Mac OS X 10.5.2 AirPort/D-Link DIR-625 802.11n workaround: drop to b/g

I am in love with my Macbook but when it comes to Wifi, I embarassingly enough have to work on XP via Boot Camp.

I bought the D-Link DIR-300 wireless router only cause it had the capacity to manipulate thresholds like you said but it didn't work. I have done everything on these forums. Logged into safe mode and this and that, but no result.

Any idea what else I could change in the router to get wifi going? At least in my own office. Thank you.

I had the same problem with the Netgear RangeMax wpn 824 and i set it up to b n g and fixed it, but no thesshold stuff........

I can confirm this for the router AVM FRITZ!Box Wlan 3170: Disabling their proprietary 802.11g++ option forcing the router back to standard b/g solved my wireless dropouts on my imac entirely.
Ironically this option is "hidden" in the expert view of the router's interface that needs to be activated first.

Though I'm glad to have solved this problem I hope that Apple adresses this in future releases on the client-side. It would help a lot to provide an option to disable Draft n mode especially when using public hotspots.

Cannot confirm workaround for AVM FRITZ!Box Wlan 3170. It seemed to be okay for a day but for several days the "old" problems are there again (connection gets lost every 10-20 seconds, only "rescanning" helps). The same imac works fine on Bootcamp XP SP2 so I think it's a software problem in OS X rather than a imac-hardware or router bug.

you saved me too

10.5.4. & dir-635

so im trawling through this info but embarrassingly i don't understand a lot of what's being advised...

i have my new mac book and have been online on and off all day, on and off because i keep losing connection. i updated to OS 10.5.4 as advised, however i suspect the problem is my router, d-link rangebooster n650.

can someone detail what i need to do? do i connect the router to the macbook to updates its software? do i toggle with connection settings on the macbook?

many thanks in advance,

Stephen, a virgin mac user who is still getting to grips with the change over from pc and windows

Hi,

I am also looking to drop to b/g on my MAC. How do I do that?
I can't seem to find it.

Please help.

Great! Thanks!

Andreas
Sweden

my opinion:

This is bad advice, a person with a laptop and WIFI should be able to travel with their laptop to any public location and be able to maintain a reliable WIFI connection. They CANNOT upgrade every router they encounter during their travels to make it work with their macbook laptop. The macbook should WORK with any 3rd party router with a Certified protocol. If it cannot connect with the fastest it should connect with the next lowest "Certified" protocol such as G/B/A.

This is clearly a software problem, I discovered things broken with the 10.5.3 update. I have performed 3 Archives and Installs and every time when I roll back to 10.5.2 the Airport range is restored to normal. This is all verified in the logs.

Granted 802.11"N" is "draft" protocol, but the fact remains if "N" protocol is not able to maintain a reliable connection with "N" then it SHOULD drop down to CERTIFIED "G" or even "B". +But the connection even at the lower spec should be reliable and consistent.+

Why does this problem seem to go away with a Airport Extreme?
and only fails with 3rd party routers?

Well that is obvious but it doesn't resolve the problem for the person who travels with their laptop with decreased Airport performance. Now you might say this a marketing ploy to encourage sales of proprietary equipment, but that will only come back to bite them when people go to public WIFI locations and find they cannot connect at Starbucks or elsewhere. So it is foolish to mess with your router settings when it worked prior to the latest upgrade installed.

Sure you might try to tweak a few things and change packet size (going from 2346 to 2306 as mentioned in other threads) but that does nothing to address the root of the problem, like I said you cannot run around and tweak someone else's router. All my tests confirm the performance of the Airport (quality of the signal, range etc.) all dropped on my Broadcom 4311 Airport card after I applied 10.5.3.

And you are RIGHT Apple should NOT be addressing 3rd party router issues, but they should be COMPLYING with the standard for "Certified" standards especially when people buy their products to Roam and use 3rd party equipment.

IF this truly was a "Draft N" or a router problem there would be a similar amount of complaints from the PC world.

For me,

It worked fine in 10.5.2
Was broken in 10.5.3
Remained broken in 10.5.4 a week later
Remained broken in 10.5.5 the other day

Each of the times above I have performed an Archive and Install back to 10.5.2 and the problem resolved itself, Airport card connectivity and performance were restored.

Only problem NOW is when you roll back to 10.5.2 you are vulnerable by NOT having all the Security patches applied that have been released since then such as the DNS vulnerability which allows someone to hack your macbook in 60 seconds or less.

Does anyone know how to connect Mac OS x 10.5.2 Airport/D-Link DIR-615 instead of Dir-625?

This problem oddly enough remains a pain in the neck.

Although the advice given here solves the problem for some, I still encounter it.

So what I did:

My router DIR-635 does have the latest formware update.
I disabled 802.11n
I deleted the airport preference file located in \Library\Preferences\SystemConfiguration\ and called com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
I deleted any password in my Keychain that is related to my wireless network

Sometimes this would be enough for a few weeks or days. But "the problem" came back. Randomly. From 10.5.2. until 10.5.5.

Now I tried all the steps mentioned above to no avail. After those steps I rebooted the DIR-635 which seemed to help.

Another strange fact is that I could while NOT being able to connect wirelessly to the internet control another machine on my network with a remote control client.

I guess there won't be anyone from Cupertino reading this....still the problem as such is still unresolved to me.

Greets everyone.