Q: Macbook Airport Drops Connection

I've been told that "Once you go Mac, you don't go back". I highly doubt that.

I've spent countless hours trying to find the answer to this problem (Google and Forums). After reading the posts in this thread, there's a couple of new ones that I'll try but am quite doubtful they'll make any difference since others have failed.

My issue is quite similar to everyone here. I have a DLink DI-614+ with the latest firmware update. There are two Macbooks in the house and 3 PCs. The PCs have no problem connecting to the network when WPA is enabled. The Macbooks just don't like it. They'll try to connect, hold for a few seconds and then drop the connection. When WEP is enabled, there's no problem. Are Macs that inferior to PCs?

I've tried everything from switching the channel, broadcast SSID, changing the Base Rate, etc, etc. Still, no luck with WPA. Even tried using '$' at the start of the passphrase...nada. I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with the router since the PCs connect when WPA is enabled.

Here are the details of my Airport Card:
Wireless Card Type: AirPort Extreme
Wireless Card Locale: USA
Wireless Card Firmware Version: 1.3.5

I'm located in Canada and I'm not sure how to changed the locale. I'm not sure if that's the issue? I'll be talking to an Apple Genius next week to see if they have some solution. But I'm quite surprised that Apple hasn't posted any solution to this.

Good luck with the Apple genius - the one I spoke to was useless. My Macbook's now in an Apple Repair Centre where they're looking into the problem... I'll keep you posted as to what they say.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that if you want to live in a happy little Apple bubble where everything is slightly overpriced but looks really good then you can probably get things working OK. The trouble seems to be when you want to run a hetrogenous network. My old Mac Mini, Windows and Linux PCs all work quite happily with WPA on my D-Link wireless access point but the MacBook is problematic. Apple's solution is "buy an Apple Wireless Router". Why should I when I have a perfectly good third party one that works with everything else...

I am also having problems with my wireless connection on my Macbook, so I am equally as frustrated as the rest of you. My Mac Pro works fine on my wireless network as does my wireless HP printer, my Airport Express for iTunes, my wife's Palm, and my iPaq. I have to say, however, that not once have I ever come across anything from Apple that says you have to use a Apple router to get things working properly. That kind of statement is just not correct and uninformed. If an Apple Genius tells you that, well, you know how most of us feel about them.

This is a problem that I have to believe Apple is working on. Keep in mind this is how Apple does things. Look at the Time Machine issue in regards to the Air Disk support. Everyone said that because Apple was silent on the issue that they weren't going to release a fix. Well, guess what. They did. This fix will come too, albeit not soon enough for most of us.

Rockwerks - very eloquant. And of course absolutely correct.

I guess I'm just frustrated that:

a) no-one from Apple seems to comment on the discussions board on their own website (even to say "hey guys, we feel your pain and we're working on it")

and:

b) in the 8 weeks I've owned my MacBook it's been unavailable to me for 25% of that time - either in transit to me (10 days for delivery, but the warranty starts at purchase time!), or in my local Apple Store where the geniuses (is that the plural of genius?!) have so far taken just a day to replace the top case that split at the edge (a common MacBook defect I've learnt) but 5 days (on a priority fix) to fix the scratch that they put on the machine whilst it was in for repair... a bit off topic, but may explain my lack of warmth towards Apple right now.

I am sorry for the trouble that you had in part b of your reply, and I understand your frustration.

In response to part a, however, I can say that not long ago Apple reported that they would no longer moderate these boards. In other words, there is no official Apple presence here so you won't get the response you are looking for. These boards are provided for us to help each other. That's why it is important to mark responses as helpful or solved.

Hi,

I'm having the same problem related here, with my MacBook not accessing my home wireless while others laptops, even far, can connect.

Have you seen this? http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1479319&tstart=0

That's interesting.
Also, it was a surprise for me that the Airport antenna inside MacBook is located below the keyboard with metal all around. I always thought that wifi antennas on laptops would be located on the top of screen, my mistake.

Take a look: http://www.ifixit.com/MacBook-Parts/MacBook-802-11n-Airport-Extreme-Card/IF185-0 38

Maybe a recall from Apple for all MacBooks solves this?


Regards,
Fabio

My FireWire drive was causing my dropped connection. Don't know if this is the case for any of you but...

I just got a new MacBook and discovered that my wireless connection dropped whenever I put it on the stand on my desk--nowhere else in the apartment. Just there. Frustration ensued. Restarts and repairs ensued. Nothing worked.

Then I realized that the only difference about that spot was the drive right underneath the computer. I hadn't thought about this because it had always been there and things had been fine with my old iBook. Powering down the drive solved the problem. I subsequently moved the drive a foot away and haven't had a dropped connection since.

Greetings all,

I also have this problem...well, my wife does. I bought her a macbook (core 2 duo 2.0 GHz 65nm CPU version) just recently and we are having the same issue. The wireless connection speed will fall out and web pages will take minutes to load. It seems very random. It is sometimes good, sometimes bad. I sit next to her with my Dell laptop and get a perfect connection the entire time. This leads me to believe it is for certain not our router causing these drops and either software or faulty wireless cards in the macbooks.

I am very unfamiliar with macs so I am struggling to solve this issue like everyone else. I tried the deletion of the airport preference file and nothing seems to have changed. It reloaded and there are still serious lags and variations in the connection speed. If this is an Apple software issue we all need to press for an explanation from Apple and in hope for a fix. Please keep this post running. If enough people push for this, we can get a response.

Airport drop connection very frequently after update.

Removing the file /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist did the job for me.
Note that I also try a free channel for my wifi (detected with iStumbler) without success.

*Dropped connections resolved* for Belkin Wireless G Router.

Even with the correct time zone selected in the router's system settings--it displayed the wrong time. I selected a time zone +2 hours ahead which brought my router, DSL gateway, and computer into sync.

1 week into testing and still NO dropped connections.

Side Note: Tricking the router into displaying the correct time zone has also resolved failed iChat video invitations.

2-3 Weeks into testing, still no more dropped connections.

It looks like this could be an overheating problem. I've read that on the web and I leave my Mac Book Pro on 24 hours (it's a desktop replacement) and it had a 7200 rpm drive. I wonder if everyone else who reports this is the same.

The wifi on my Mac Book Pro is rubbish, it drops all the time and doesn't even connect to some websites.

Personally I'm very close to returning it and getting a Microsoft Vista machine. I haven't been impressed at all, I thought I was paying for quality and ease of use and if anything it's been the opposite.

I know that sounds harsh but Apple make the hardware, it's not like Windows where they have to account for a million different devices where something like this could be missed but there's a very limited amount of configurations.

Well, after the AirPort update that was released that broke my wifi entirely I contacted AppleCare. They instructed me to contact my ISP and get a firmware update for my router. After that long and painful experience my MacBook's AirPort connection seemed to be fixed. Until the next day. It's back to cutting out on its own, but now the drop out periods seem to be much longer than before.

i had same problem, drop connections and long time to connect to network, and all the problems after installing 10.5.3!!!