Q: MacBook Pro constantly losing wireless connectivity

Hi,

I have had this problem for months now, and think it is a combination of a Macbook Pro and router issue. My MBP maintains a connection at work with a NetGear router, but at home it routinely loses connection to a British Telecom BT Home hub (a Thomson router). After a lot of time spent trying to figure out what was wrong with the Macbook Pro, I finally noticed that the router was actually crashing every time I lost my Internet connection. After a few minutes the router reboots, and the connection returns. An old G4 powerbook (10.3.9) and a G4 Mac Mini (10.4.11) don't have this problem, so I can only guess that something about the way the MBP connects triggers an intermittent problem with the router.

I'm still having a problems with 10.5.2 using WPA Personal. At home I fixed my problem with a combination of the Leopard upgrade and changing to WPA2, but at my in-laws with an older Linksys router the WPA stuff still does not work. It seems so silly. I have to go into preferences, remove the network, apply changes, then add the exact same network back. Windows machines don't have the same problem.

think this is related to the MBP and possibly 10.5.2. I have just tested my connection speeds on my APEBS on my iMac 10.4..11 and PowerBook G4 10.5.1 and all had reasonable good connection speeds (using speedtest.net). I'm Jupiter, FL and I tested to Jacksonville, FL, Portland, ME, Colorado Springs, CO and San Jose, CA. The download/upload speeds on the iMac were: 2836/386; 2801/401; 2577/362; 2474/398.

The download/upload speeds on the PowerBook were: 1827/365; 1326/406; 1557/319; 872/399.

Compare those to the MBP 10.5.2: 2111/45; 1124/46; 930/125; 533/7

You can see a real problem with the upload speed (which is why I keep getting the "Safari can't find server" message).

Now compare these speeds to these when I take out the APEBS and hook the MBP directly to the DSL modem (Westel 6100): 1147/382; 6134/413; 5005/388; 4388/498

Vast improvements in both the download and the upload speeds.

I'm now using my iMac because the MBP is not usable with the internet with the APEBS Wi-Fi (slower than the old dial-up)

I have a static IP address and I have the APEBS configured to "always on".

I have all of the computers configured to show the "Network Status" (the "Radar" icon) up in the menu bar. And, it also displays the running connection time (hours:minutes:seconds). On the MBP, the connection time will "slide" in and out (I assume meaning that it has lost and regained the connection) and, this is a constant action (i.e., connection time sliding in and out).

Hopefully, this will be sorted out soon.

I just had my airport express burn out. Bought a Belkin N MIMO that came with high remarks from those at the store who were using it. Was pleased that I could now walk over the house and even down the block and still get full bars.

But quickly started having the same lost connection or cannot connect to the internet issues while having full airport bars.

Meanwhile my old emac with just the regular airport card works perfectly.

I'll try throttling back my router to just use the g band. I really hope this gets worked out soon.

MacBook Pro/2.4 Ghz/10.4.11

Throttling back to G only on the wireless router seems to have worked. This is hardly a solution, though. I could have saved some bucks had I known that by just buying a G router.

Message was edited by: Tim Rogan

Yep, same problem. Running Leopard on MBP, connection drops every other page. Works fine on my XP laptop. Using a Netgear RangeMax DG834N. It seems to work better when I restrict the signal to 802.11g and 802.11b.

Come on Apple you need to sort this. Some sort of statement is order I think, at least an acknowledgment of the problem would be a start.

Yet another "Me too"!

I got a Netgear DG834N and a MyBook 1TB World Edition just before Leopard came out in anticipation for Time Machine, as it happens Apple dropped support for wireless backup (unless you buy Time Capsule) making my MyBook useless (£200 down the drain), and now I get connection problems with my router.

Im going to revert it back to G, but that seems now like it was absolutely pointless me upgrading my router (£80 down the drain).

I plan to get a new MacBook Pro when they release them (hopefully soon), fingers crossed they've addressed this issue for then.

Hi all,

Lately I've been running into a lot of problems with my MacBook Pro (2.2GHz, OS 10.5.2) too. So many minor bugs I don't even consider them minor any more.

First, primarily and most significantly is the wireless issue. Whenever it wakes up from sleep, it won't be able to find my home wireless, and I have to reboot (what kind of a Mac needs to reboot every single time? Might as well take the sleep function off!). Sometimes, out of the blue, the MBP will just drop the wireless network, for no particular reason! The wireless signal bar will simply drop from full to zero, and I'm not connected to the internet, sometimes when downloading or sending files even. It's amazingly reliable!

Also the most basic, but simply the most annoying - opening the lid after sleep, you hear the disks waking up, but you see what? A black screen. Wait about half a minute before you see anything on screen. After that, you'll run into the above problem (so exciting! chain reaction!)

What kind of a professional machine is this, if it cannot perform basic tasks? I used to run a Powerbook G4. Granted, it was slower, but it was reliable. I didn't run into these silly bugs.

How can a video editor hope to trust his machine to work for him, if it won't even wake up from sleep and start to function properly? How can a professional, on-the-go photographer hope to find his portfolio ready and available to show his client, if it won't wake up from sleep and start to function properly? Imagine the embarrassment - a photographer is meeting a potential client, and pulls out his blazing fast MBP to show his potential client a small collection of his works. The MBP refuses to wake up from sleep. After it does, the trackpad doesn't work right, and he can't even open Finder to get to his portfolio folder. Silly, isn't it?

Apple if you read this, please get to the bottom of all this nonsense - it is making me quite sick updating from 10.5 to 10.5.1 and 10.5.2 and still getting the same basic bugs I've been getting ever since I started on this new machine.

I'm beginning to come around to your sentiment (i.e., what kind of professional machine...). I've been using a Apple computer since 1979 and have owned almost every model except the LISA. Since I moved from the PowerBook G4 to the 1st gen MBP, I've gone through fan problems, motherboard failure and now this ridiculous problem. I travel a lot and live with my laptop. I leave on Saturday for CeBIT (the EU computer show) and the Wi-Fi is a must. So, if this is not fixed before then, I will go and buy an external modem in order to stay connected (now isn't that ridiculous? own a $2,000 supposedly 'world class' machine and it can't make a Wi-Fi connection?)

Actually, both at home and at the office, I run under static IP addresses. But, today, I did some more testing. I run VM Ware and Windows Vista and my assumption had been, since Vista, running under VM Ware, utilizes all of the Mac I/O ports, that Vista would share the same slowness with the Mac Airport Wi-Fi. I tried it today and, much to my surprise, the connection speed was great (like normal). I also tried a hardwire to the Ethernet port on the APEBSg and got the same great connection speed.

So, MBP Airport works with Vista but not with Mac OS and by-passing the Airport Wi-Fi with a hardwire works with both Vista and Mac OS. It's only the Mac OS trying to go through the onboard Airport that gets choked down to unacceptable connection speeds.

I was seriously considering buying a MBP... if a buy a completely new MBP with the newest version of lepord installed, how likely am I to run into this problem?

Message was edited by: Zenjamen

For everyone with wireless connectivity problems (especially using 802.11n) in Tiger 10.4.11:

After spending months trying solve all the wireless issues (repeated disconnecting etc.) I finally found a solution:

Reinstall OS X, when installing, do not connect to your wireless network, connect to internet via ethernet cable and download and install the 10.4.11 combo update and airport update, then activate airport after restarting and all problems are gone.

Although the reinstall is annoying its well worth it in the end since it solved all my problems!

moritzf,
So, you are recommending going all the way back to Tiger 10.4.11? What happens when you update it to 10.4.x? Does the AP issue start with 10.5.0. I may be mistaken but I think most people are reporting the problem starting with 10.5.2 (at least that's when it seemed to appear with me).

I'm running 10.4.11 and didn't have the problem until recently...when I bought a new router (Linksys WRT310N)

If I upgrade to Leopard, will I still have this problem? I've been reading mixed messages.

I second everything calebk has said, and take only small solace in the fact that I'm not alone in this silliness. I bought a Macbook Pro 2.2 (SR)to replace my wife's broken G3/900 - which, coincidentally, was rock solid until the Apple-acknowledged GPU defect took it out. Our primary problem under 10.4.11 and 10.5.1 was a flaky aiport connection: specifically, the connection would often be lost upon waking the laptop from sleep. Sometimes turning Airport on and off again would restore connectivity; other times, a full reboot would be required. I am fairly tech savvy and have been troubleshoot Macs for over a decade, but nothing I tried impacted the connectivity issue.

At present, after installing 10.5.2 and the Graphics Update for this machine, I much worse off than before the update. Airport drops at least a couple of times a day upon waking from sleep. We now also are having the "no display - must reboot" problem described above about 1/3 of the times we wake the laptop from sleep. We got the GPU reballed on the G3 iBook, I managed to get it reassembled and working again for work presentations, and my wife is begging me to take the accursed MacBook Pro from her and give her the iBook back. That, my friends, is pretty pathetic.

I've tried every single suggestion I've been able to locate, from PRAM resets to .plist removals to blah blah blah - nothing has helped. And Apple, I've lost my faith. My mother-in-law, also a die-hard Apple advocate, feels the same. We bought an Apple because they have always been reliable machines that worked as advertised. I can only speculate where along the line Apple lost its focus on quality, but my MacBook Pro has caused me more trouble in the last 4 months than any XP machine I've ever used. Never again.

I can't say for sure. It doesn't happen with the PowerBook G4 or the iMac. It doesn't happen with an Ethernet connection. It doesn't happen with the MBP running VMWare with Windows Vista. But it does happen on my 1st gen MBP with 10.5.2. I called AppleCare today and they didn't have any real info. I'm just in the process of reinstalling 10.5.0 to see if it still does it (it seemed to me to happen with 10.5.2). If it doesn't happen with 10.5.0, I'll try going to 10.5.1. If it still doesn't happen, then I'll know that it is the .2

And, if I see it in 10.5.0, I'll revert back to 10.4.x. It's a sad state to be in but I can't be running around looking for an Ethernet connection as I travel the world (it's either that or I go out and buy a Dell). ;-(