New Mac owner with recurring wi-fi problems
Hi all!
I've finally taken the plunge and got myself a MacBook Pro in the last week of July - very happy with it, it's already gone on a two week Mediterranean holiday with me and performed very well - the battery life on normal usage is something else!
The one recurring problem I have with it is Wi-Fi connectivity.
I have a BT Homehub 1.5 (s/w version 6.2.6E, 802.11b/g) - not the brand new black one which is draft-n capable - the slightly smaller iteration of the original Homehub. It is WPA-PSK secured.
We have three computers and two consoles in the house that all use this wireless network: a four year old Sony Vaio XP SP3 desktop (my other half's PC), a self built Windows Vista Ultimate PC, a Wii, a PSP and this MacBook.
The MacBook is Bootcamped with XP SP3. Under this OS, the wi-fi connection is rock solid. Under OSX, every two to five minutes or so the AirPort indicator drops away to 1 bar or nothing. If I click on the indicator to force the re-scan, it picks up the connection almsot instantaneously. It doesn't matter where in the house I am with the laptop - the furthest point from the hub or sitting right next to it with nothing between myself and it - the behaviour is the same.
(In fact, as I write this, I have had to click the Airport control several times to maintain the connection)
I have looked through the forums and have tried a couple of the solutions mentioned: manually selecting a channel on the Homehub (9-11 are recommended apparently, but I have tried them all) un-hiding the SSID, manually configuring IPv4 and disabling IPv6 in Network Preferences etc.
The Macbook is in the same workgroup as the other machines under WINS configuration, and I have been able to browse the public folders on the windows machines and vice versa when it is up and running.
What is frustrating is this works so well when it is on - fast and speedy internet access (though I must confess I prefer FF3 to Safari). The problem obviously doesn't lie with the hardware - the perfomance under Bootcamp is proof of that - stupidly fast Wi-Fi, with no drop outs whatsoever. I can only surmise that is therefore a problem to do with OS X?
If it's any help, there is another Homehub network nearby, and another network over the road at a BT place (internal business network, not Openzone). Both are secured, and I'm wondering if their presence is enough to confuse Airport?
Any help that anybody could give me with this would be appreciated.
I've finally taken the plunge and got myself a MacBook Pro in the last week of July - very happy with it, it's already gone on a two week Mediterranean holiday with me and performed very well - the battery life on normal usage is something else!
The one recurring problem I have with it is Wi-Fi connectivity.
I have a BT Homehub 1.5 (s/w version 6.2.6E, 802.11b/g) - not the brand new black one which is draft-n capable - the slightly smaller iteration of the original Homehub. It is WPA-PSK secured.
We have three computers and two consoles in the house that all use this wireless network: a four year old Sony Vaio XP SP3 desktop (my other half's PC), a self built Windows Vista Ultimate PC, a Wii, a PSP and this MacBook.
The MacBook is Bootcamped with XP SP3. Under this OS, the wi-fi connection is rock solid. Under OSX, every two to five minutes or so the AirPort indicator drops away to 1 bar or nothing. If I click on the indicator to force the re-scan, it picks up the connection almsot instantaneously. It doesn't matter where in the house I am with the laptop - the furthest point from the hub or sitting right next to it with nothing between myself and it - the behaviour is the same.
(In fact, as I write this, I have had to click the Airport control several times to maintain the connection)
I have looked through the forums and have tried a couple of the solutions mentioned: manually selecting a channel on the Homehub (9-11 are recommended apparently, but I have tried them all) un-hiding the SSID, manually configuring IPv4 and disabling IPv6 in Network Preferences etc.
The Macbook is in the same workgroup as the other machines under WINS configuration, and I have been able to browse the public folders on the windows machines and vice versa when it is up and running.
What is frustrating is this works so well when it is on - fast and speedy internet access (though I must confess I prefer FF3 to Safari). The problem obviously doesn't lie with the hardware - the perfomance under Bootcamp is proof of that - stupidly fast Wi-Fi, with no drop outs whatsoever. I can only surmise that is therefore a problem to do with OS X?
If it's any help, there is another Homehub network nearby, and another network over the road at a BT place (internal business network, not Openzone). Both are secured, and I'm wondering if their presence is enough to confuse Airport?
Any help that anybody could give me with this would be appreciated.
15.4" MacBook Pro 2.5GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.4)
