MacBook Pro constantly losing wireless connectivity

I recently purchased a MBP penryn 17". My wireless drops during large downloads, usually during iTunes movie rentals. My network is driven by the wireless "G" Airport extreme router and an Airport express acting in WDS mode. I have 2 other machines that run off this network, an iMac G4 and a Windows thinkpad running XP pro. The other machines have no difficulty in this environment, only the MBP. Oddly enough, if I put the MBP in sleep mode, then immediately wake it up. The wireless comes back and I continue. This is a real pain and not a solution. I recently saw a firmware update for MBP was posted on the apple download site. Although my machine is 1 month old, when I check the firmware version, it was not at the appropriate firmware version. Has anyone tried the update? Since it was a firmware update, I thought maybe this would address the issue.

"... I recently saw a firmware update for MBP was posted on the apple download site. Although my machine is 1 month old, when I check the firmware version, it was not at the appropriate firmware version. Has anyone tried the update? Since it was a firmware update, I thought maybe this would address the issue."

If Software Update didn't indicate the firmware update for your MBP then you are up to date and don't require it. I would try changing the wireless channel on the router.

Here's another voice from someone with a problem. In my case, we have a home Time Capsule, which is our wireless connection. My husband and I both have almost identical MacBookPros, both bought in the last 2 months. His works fine on our network; mine doesn't. I need to use an ethernet cable to connect my MBP to the Time Capsule to have sufficient internet speed; he is happily working away in the living room untethered by a cable.

Now that I have found this forum, at least I know that I'm not the only one with this issue. I will start to look for differences in settings between his computer and mine- perhaps something will show up. As far as we know, we are both up to date on all the system software.

I also need to face the fact that it could be a hardware problem. I did not purchase AppleCare, so if it is hardware I will need to get it taken care of before the warranty expires.

Any suggestions for what to look for that might be differences between our two MBP's?

Here's something I did which might help for those who have the Airport Express 802.11n. I noticed that my MBP was having trouble connecting today. It would detect either a weak connection and then drop out later, or no connection at all. When there was a connection, the speed was slow. At speedtest.net, it was clocking in around 1000 Mbps/sec instead of the usual 10000 Mbps/sec. My iMac seems not to have a connection problem so I thought it was isolated to the MBP.

Anyway, after resetting the PRAM, it still had that problem, so I switched the 802.11n from 5.0 Ghz to 2.4 Ghz, and now both my MBP and iMac are connecting fine, with their usually Internet speeds.

So, if you have an Airport Express, this might help.

Hey everyone, I'm having this problem as well.

Sometimes my MBP will just intermittently drop the connection to the wireless network I'm on (doesn't matter, home w/Airport Express, work with LinkSys), sometimes I'll have a full strength signal but no connectivity, sometimes networks won't even show up in my list of available networks even though a sniffer like iStumbler sees them, etc., etc., etc.

My brand new MBP is pretty much unusable to me at this point. All this started happening out of nowhere in the past two weeks.

How this was allowed to happen is beyond me, I expect more from Apple.

Good news, bad news. Good news is Apple is aware of the problem, I just got off the phone with them. Bad news is there's nothing that can be done until they issue a software update, either through 10.5.3 or separately with a Airport update.

The person I talked to told me they're still gathering data on this issue so my guess is a fix is not right around the corner =(

I was also told to take my MBP to a Genius Bar and see if they could roll back the firmware on my Airport to a previous version until this fix is issued.

<-- Sad Mac face

i am also having this obnoxious problem on my MBP
my MBP will lose connection even though i have 5 full signal strength

blah

Keep the faith, they're "working on it".

=/

Any idea when? I'm bit sceptical, since this may be a tough bug and they will have to do some serious regression testing so nothing else breaks in the process.

I was told by Apple that the fix for this bug will either be in 10.5.3 or a separate update if they fix if before then.

Since it sounds like the landing of 10.5.3 is imminent, I think we'll have this nasty bug out of our lives very soon.

I hope =\

Yes, that is kind of what i was thinking without the stats. I was downloading a podcast insanely slow but my internet cut out.
Here's my whole story.
This is my first week with my FIRST APPLE COMPUTER, the MacBook Pro 2.5 running OS X 10.5.2. It has been great except for this junk.
When I am at home (using a linksys g) I can get a flawless signal with no drops and so forth. This is working great and fast.
...
BUT...
...
When I am at my school (i dont know what they have for access points) i get the dropout junk where i cant get a webpage, but i have 3 bars on the airport icon. This is ridicules because it worked for the first two days at school, but it crapped out on me. Today I probably got about a thirty second to a minute length of time where i could get the necessary pages in my browser. Also, my friend has the 2.5 macbook pro, and he has no problems with this at my school. Im jelous of him. Anyway...

I found a temperary fix that works for me. Turning airport on and off works, but i've also used the diagnostics tool to troubleshoot the network, followed the steps and it works for about a minute. The other thing i have found is to renue the DHCP lease in the TCP/IP tab in advanced network options. this also works for about a minute.

Question for anyone who knows: If I bought applecare, can i get my mbp exchanged or fixed?
**Please Apple fix this before i lose faith!!!**

Won't work for me, because I have a first gen mbp, but you guys with the latest version can try the new 1.5.1 firmware update... maybe it'll fix something

Did you guys see my post? Don't worry about the firmware, the routers, or any other solution posted here. It appears the fix is in 10.5.3 which is due out in the next couple of weeks.

That is assuming you are running leopard. I have a first generation (intel) MBP running Tiger, so how does this help me? It's not really an answer...

Tom Torrillo wrote:
Since it sounds like the landing of 10.5.3 is imminent, I think we'll have this nasty bug out of our lives very soon.

was out of my life as soon as I went back to Tiger

4Runner wrote:
It appears the fix is in 10.5.3 which is due out in the next couple of weeks.

Still 4 months too late though