No AirPort card installed!??

Add me to the list - out of nowhere suddenly my Airport Card is not recognized any more...
I did everything except removing the battery - with my Mac Pro (3,1) it would mean to remove my PCI cards first and even then it would be a hussle...
What I did notice is that my Mac suddenly consumes nearly all of its RAM (although no apps running)...
Safe start-up (holding shift-key on startup) worked shortly (the Airport icon showed up a couple of seconds in the menu bar).

So - and Apple comment on this issue?

I had a similar problem and just got off the phone with applecare. I upgraded to SL and the airport card was not detected.

He had me hold ctrl shiftopt and press the power button, then shut down and hold command opt+pr and press the power button until the startup chime happened twice. Once I was in I went to the network preferences and used the assistant to detect the networks and the issue was resolved.

I had this problem - last week it completely froze and then it said no airport card installed. I tried the SMC and PRAM resets and neither of them worked. Well the PRAM reset worked for a few minutes but as soon as the computer went to sleep and woke back up again, back to either "no airport card installed" or airport = off and unable to turn it on in network prefs. I took it in and they replaced the airport card. I asked them to note whether or not the card was loose when they opened up the machine (this was the theory of the apple genius person) - well they did not note that it was loose, and they did replace the part. The documentation wasn't thorough so no way to know for sure but it would seem the card stopped working. Late 2008 aluminum unibody mac book.

It seems to be fixed, it has only been a day but it has gone to sleep and re-awakened without incident several times. Happy.

So just fyi here is the list of items that have been replaced on my mac book since I got it:
-Optical drive
-Hard drive
-Screen
-Airport
-Motherboard
-Mouse pad

Amazing! Over $3500 of parts and labor, I am so so glad I got apple care.

I have the same issue here on a 3 month old MBP, so it's still an issue on the latest release. I've had mixed luck with the ctrl shift+optionpower button followed by the cmd option+pr on restart until it beeps a number of times fix thing. The first time I tried this it worked, followed by a card failure within minutes, I then spent a whole afternoon trying to get wireless back but to no avail. I've just tried again a few hours later and it seems to have worked, hoping it stays this way.

< Edited by Host >

UPDATE FIXED:

So I got hold of Applecare and they appear to have solved it. I'd recommend calling them but this seems a safe first step:

a) Ascertain a hardware vs a software fault.
- Boot from the OSX Install DVD (with the DVD in the drive, reboot and hold down alt until the DVD boot option appears, click it.) If an Airport connection still can't be made, it is probably a hardware issue, so off to the Apple store. If a connection can be made then it's most likely just a software issue.

b) We found it was a software issue so we then rebooted from the hard drive and in finder navigated to the following folder [/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration], we then sent that entire directory to the trash and emptied the trash. After rebooting again the Airport card was in place and connected. So something in that directory was corrupted, ever hopeful it stays this way.

c) If that fails then it is backup and reinstall time. I didn't have to do that thankfully.

In summary, this fixed it on a 2010 MBP running 10.6.5, as always these things can be down to a number of factors, so give Applecare a call first if you're still in warranty.

Seems like there isn't a specific solution to the problem, since everyone's been getting the message and fixing it in a variety of ways, or not. As for me I just got it this morning when I woke my MBP up from sleep. Shut down and reset PRAM and it worked fine, until I let my MBP go to sleep again, and upon waking it up I found that the AirPort had turned itself off again. This time restarting didn't help, so I tried erasing all networks. Didn't work. I turned my MBP off and let it rest for about 20 minutes, then turned it on. Worked. I don't know if the problem is solved or if it's just by chance that it started working again, only time will tell. But it's definitely annoying.

Just wanted to check back in here to let you know that it's been nearly a month and a half post-airport card replacement and everything is still working great. So in some cases it must be just the card.

I just wanted to add to the discussion that the same thing happened to me yesterday on my late 2009 MBP. I raided the forums and found this one, and tried most of the suggestions to no avail. After six hours of diagnostics, testing, resets, repairing, etc. I finally gave up and concluded it must be a hardware fault.

Thankfully ethernet was still working so I was using that today and accidentally left my macbook in unplugged. It completely ran out of battery, and so when I realised this it took several minutes after being plugged in for it to startup. Once it did, the calendar was set back to pre-2008 and all my passwords were forgotten, but lo and behold- my airport was merely not configured rather than not installed. It then would register an IP address, but after one more restart it is now working fine again.

If you come across this you may very well have a hardware fault, but it seems even the software faults are not always solved by predictable means! This seems like a pretty big problem for far too many people though (based on the amount of forums around covering it!).

I have a refurbed early 08 edition MBP and for the third, maybe fourth time in a little over a year I'm taking it in (Friday) to the store to assumingly have the airport replaced. I'm having the same "no airport installed" issue that everyone else is having. In between the times that it just shows up (or lack thereof) as uninstalled it randomly just does the same thing on wake ups or fresh starts. It's getting really frustrating and aggravating that the same issue keeps repeating. I'm in PT school and my MBP is my must have tool for classes and everything. I have had few complaints but this and for the most part have loved all my Mac stuff since switching but this is driving me nuts. I'm hoping I maybe get the kind of excellent service I saw at least one person mention in getting something beyond just a fix. If I'm going to just keep having this recurrent problem I would hope I could talk some one into considering a full MBP replacement. I can't turn around every 2-3 months or more to take it in for service, especially now because of my constant use of it.

I'm having the same problem, ie getting the "no airport card installed" message. It seemed to come about when I'd tried installing Windows 7 via bootcamp. I'd tried most of the troubleshooting steps I'd found online and ultimately swapped in a blank hard drive and installed a fresh copy of SL from the disk that came with my laptop. Now I'm not seeing any airport connection available at all. Nothing in the bar at the top of the screen and when I open system preferences, and then network, I see just enternet and firewire as my options. I tried clicking the plus to add an adapter and the only options are ethernet and firewire.

Hardware problem??

If that's the case, is the wireless NIC part of the main board or something I can reseat or replace?

The same thing happened to me after I backed up time machine a few weeks ago, the airport icon read 'no airport card installed'. As it was under warranty, I took it into the Mac Store and told them what the problem was. After it had $900 worth of repairs to it, I got it home, and within half an hour the same thing happened again. What's going on apple?

I just had to register to post cause I'm so grateful for the advice. This issue has happened to me twice. The first time I just deleted the library/preferences/SystemConfiguration folder and that helped.

Several days later and after I upgraded to 10.6, it exhibited the same problems. This time the above fix did not help. I tried almost every other fix on this thread until I came across the repair disk permissions. This did it for me. Thanks so much!

If I just touch my laptop and move it a little, I lose the internet connection or if the laptop is on for about 10-15 minutes, I lose the connection ! I need to reboot it a few times & out of frustration,shut it down for 30 minutes..I get the net connection the next time I reboot until the process repeats..

To verify/repair Permissions,Disk Utility says that there is a hard disk error & to back up..

PRAM/SMC resets did not help..SMC reset does not help me get back the keyboard light too..

Nothing seems to help & Apple's getting rotten.

Command option P R worked well for me too eventually.... I had tried it once at first but it didn't work.

I started by going to Library > Preferences > SystemConfig > anything with network or airport in it, I used command Delete. Then reboot. Once restarted it did not work still, but this clears out all of your saved system information (so make sure to get your passwords etc before trying this). I rebooted again using the Command Option P and R trick and this completely sorted everything out! Back to normal!