MacBook Pro constantly losing wireless connectivity

Just got my MacBook Pro back from extended warranty repair, SquareTrade, where they addresses the recalled video section and in doing so replaced the motherboard that contained the WiFi chip. I played with it for a couple of days with the original 300GB hard drive before putting the 1TB hard drive back in and WiFi was as one would expect. Once put the 1TB HD back, I had all my old OS's and settings and since I have had none of the WiFi issues I previously discussed in any of the OS's. Yet.

So in my case it looks like it was a hardware issue. But it could be anything from the WiFi card to the its connections from the card itself to the Motherboard to . . .

Hi All,

I don't know if people are still having trouble with Macbook Pro/Mac wireless connectivity? I had it for months and it drove me bonkers, I changed my router for a new one not Apple! I also had my telephone socket in my house changed and had engineers check out my whole system with no faults found. I then went along to a friends party and got talking to a friend who was having the same problems. He told me what he had done and what follows is what he suggested. It cost me £50.00 for a second hand product and all my problems have gone away. Here is the solution that worked for both of us.

We both purchased an Apple AirPort N Extreme 5G (A1408) and connected this to our normal router (Which in my case is a ZyXel VMG8324-B10A) and bingo no more connectivity problems to my home network. I have had the Apple AirPort N Extreme 5G (A1408) connected to my normal router and connected to the internet via the Apple AirPort N Extreme 5G (A1408) rather than the ZyXel router direct for over a month now and have not had one problem. A Simple remedy which I wish I had thought of ages ago as it would have saved me a lot of money and heartache. The ZyXel was not the first router I had the problems with, I had tried a Belkin and Netgear.

You can find the Apple AirPort N Extreme 5G (A1408) here: https://uk.webuy.com/product.php?sku=SNETAPPAPEXA1408#.VZWrp2DYlUQ If you are still having a problem this is well worth ago.

I have a Macbook Pro 17" Intel Core 2 Duo running 10.6.8. I also had the loss of wifi problem, which only began in the last few years. The wifi would usually work for an hour so if I left the machine turned off overnight, then it would stop working. If I put the machine to sleep and woke it up again, the wifi would work for a while, then say "No airport card installed." This went on for a long time, getting progressively worse.

Finally I took the machine to a Macbook Pro specialist here in Sydney, and he replaced the wifi chipset. No more problems!

It looks like the chipset in this model was prone to failure. So was the video card - Apple said as much and replaced it free a few years ago.

Somewhere oh somewhere in this thread was a recommendation about getting away from certain channels and towards a more specific one relating to the camera app on my MBP. As if the camera interfere with certain channels selected. Does anyone have an update on that notion. It worked well for me but I cannot locate it.

I'll add my plight to the thousands of others.

I have this problem on my El Cap mini, it started only a couple weeks ago (about a month after i updated the mini with no problems), and is REALLY annoying. This is a well known bug in OS X going back YEARS.

Other Macs on the same network (both running El Cap; upgraded at different times; no change to the network itself in years) have had no problems, both before and after I upgraded them to El Cap.

Other Macs I've had over the years during various different iterations of OS X have had the problem, but most of the time not. I'd say over the 15 years of me running OS X, across dozens of Macs, various configurations, upgrade cycles, etc, I've had the problem only 2 or 3 times.

It's reared its ugly head again, though, and NOTHING seems to fix it. I can't believe Apple hasn't managed to nail this bug after 15 years. I understand it's probably complex, but this is obviously a known bug, affecting a significant percentage of OSX configs.

VERY frustrated.

I got my power book mother board replaced under third party warranty and everything works great. But as time has gone on things are slowly dying. I have a feeling that the hardware is time limited. Works great for a while than starts dying no matter what you do. So I got myself a cheap cheezy little tablet and find it easier and better to use.

Been struggling with the same problem for weeks; My Macbook Air lost wireless connectivity after 5-10 minutes of operation, and had no internet for about 30 seconds, before the connection automatically went back on for another 5-10 minutes and so forth.

I suspected everything but my macbook, but running simultaneous "traceroutes" on different computers and my router, showed that only the macbook had the problem.

For me this was solved (now on my 5'th hours without a disconnect) by changing the MTU size to 1453 bytes as described in http://osxdaily.com/2012/08/02/fix-os-x-mountain-lion-wireless-connection-proble ms/

Hi

My Macbook Pro Late 2013 is also suffering from same issue.

At times it shows no hardware installed.

After SMC reset, it works for some time and then again this problem appears.

Is Apple taking care of such issues?

Hi All,

Was having exactly the same issue: the wifi was dropping me off initially after some idle them, then more recently every couple of minutes . What worked for me like a charm? Turning of the enegery saving mode for WiFi!

Go to Preferences/Energy Saver/ and make sure to deselect the Wake for WIFI network access option.

// happy wi-fi browsing after the above

The instruction above worked for me like a charm. You saved me from smashing my MBP Early 2011. Thank you very much!

Another 'me too'. I can see the solution - just don't have the time to "dickin" around with this sort of thing. Dump Apple.

You hit the nail on the head with what I see and I speculate is the issue. The issue occurs after entering a low power state (sleep). I've been in the habit of toggling wifi on/off after waking up and this has stopped the surprise drops in 10.12.0.

I feel like if you are going to remove the ethernet on laptops your wireless drivers should be on point. FWIW I'm connected 5ghz to an Apple Time Capsule 802.11AC on "Auto" channel selection.

I've had this problem since I bought my mac a year ago (December 2015). Spent many days on the phone to apple trying various solutions - all of them work for a few days, a week or two, but the problem always comes back.

The thing that has helped the most is shutting my macbook pro down every night when I'm not using it. I find if I don't turn it off for a few days, the wifi dropping out begins to come back again.

I'm quite happy with this solution, although obviously it's not the best - I want to fix it for good! I find it bizarre that Apple hasn't released any official solution to the problem and when I ring apple care they always seem so perplexed by it, when its clear so many people are having the same problem.

I have tried changing the MTU in network settings so will see how this works out.

Good luck everyone!

I have the same problem start on my mac pro book.I lost wifi connection 10 days ago and out of warranty .what I have to do

..and you think they'd fix it 😉