Leopard drops my internet constantly!

Devin Crutcher wrote:

Please, somebody tell me I'm not the only one having these problems! Tiger didn't have this problem!

OK- I'll tell you - you are not.
I have a G5 tower, and upon upgrading to leopard, it always drops my hardwired network connection after waking from sleep. I used to power off/on the router and the connection would return. This takes 30-40 seconds and is a pain.

I have since found that i can unplug the ethernet connection and plug it back in to the router and the mac starts talking to the router again. This takes 10-15 seconds. Still a pain.
So no solutions Devin- just commiserating and hoping a fix is out there.

(I'm also frustrated by the fact that 6 USB ports that i had via PCI cards have stopped working- does anybody know if these typically need new drivers for Leopard? I thought they were just plug and play when installed...)

My powerbook g4 has no problem connecting to the router wirelessly. It is still running 10.3.9. I'm hesitant to upgrade this machine to leopard yet.

-BL

One more note: I'm using a verizon GT704WG dsl modem/ wireless router.

Up-graded to 10.5 Nov 2. Since then I have been having problems with modem hanging up and internet connection dropping. It is an intermittent problem. One day it will dial up first time, stay connected, no problem. Next day it will take three to five attempts, sometimes more before staying connected. Never had this problem with Tiger. I even bought a new modem thinking that it might be bad. My network settings remained the same. My iBook, with same network settings, but still with Tiger, works fine. When modem connects and time on-line appears in Apple menu it will freeze for approx 10 seconds, and when it restarts, I have lost internet connection and ability to connect with e-mail account. When I click on Disconnect, Disconnecting will crawl and crawl and keep crawling in menu bar and will not disconnect. The only way I can disconnect at this point is to unplug the modem and start over again. Sometimes it dials the wrong access number. Several times upon starting up the computer the volume control icon in Apple menu is missing and my back-up drive is missing from desktop. Another problem I had 3X is that restart will not function.

After reinstalling, manually configure settings and much more. Finally i think i found a way to get the network stable. My Networkrouter is an Fritz.Box 3030 and after many sleepless nights i found a solution - finally.

The Problem wich happens always is that if you got a DHCP Compatible router, the router renews your leases. Leopard also does. So i went into my router-configuration and disabled the DHCP feature. In Leopard i configured my IP Settings manually and thats it. Unbelievable, but since about 2 Hours my Network is stable and for test - i run Transmission (a bittorrent application) to test if its stable. Until now - it is.

It is happening to me now with Tiger as well, so it is not just a Leopard issue.

It also started happening to me--only rarely, though, flickering in and out, once I upgraded to Tiger 10.4.1.

Problems are back. I'm frustraded about this. With such a Problem it's nearly imposible to work smooth on my Mac. Only thing i recognize is that this problem happend first time in Tiger 10.4.10.

I had a similar problem: Airport Express would kill my cable modem connection after just a short time being connected.

The problem seemed to begin after upgrading to Leopard, but it could have been later. It seemed to get really bad these last few weeks. Anyway, my solution today that has given me several hours of service so far has been to launch...

• Airport Utility
• click Manual setup
• click Internet, then select "share a public IP address" from the Connection Sharing dropdown
• click the NAT tab and click on "Enable default host at" 10.0.1.253.

My computers are dynamically receiving IP's from the Airport Express. Setting the IP manually did not work for me. Hope this helps someone. Also, the Express is configuring IPv4 via DHCP.

Greetings,

If you have two different Macs, and you are dropping your internet connection, using wired or wireless, then it's usually your Router, WiFi AP, Cable/DSL modem (very likely) or ISP service itself. Leopard isn't the problem - most likely it never has been.

I have read many complaints blaming Leopard for dropping issues, and as a Network Engineer, I can tell you it isn't likely to be Leopard unless there is a hardware/software conflict somewhere.

I would set your Cable/DSL Modem, Router, and your Mac to factory defaults, regarding networking/internet and try using everything with the factory defaults.

From my experience sporadic network drops are usually the Modem, first, the Router, second, WiFi Access Point or Base Station, thirdly and finally, software/hardware conflicts from within.

Contact your ISP and tell them that you are having sporadic internet drops, with wired and wireless and see what they say. You can ask them to test their lines and monitor things for a bit of time. Most decent providers will do that for you.

Good Luck - Cheers,
M.
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Greetings,

Sorry Dude, it seems like you have a bad problem. If you hadn't have said that you went to an Apple Store, I would have to say to check your Modem or your ISP. I'm assuming that you used all of these routers at one location, or have you had these dropping issues in many locations, and via many IPS providers?

You said in your first post, "It doesn't seem to matter whether they're connected to ethernet or AirPort." That usually means that you were having this problem wired or wireless - is that correct?

If it isn't any of that stuff, then you must have either a conflict or your machine is bad, and you need to go back to the Apple Store and get it taken care of.

I have never had a drop at home on the road or anywhere - so far, nor have any of my 60 + work machines, some MacBooks, Imacs, or Mac Pros - most are on wireless. We've been lucky, I guess.

I wish you well and good luck.

Cheers,
M.
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Greetings,

By hardware I meant the things common to both machines - Cable/DSL Modem Routers, etc. ISP issues, heck it could be anything.

I cannot believe it's Leopard, as there are so few people having issues like this - there are millions of Leopard users out there, and relatively few having issues. Most of us never write to a forum like this if we aren't having problems, but some of us do just to try and be helpful, and to show that not all have problems.

I work with too many of these machines and users to believe that the OS is the problem - it doesn't even make any sense at all.

Yes, you have a problem and may have trouble locating it, but when you do it's my belief that you'll find it to be something simple and over looked, and not the OS. Leopard is more sensitive to things being right on the money than previous OS's were, so you'll have to make sure all is compatible with it on both machines.

Good Luck,
M.
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