Q: Macbook Airport Drops Connection

Problem no longer exists!

Despite the indications that it was a software issue, it turns out my antennae was bad. I had it replaced and have had zero problems, since.

No longer annoyed and back to being an Apple fan.

I was plagued by the intermittent drop-out problem. Pulling my hair out and about to buy a new aiport card.

But on a hunch used Istumble to check out what wireless channels my neighbours were using. Weirdly about 9 out of 14 neighbours were using Channel 11. They were all on Netgear routers - perhaps that's a default setting. I was also on Ch 11. I simple changed my router channel to 13 - nobody else in the neighbourhood using that one.

Since then my airport signal has been strong and consistant.


It might work for you - give it a try.

You are not alone! This problem of Airports dropping signals seems to have started about a month ago. I, along with many friends have been experiencing the same symptoms. It is not a hardware problem. It is not an Airport problem, since PC's on the wireless network work fine. It is a software problem. Apple seems to be unaware of the problem, or is unable to solve it.
There are hundreds of posts on this problem. I tried a dozen of the "solutions" but none worked for more than a day or so. The only solution is to plug in to my modem with a wire and wait until someone solves this huge and annoying bug in the software. Very disappointing.

add me to the list. my wife's macbook just started dropping connections like crazy. my macbook pro is in the same room and rock-solid.

Same problem here and still no solution whatsoever.

Have a new 15" MacBook Pro (2.53) running 10.5.7 and having similar problem. Connection drops whenever computer goes to sleep. Pain in the butt having to reconnect every time it wakes up. I can't reconnect from the wireless icon up top -- just get Connection Timeout. Have to try to go to a web page from Safari which brings up Network Diagnostics. From here sometimes just clicking on my router causes connection to refresh. Sometimes have to enter WPA password. I have a Linksys router and just updated firmware, which didn't help. My Windows machines have no problems. Connected immediately at friends w/ an airport modem though didn't put the machine to sleep and try to reconnect.

As for me - problem solved. After a few months of deteriorating network connectivity from an early 2006 Core Duo Blackbook with a b/g (not n) Airport Extreme card to a Draytek router, Time Capsule and Airport Express (yes, all three, but of course at different times), it dawned on me that it was the card in my Mac that is failing. The diagnosis was helped by the fact that the connection was getting worse by the day, while the software versions and config stayed the same.
No probs, you can buy anything on a popular site, so I did. Two days later, my old laptop is flying, backing up "megabyte a second" connected to a Time Capsule. I know we all paid big money for our Macs, but they can break too. You can spend endless hours changing channels, deleting pfiles, whoknowswhatelse - but a 20 quid investment can mean the end of headaches, with a bonus of a tangible upgrade from g to n. Joy

I've just bitten the bullet and bought a new Airport card, it should arrive in a few days.

I shall let you know how it all goes.

I wouldn't mind knowing where you got a new 'n' card for £20....?

Though I doubt it's my airport card. Since I have no problems connecting to my other networks.

There is shop on e-bay that seems to sell them new, for exactly £20. + £2.50 P&P.

I bought one yesterday. http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/justopeshop/

New card is in, problem solved.

It's a hardware fault.

Not necessarily. It could still be a firmware issue.

Unless you replaced it with the exact same card, type, model and revision and then installed the latest firmware on it.

If I was the only one having the problem, I'd be inclined to say that it's a hardware issue. The fact that several people have simultaneously started having the exact same problem suggests that it's a software issue.

Though of course, I have no means of confirming that.

I have had this problem since the time I bought my first mac, the macbook unibody 2.4GHz with the back-lit keyboard.

I am seriously hoping if Snow Leopard WILL fix the problem. I have downloaded Windows 7 and installed it via Boot Camp and it connects to my wireless network!!! So it should be a software problem and it should explain my problem.

I am not sure if snow leopard would fix the problem, but it would be worth it.

I wanted to let everyone know that I have had the same problems with getting full bars but web pages would load. Just updated to 10.5.8 and it has fixed the problem.

my connection on snow leopard drops every few hours and i get the airport icons starts to pulse or flash. and then eventually it comes back after 5 mins.