to crump out, leaving me stuck with crappy wireless.

How can Apple sell a wireless portable computer that only works with Apples wireless routers? Are we supposed to stay home with our portable computers?

Hi,

Legal escape clauses about specifications subject to change without notice aside, Apple seems to leave little doubt the MacBook is Wi-Fi compatible.

On the MacBook web page with the Machine's specifications, http://www.apple.com/macbook/, third paragraph in the left column clearly states the MacBook's wireless is Wi-Fi. Also, see note 1. at the bottom of the web page. That is a claim not to be made lightly. To claim Wi-Fi compatibility for a product, a manufacturer must demonstrate the product meets a rigorous interoperability test suite set by the Wi-Fi Alliance. See: http://www.wi-fi.org/searchresults.php?c=3&sp=Certification&pm=pubParams

As long as you are working with a Wi-Fi certified access point, you have reasonable assurance your Wi-Fi certified device is compatible. For an Apple technician to suggest only Apple Airport routers are acceptable is at the least a rather disingenuous statement.

Bill

I had a very similar issue with my Fall '05 last-gen PowerBook 1.67 15" as all you guys are having with your MBs. I know it is of little solace to hear this, but Apple DID fix the issue with the PowerBook wireless dropping out -- via a software patch. It took several months, maybe even close to a year, but it did get fixed. I'm not an Apple apologist, I know this ***** out loud and Apple needs to acknowledge and fix it.

I just wanted to offer you some hope. It might help if you keep calling their help line and asking for a Level 2 or Level 3 tech...if they get enough of these calls, they apparently start paying more attention.

Meantime, back up your data, then downgrade your system to 10.4.9 as has been mentioned. This system seems to work perfectly with the MB's wireless capability.

I am in the market for a new MacBook 2.4, so that's why I'm on this forum today. Very sorry to learn of this issue, though. I do empathize as I say I lived with a similar if not exactly the same connectivity issue for several months. When I finally got it resolved, many of Apple's phone support, genius, etc. people were not even aware of the fix. I found it myself. So keep scouring boards everywhere.

This issue is driving me nuts. We have a mbp and an older white mb - the issue only seems to happen on the mb. I have had to change the netgear wireless settings to b&g in a vain attempt to see if this helps. It's infruriating that a new OS can cripple a machine and with so many complaining about the same issue and yet it doesn't get acknowledged or fixed. Come on APPLE!!

You ask how apple can sell a laptop with wireless that only works with an apple router? They don't ... and by that I mean they don't sell one that works with an apple router.

I have continuous drops on my macbook and macbook pro and mac mini. I have an airport extreme. I used a wireless n upgrade kit for the mac pro on the mac mini and it drops out the least?

I am in the progress of taking my mac mini and macbook pro back to Tiger, have already taken the macbook back to Tiger. Once I have done that I will thow away my airport extreme and buy a proper router.

Then I will be able to use the Internet, my network storage, apple TV, Airtunes, and Xbox Live (internet connection sharing).

Also I will then be able to Use Logic Pro, Adobe CS3, and Native Instruments Kore 2 and Komplete 5 £3000 worth of (at the moment) useless software.

Don't be conned into buying a non-ipod/mac apple product or peripheral, in my experience they just don't f*cking work.

Once I've rebuilt all my machines and my network as described I will keep the leopard DVD until i want to 'upgrade' maybe I'll just stay one OS behind and install this one again when the next OS comes out!

overall Micro$oft Leopard was very disappointing

"Looks like a fish, moves like a fish, steers like a cow" Ford Prefect on fancy spacecrafts that look cool but always crash
(2nd Hitchhikers Guide book - the Restaurant at the End of the Universe)


PS. you say "are we supposed to stay at home with our portable computers?"

According to some raging fanboys on these forums we're supposed to upgrade the firmware on all routers in wifi hotspots where it doesn't work because it's the rest of the world's fault for not complying to some mystical new standard that only apple were told about by the gods of wifi.

Good luck all suffering complete lack of any after sales service, b llsht from apple and utter contempt for there customers.

😟

I haven't read all the threads about this but some people have figured out there is an issue that the OS is somehow screwing up info in the network preferences so there are multiple entries, meaning the machine thinks there's two cards or two locations. This seems to occur most on shared networks and especially when accessing shared machines and drives.

Some people have gone back to the old Mac solution: trashing the networkpreferences.plist and even the airportpreferences.plist and have had success.

I'm having the same problem with the new macbook I just got the other day. Anyone know if its all macbooks? I got the impression from the tech support that they think its a problem with a specific batch of airport cards. Has anyone who had the problem been able to get a similar machine(from a friend) to work on their network? If this is the case, maybe exchanging my computer for a new one would fix the problem? If i were to get one that had a different card in it. Any ideas? thanks