Q: MacBook Pro constantly losing wireless connectivity

I've had my original MacBook Pro since April 2006 and it has never given me any bother.

Until about 4 months ago my Wi-Fi connection started dropping and I could not reconnect without restarting my MacBook Pro. At first I thought it was my BT Home Hub emitting a low signal. I brought my Macbook Pro into the same room (2yds away) from the router which seemed to solve my problem, but having my laptop any further away than 4-5 yds resulted in more dropped connections. After blaming the BT Home Hub for a couple of months, I brought my MacBook Pro into work to connect to the Wi-Fi network and i'm encountering the same problems.

I can connect to Wi-Fi for 15 minutes and then it'll go dead. I can restart my macbook and reconnect but only for 30 seconds - 1 minute before it goes dead again.

Taking into account that my MacBook is now 4 years old, it may be overheating the Airport card and stopping it from functioning properly? That would explain why I can connect for longer after having my laptop turned off for several hours. (Only theory I can think of), However, I can remember upgrading to Snow Leopard over 4 months ago which could be related to the problem?

I'm going to make a Genius appointment shortly. Does anyone know what sort of responce I should expect to get from a genius? or if it's as simple as replacing the Airport Card?

This needs a bump to keep it at the top of the forum. I still have an issue as I have had since I bought my new MBP 13 in October. Cant get time to be bale to lose my mac and too busy to get to the Apple store. Thought this would be resolved by now and really disappointed. Next stop will be to take time off and get to the apple store which really p*sses me off when the issue is obviously not a machine specific fault but rather a large scale problem.

Add me to the list.
I have a Macbook Pro that I got in August 2009, and it worked great until around December or so. I bought a refurbished aluminum macbook in December and I have never had a problem at all with connections. Just got around to researching the problem and after reading this thread I can't believe there is still not a fix since 2007?!?
I may try to get down to the Apple Store tomorrow to see what they say, but my guess is there is no fix for this...

I am also experiencing the same problem. In my case I bought my MBP in October 2009 and it seems to lose connection every 10 minutes or so. Very disappointing! Apple please! help!

9 days and no problems since getting my new router. Seems the issue is connecting to a secure connection on G. I'm connected to N and have had no problems.

This problem has appeared on both my MBP the last days. So frustrating as comes and goes. One computer works then doesn't. Changed routers has had no effect. Done all the things proscribed, Zapped Prams, deleted system preference folders, tried absolutely everything I have been able to get from the web. When it goes down, the signal seems really weak. Then if I use the diagnose button on network connection box, when it is really close to router it then fixes the problem, but only for a random length of time, before it just goes back to low signal strength... i.e. will only connect at 2 bars when around 12 inches from antenna. Seems to be completely independent of Router, or channel setting etc... and in fact seems to swap between both identical laptops. Either one or other develops the same problem. Meanwhile my son happily works away on his PC!
Judging from the 10s of thousands of online reports, MBP wireless needs some serious fixing... grrrrrr......
Help!!!

My computer is also having the same problems intermittently: "full bars but not connected to the internet because it has a manual IP address of ---." I got this laptop October 2009. Starting around December 2009, my computer would have trouble connecting to the internet. It's not a wireless router problem because my desktop connects to the internet via wireless too, and it is fine; it rarely loses connection.

I would not be able to connect to the internet after I wake the computer up from sleep and after its location has been moved (I commute a lot). When the computer wakes up, I can browse the internet for about 10 seconds. Then I lose connection.

This is frustrating because I have to periodically turn off the air port, wait, and then turn it back on. After this, it will say it's "Connected," but depending on how it's feeling, the connection may disconnect again or remain stable. Earlier today, I was sitting in my school's library. Previously, I've had no problems, but this morning, I was constantly turning the airport on/off to reestablish the connection.

I've been dealing with this problem for four months now.
When will this issue be resolved?

I have the same problem as well . I can't afford to buy a new macbook pro ( mine will be 4 years old in May) and using an external usb wireless adapter would be a rubbish thing to do .. I think this is a firmware issue ..

Those having this issue, try this, as stupid as it sounds. If possible, connect to another wireless hotspot just in case it's required (not sure if it is or not):

1: Create another Airport network connection, call it whatever.
2: Add the wireless network info back in.
3: Wait a moment and see if it connects properly. It should connect on the FIRST one, not the new one (which makes no sense).
4: Delete the newer one and see if it remains stable.

That just worked for me, though I can't explain why.

I have the same problem. My mac is MacBook Pro 13" 2009 Mac OS X (10.6.3). But my macbook stay on the guarantee. Anybody know if I can solve or get a new mac?

hi there,
i got the same problem since i changed to wireless last month. disconnect after not using it for several minutes.

as i saw that many of you got the same problem with the MBP & the wireless connection like me, i want to tell u all that maybe there's one way to solve this problem. but don't know if all the disconnections courses of the same issue. but lets give a try & c if it can helps u.

i figured out that the nettop of my wife is keeping connected all the time. but my MBP not. as i did some research in mac os, there is no setting for "staying connected" available. so i looked into my router. i'm using a Buffalo WHR-G300N & found in the wireless-basic-setting a "Rekey interval", the default setting is 60 secs. i don't know the settings of other brands, but i guess there must be something like that too.
& after i set it to 0 (zero).... the problem was gone!!!

actually i'm not a computer-guy... i don't know what this will affect to the whole thing. but after all i haven't to reconnect all the time.
i hope this could help some of u.

it would be nice if someone could tell me if there is something wrong with this setting....
but at least i'm staying connected now...

Message was edited by: callee444

Message was edited by: callee444

From reading this huge topic, there's an obvious global-ish problem here. For 2 years, countless numbers of people have had to work out manual ways to fix wireless troubles on their MacBook Pro's. After paying an Apple price tag for a laptop, I, along with thousands of others, would expect the basic functionality of a laptop from 2002 to be working.

Anyway, onward with the topic. I'm in a student house with three housemates, one uses Ubuntu since XP quite literally removed itself (the router is hardwired to this PC), and the girls use good old software bloated Acer's to check Facebook .. essentially. I use a late '06 iMac, which, I may add, has been the best purchase of my life so far; and a MacBook Pro late '09 2.8GHz 15".

The router we use is a D-Link DIR-615, which I understand is naff. No complaints though, we got it free and it does what it says on the tin; or at least it does for every single networking device that's ever entered our house except the most expensive one - my MacBook Pro. The connection is lost every time my MBP sleeps/restarts/turns on - I then have to restart several times, kill the PRAM and turn airport on/off countless times before it connects. On top of that, occasionally the speed just dies - but only on my MBP. This problem has never happened at my home where we use a more modern, and very new, NetGear router. This would make anyone think it's a router issue - but I'm sitting here typing and browsing on my MBP whilst I've got full signal and good speed connected to the D-Link. There's little sense I can make of it - I'm a web-programming/server-side scripting guy, not a hardware/networking guy. I know enough to get by, but I'm lost now - it seems so sporadical.

So, to sum up:

Router: D-Link DIR-615
Mac: MacBook Pro 15" 2.8GHz Late '09 (Alum)
Issues: Lack of re-connection after wake, random connection loss, inconsistent network speeds.
Fix: Patience, time and a lot of restarts.
Tried: Restarting router, changing encryption, reset PRAM, changing Airport to top of connections list, remove/add networks again, delete .plist files, 'join other network'.

i recently bought a macbook pro 13.3 and my wireless drops me every time the computer goes to sleep. what do i do???

same story here - bought a a brand new 13.3 two weeks ago, and the wireless connection keeps dropping all the time. my router's fine, i have no problems connecting with the iPhone wirelessly everywhere, but the MBP, not so good. I've tried the 'delete .plist' file idea but still have problems. any solution appreciated!

Same problem, same MBP.

Funny though, my Imac and an old Dell PC using the same router (Zyxel) are working fine. When I took
the MBP to a friends network there was no problem.

Router at home was WEP encrypted. Changed this to WPA and I was back online, for about a half an
hour then again it lost connectivity with the internet, however not with the router.
Later (two weeks ago) I changed to WPA2 and now everything is working fine!

Don't know how but changing to WPA2 solved my problem.