MacBook Pro (Late 2008) Wireless Issues

I just bought a 17 MBP. Spent really serious money on it, as you all know what these cost, even as closeouts. To my horror, the computer is useless on my wireless network. I'm a school administrator and need to walk around two different buildings using wireless constantly. We're on a wireless "a" network running at 5Ghz to reduce interference. Not a single other computer has been unable to flawlessly use our network in four years, except this one.

I called Apple yesterday, before finding this thread, and was first told that they're not surprised it doesn't work on our 802.11a network since it is an "old, slow technology." Of course to anyone who knows anything about wireless hardware, 802.11a is just as fast as 802.11g, but uses the much less crowded 5Ghz band. Regardless, they continue to blame my "old, slow" network. Pathetic and enraging. I can't return the computer and it will not maintain a reliable connection. What am I supposed to do?

I have had this problem in two different locations and found a solution that works in both cases. If I switch the router (AEBs) to N-only (5 Ghz) the connection is rock solid. However, I'm not sure what to do about non N-compatible devices that I want to get on the network? Are there any other options for that? You can't create two separate networks off a single AEBs can you?

I just thougt I would tip in here. I've got one of those new machines (got it late feb.) and and updated to 10.5.6 with NO PROBLEMS AT ALL! I stays on the internet, doesn't drop out of act strange. In fact it is exactly the same performance perfore - mayby slight faster.

Best
Corstein

I've also got the Uni MBP, and am also having issues with wireless. It doesn't drop out, but the latency I'm getting is absurd, generally in the 200Mbps-400Mbps range. This causes a lot of page load problems, video stuttering, buffering problems, etc. I'm getting this on a Netgear 54G router at home, as well as Cisco Aironet AP's at work. While it may not be Apple's fault, the fact of the matter is Windows PC's work fine with these networks, the Mac does not. This is the worst wireless experience I've had since the days of PCMCIA 802.11b cards. Hopefully it's a firmware/software fix that they're working on, because this is really aggravating that I've got a $2000 machine that can't work wirelessly properly.

The MBP will work with 5 Ghz and 2.4 Ghz modes. What security is your School network using ? It probably has more to do with security/config settings on your client.
Do you ever get connected ? Do you see your connection completely stop or just slowdowns in your connection ?

Sorry, I meant 200-400ms for latency in the above post, not Mbps. Is there no way to edit posts here? Hmmm.....

I've noticed this as well. At my dorm room my router broadcasts n only. I have never lost a connection there. When I'm at home we have a g only router and I lose wireless signal every so often. I've tried to reset the router with not luck.

Time to add my two penneth... Right I have an Airport Extreme and an Airpot Express base. Both have been tested to various different combinations of configurations etc to no avail. I now have them both (unfortunately due to the iPhone) set on 2.4ghz mixed g and n & WPA2 security with the express extending the extreme.

I still get the dropouts on frequent occasions only on my unibody 15"MBP, my 17" ATI C2D MBP works fine, as does my PC and my Dell Power Edge server connected at the moment using a very naff, cheap usb g adaptor (surprisingly it causes me less bother than the airport on the unibody MBP!).

I have noticed that around about the time I loose connection, I see this entry in the wireless AP: "Rotated TKIP group key." I was of the understanding that WPA2 security standards required CCMP for security as TKIP is an old standard, checking my logs though CCMP is there and is being rotated as it should do with no detrimental effects. I can't understand why the TKIP key rotation is a) switched on and b) not being ignored by the client which shouldn't be using it....

I also notice that when things go down, sometimes I can just switch airport on and off on the mac and it comes back, other times I have to restart or even turn off the wireless AP. PING gives me inconsistent results during such an occurrence also, mostly I get no response from domain names, sometimes I get a response from my ISP DNS but they are still unable to translate and it's 50/50 on internal network responses.

Anyhow, has anyone been using Airtunes streaming while this has all been going on? I find it seems to get even worse when I'm streaming music to my much loved AV receiver via the Airport Express, browsing becomes a no-go.

Perhaps this issue is something to do with the firmware in the MBP thinking it should rekey to match but getting a bit confused and hanging.

<Edited by Host>

Time to add a bit more. After checking signal & noise levels of all connected devices to both my Airport Extreme Base & Airport Express Base, I can rule out changing between 2.4GHz/5GHz or WPA/WPA2 modes as making any difference, all devices keep roughly the same signal & noise levels. They also keep the same connection rates. This leads me to conclude the issue isn't really with either of them & perhaps the keying I mention in the last post is completely normal, just something that leads as a trigger for the MBP to pull it's hair out on occasion.

Just for fun I thought I'd try plugging the bases into their own mains ring to see if any electrical devices/wiring could be causing interference, the only result is that the signal level marginally increases (i.e gets closer to 0) but not hugely. Altho all my devices are reporting as being connected at max speed for their wireless capability.

This all leads me to believe there is in fact an issue with the Airport Extreme card on the Macbook Pro. I am now just waiting for it to play up again next so I can check the AEBS logs and see what signal it is reporting etc. I also need to run Windows for a while on the MBP to rule out any software/driver issues with 10.5.6.

Will update in due course.

I have the same, or very similar, problem with my MacBook Pro. The quality control on these units really is shocking - Apple have already replaced this laptop twice due to backlight flickering (and although it flickers less this one still flickers) although oddly enough I never had WiFi problems with the previous two...

The WiFi problems on this one only started after about 60 days of ownership, before that it worked absolutely fine and I didn't notice any drop outs / packet loss / high pings... I've tried using just 802.11g, 802.11n, a Draytek router, a Linksys (running dd-wrt) router and a Cisco AP all with the same results - so I find it very unlikely that the problem is anything other than the MBP itself.

Additionally - My old MBP works fine, as does my partner's along with every other WiFi device we have. I've seen some advice about turning "Interface Robustness" on / off but that option is completely missing from my Airport menu, has this been dropped in a recent update?

Hey there,

I bought the Unibody macbook pros when they first came out and i have been having the same issue as you. I had upgraded from the previous gen. MBPs' and those have been great, no internet connection drops like this new one. It also gets me that this is my second unibody mbp, as the first one had the same issues plus more. so it is probably a software compatibility or hardware. anyways i dont know what to do but to wait for a fix. i am almost certain it is a software issue, because when i boot into windows xp it never has connection drop outs like leopard does. its funny because as im typing my connection has just dropped. I should make a video showing this, becuase it is very frustrating

Two nights ago I downloaded the 10.5.7 OS upgrade, which I installed yesterday afternoon. Since installation, my Airport connection to linksys has failed. I haven't been able to get it up and going at all. Nothing else has changed, so the OS update is the only variable. Any tips?

I've been having this problem, too. I bought my machine right after they were released and the problem went away after the first major OS update. However, I've been seeing network problems again since the release of 10.5.7

For me, it only happens if I'm pushing a lot of data (1+ megabytes/sec) over a sustained period of time. It doesn't always happen, but it never does when I'm pushing less than a meg/second over the network.

Most of the time I see it when streaming HD video from my MythTV backend to my Mac or when downloading something large off the Net.

Turning airport off then back on solves the problem temporarily.

Can you switch to WPA2-PSK using AES instead of TKIP ?
If you still have to use TKIP< increase the Group Key Rotation Interval to a longer duration on your Access Point and see if that helps ?

Folks: *there may be a power/signal issue going on here.* I had a similar problem of my network connection dragging to practically nothing when hooking up my LaCie external drive to the USB port. Please see my post below (link and text)

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9914924#9914924

Folks:

Apple needs to get on this issue fast; after turning off my N mode on my WRT160N Linksys Router, I got my packet speed back up to where it should be... HOWEVER I noticed another problem.

When I hooked up my LaCie external drive (connected via USB), my packets on PING practically stall to nothing. I then eject the external USB drive and re-ping and I get acceptable packet speeds; I re-connect the LaCie external drive to the USB port and my PING crawls to nothing.

There is CLEARLY a correlation between the network speed crawling to nothing while hooking up an external drive; possibly a power sink and/or signal interference on the Airport when hooking up a USB device? (or perhaps even Firewire 800 too?)

I sure hope Apple is reading this one, because this could be a MAJOR issue that needs to be fixed ASAP.