MacBook Pro constantly losing wireless connectivity

I duno where I read it, but it's actually commented somewhere in the user manual that Apple does not recommend using the notebook on the lap. It is also officially referred to as a notebook/portable, never a laptop computer.

(The heat produced isn't good for you, if you know what I mean. =P)

PS: Just hoping to inject a little humour in this ridiculously not-fixed thread.

giantrein: does your fix seem to work?

To be completely honest, Apple is on my !@#$list, I do not even recommend them anymore to anyone.This issue has truly shown the "emperors new clothes", Apple is no longer a customer care driven company.This wi-fi issue is not imaginary-- its very real.An Apple airport extreme set-up does not give a bit of resolve just to rule out hardware at fault(which is too easy a cop out anyways), the fact that on bootcamp WinXP works is the best slap in the face to Apple needs to wake up!!!

Heres a rundown of what I have done so far:

I have to reboot my computer half the time to get back into my WPA closed network.This alone is embarrassing and insults me to the core for spending my hard earned money on a product I wanted for so long.

1. Resetting the SMC/PRAM does nothing,placebo effect at best.
2. WEP/Open no difference,AE set to "g"- added open dns settings
3. All updates applied,even back to 10.4 no resolve either.
4. Repair permissions, checked firewall, cleared caches.
5. If I boot into XP it just works, no special settings or work arounds.

I am over waiting on Apple for a fix, going back to Xp is my solution for day to day web.OSX only for Logic Pro 7.2.3, I am not even buying the update to 8, Apple is not getting another dime from me.EVER!!!!

Message was edited by: mcgwd

hi swguy, yep still fine thanks, recommend you try it, i'm still on 10.5.1 and have not installed recent airport update yet. am waiting for the rest of the thread posters to come back and say apple have fixed the original problem before i go up to 10.5.2! 🙂

I’ll chime in again on a positive note. I had 1 AEBS with a MP and a PC wired to it and 1 iMac via wireless working flawlessly. I then purchased a brand new MBP with the Penryn chip. I set that up and it worked flawlessly. Although my signal was a bit weak when in my backyard. Well, I also had a Time Capsule but hadn’t set it up yet. So, decided it was time to setup that to extend my wireless network and perform backups. Set that up and besides having to reboot the TC a couple of times it worked great too. Well, I started to notice that when I would awake my MBP it would not have internet connectivity…even though Airport reported I was connected to my wireless network. I reviewed the details and noticed instead of getting the IP from my DHCP, it stated “self-assigned IP” and it was some strange IP. I would restart my MBP and then it would again pickup my wireless network and get the correct IP. So, I started shutting her down instead of sleeping. None of my other machines had an issue, btw. Then, I noticed after a certain amount of time on my network, my signal would drop to about 1 or 2 bars and once again, no network connectivity even though my Airport reported I was on my wireless network. Not every time but many times, when I would look at my Airport details, I would see “self-assigned IP” again. I would start out connected fine and then over time (it varied how much time) my signal would drop to a bar or two and no more connectivity until I rebooted. Now I was getting frustrated like most of you since this seemed to happen randomly and frequently. It was one thing to not to be able to sleep my MBP yet another to lose connectivity in the middle of working/researching/surfing using my network. I even had my MBP downstairs connected to my network and if I walked it upstairs, leaving it on, to bonus room where my main AEBS is, it would lose connectivity. It was if my connection would fail as it changed from the Time Capsule (downstairs) to the main AEBS (upstairs). Not sure if that is how it works but that is how it appeared. Kind of like dropping a cell call as you switch from one tower to another. ..again, just a guess on my part. In addition, I tried all the fixes posted here and have all the latest patches. No change. The above happened over the course of about a week or two to give you some time frame. Then I added a third AEBS to my network to help with my coverage in my backyard still having my network issues with my MBP. Well, wouldn’t you know I haven’t had a connection issue since. I can sleep my MBP, hit the backyard, or surf for hours without any issues. No idea why adding another AEBS did anything. So, one can achieve a stable wireless connection with a MBP which might explain why this issue is so difficult to fix for those who are having trouble…lots of variables I guess. Now we just have to figure out why. Maybe I’ll drop some of my basestations and see how that impacts my network. Maybe drop the TC and give it a test then switch the TC and extended AEBS and finally drop both TC and extended AEBS. I’ll report back with results. Just trying to brainstorm a little bit in hopes we can run across something that might help solve this problem.

I seem to have solved my problem with this.

My Intel MacBook running 10.4.11 had been experiencing repeated wireless disconnections about every 30 seconds (for about 2 seconds each) when running on battery. On mains power, it was fine. I'm sure it used to be fine. I think the problems started a few months ago.

My older G4 PowerBook was fine on the same network as was a Dell laptop.

Having read many suggestions on various forums I did a full reset on the MacBook. I shut it down, took the battery out, pressed the start button for about 8 seconds (more than 5), put the battery back and started it up again. First time this had no effect. I then did this procedure a second time this time pressing the start button for about 20 seconds with the battery out. This time it fixed it!

I'd been looking into this for about 2 days. My problem was absolutely consistent. Regular drops every 30 or so seconds. After this reset (about 2 hours ago) it has not dropped at all.

I used AP Grapher 1.2.1 to monitor these drops to look at the pattern of drops.

Hope this helps others. Worth a try.

Mark.

Mark,
If I read all of the posts, I believe the problem started with 10.5.2 (I also understand that there was a problem with 10.4.x but 10.4.11 was the fix) so you should be ok with your OS version.

No. My problem was definately with 10.4.11 (I realize mine is a MacBook not MBP)and I've seen on other forums that this has been the experience of others too. I don't know which other versions also have this problem.

It was quite consistent. For months, I suffered these dropouts. AP Grapher showed the drops about every 30 seconds. The "shell signal strength bars" at the top would all grey out and then it would come back again. Doing the two resets I described certainly fixed it for me.

Well since 10.5.1, this issue happens, but a bit more randomly. This is more consistent, specially if you leave your MBP idle for a bit. I agree with you, I cannot in good faith recommend anyone into purchasing a MBP or MB with this terrible bug. I'm sick and tired of having to click the Airport menu every so often and waiting for the scanning to stop to make it work again.

OK, everyone. I was also having the same problem with my new Macbook Pro. This is what I did to remedy it. My wireless is now rock solid. I changed the SSID broadcast on my router to NOT be visible. Then you manually enter your SSID when connecting again and save the settings. My Wireless has been great ever since.

Is your wireless router an Airport Base Station?

No, it's a Dlink dir-625, and the other was a DIR 615. I set them both to NOT broadcast the SSID (network name).

I have never broadcast mine and I had the issue for a couple of weeks before it went away.

Just an update for everyone, I also tried doing the SSID not broadcast on a Trendnet TEW-432BRP, and so far it is working. When the SSID was being broadcast, I couldn't get on the Internet, but after switching the SSID on the router to NOT broadcast, it worked fine. This is the third router that I have done this remedy with. The 2 Dlink routers in my previous post were using WPA personal. This Trendnet router is using WPA2 PErsonal using an AES Cipher. This leads me to a hypothesis that the problem is with the way Leopard does the security for wireless, because when I log into my Windows XP in Bootcamp with the Macbook Pro, my wireless is really fast, but when using Leopard on the same laptop, there are problems. Try the non visible SSID and see what happens.

First thing this morning I have set out my ABS "g" to not broadcast SSID as you suggested. Deleted my previous Airport entry. Manually connected and entered my code.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed and will leave the connection on all day and night with both Firefox and Safari up.