Q: MacBook Pro constantly losing wireless connectivity

security update 2008-002 seems to have fixed it hooray! its a bit slow but will reboot the router and see how it goes. fingers crossed. is it too early to say thankyou?

ahh no such luck. still broken, BROKEN, APPLE...

I only updated the Airport software, but it didn't solve the problem. I didn't update the security software after reading the link from swguy, which said it could cause printing and other problems. But I don't think the security update would be relevant anyway to resolving the wireless connection issue.

Just wanna say that after I updated the Hot Fix my wireless seems to run pretty good without disconnecting until I put my MBP to sleep. The problem reapprear up until I decided to change my Linksys WRT150N router to broadcast only G. Seems to be running pretty ok. Now I've just realize that I've waste my cash to buy an N router because even with the G it's wayyyyyy faster than my 5 Megabits cable internet. So I guess N is just a waste of money.

Message was edited by: turbochargedrs

right, i think it's working. summary in case it helps others:

macbook 1.4.11- perfect wireless connection on a DG834G for a year or so, then the wireless began losing connection every 10 seconds or so, still showing a great signal strength in airport radar but not actually connecting to the net. radar would show connection making and breaking every couple of seconds. this all began after the spate of updates apple sent a few weeks ago.

macbook would happily connect to neighbours unprotected wireless but never mine!

my solution:

archived and reinstalled 10.4 then installed the 10.4.11 security 2008-002 update which did not fix it.

so, and this is what i think has fixed it for me:
1) I connected to the router by ethernet cable, turned off the MAC address access list
2) accessed the router settings and deleted the MAC address for the macbook.
3) changed mode to G only.
4) saved settings.
5) reconnected to router by cable and in the list of currently connected machines added my macbook MAC address to the allowed list.
6) saved settings.
7) disconnected ethernet cable and rebooted router for good luck...

been working fine in several sessions since last night. would seem to make some sense as the problem was always in accessing my own network, so there had to be a local problem.

hope that helps someone, sorry if terminology is a bit wonky, my 3 year old is trying to get me to help with a puzzle of her own! cheers

Hi Jerry, sorry to report that your PMU and PRAM reset didn't work for me. I tried it twice just for good measure -- once leaving Airport on, and once turning Airport off and only turning it on again after completing the steps. Is your wireless connection still happy and healthy?

After resetting the SMC and PRAM (sorry about using the PMU term instead of the SMC one, I am from the old school and still updating : ), my MacBook Pro is now fully functional and never drops a wireless signal. I have gotten mixed reports of success from others with this frustrating problem which leads me to believe it is an issue with many interactive elements that is not easily fixed with one particular method. My router is a 2Wire064 model from At&T using a WEP password. Make sure you move the Airport connection icon to the top of the column in the network list. Setting up a new location and naming it instead of using the automatic one is not a bad idea as well. My MBP is a 2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo model which now works...hope Apple does the same for all of you awaiting a fix. We did pay for the best laptop on the market, didn't we?

Giantreign,
That appears to be a nice workaround - BUT - is that what we should be doing with our 'profession' model MacBooks? This has gone beyond ridiculous. It is now ludicrous.

I did Jerry's (posting below) fix with the PRAM and PMU and initially thought that it was a fix (the connected time displayed to the right of the AP radar stopped sliding in and out with each connection drop) but now I can tell that it still dropping the connection two ways: 1) the connection time seconds will freeze for about 10 seconds and then jump forward and start advancing second by second and 2) when going to a website, I will get the browser message 'Safari can find the server...' and then when I hit the refresh button, the page appears (it had dropped the connection and then reconnected). Also, when trying to send emails, I sometimes get the message that I'm not connected to the internet (if I happen to push the 'send' button when the connection had been dropped).

I'm fed up. I left my MBP at home on a recent trip to my Dutch office and then to Hannover, Germany for CeBIT because one can not travel without Wi-Fi connectivity. I bought my son (a professional animator) a new, fully loaded 17" MBP at the end of the year and he can only use it with the Ethernet connection. I'm CEO of a software development firm. From a business point of view, this is a wasted asset (fortunately, only a couple of our people use Mac's and our CTO only runs Windows Vista on his - which has no AirPort connection problems - only the Mac OS).

While it's understandable that bugs occur but for Apple to allow this to continue for as long as it has - and in total silence from Apple - is a shame. [and for the total silence for likes of publications like MacWorld is also a non-plus]

Giantreign,
That appears to be a nice workaround - BUT - is that what we should be doing with our 'profession' model MacBooks? This has gone beyond ridiculous. It is now ludicrous.

I did Jerry's (posting below) fix with the PRAM and PMU and initially thought that it was a fix (the connected time displayed to the right of the AP radar stopped sliding in and out with each connection drop) but now I can tell that it still dropping the connection two ways: 1) the connection time seconds will freeze for about 10 seconds and then jump forward and start advancing second by second and 2) when going to a website, I will get the browser message 'Safari can find the server...' and then when I hit the refresh button, the page appears (it had dropped the connection and then reconnected). Also, when trying to send emails, I sometimes get the message that I'm not connected to the internet (if I happen to push the 'send' button when the connection had been dropped).

I'm fed up. I left my MBP at home on a recent trip to my Dutch office and then to Hannover, Germany for CeBIT because one can not travel without Wi-Fi connectivity. I bought my son (a professional animator) a new, fully loaded 17" MBP at the end of the year and he can only use it with the Ethernet connection. I'm CEO of a software development firm. From a business point of view, this is a wasted asset (fortunately, only a couple of our people use Mac's and our CTO only runs Windows Vista on his - which has no AirPort connection problems - only the Mac OS).

While it's understandable that bugs occur but for Apple to allow this to continue for as long as it has - and in total silence from Apple - is a shame. [and for the total silence for likes of publications like MacWorld is also a non-plus]

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Just now, I tried to post this message and received the message:

Request Timeout
The server timed out while waiting for the browser's request.
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Need I say anymore?

I too Was having this problem. I found that it might be related to the actual case design. If the computer was stationary on a hard surface, no problem, locked at full bars. Once I moved the computer to my lap (Funny being that its a laptop computer) I lost my connection. It seems to be very consistent, let me know if anyone else is experiencing this. If this is the case, Apple has a major design flaw on their hands.

I'm a (potential) switcher and put up a post earlier. Been monitoring this all week. There's a phrase that comes to mind when I see all these frustrated people dealing with a bad design on a fundamental PC function without any help from the manufacturer.

Windows users.

quick note, my wireless connection is back to being as great as it ever was, now on 10.5.1 but a little nervous about 10.5.2 so holding off for now. would recommend trying what i did above

My MBP has all the most recent updates, etc. and is dropping the wireless connection constantly. Boot camped to XP and it's working just fine so it's got to be a software issue on the MAC side (in my mind anyways). Very frustrating to have to run XP in order to use my MBP. Come on Apple - fix this thing!

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?