MacBook Pro (Late 2008) Wireless Issues

Only way that works quite alright but not perfect is using no password on the network which is not good 😟

Is there no way we can organize some list of complaint and send to apple or something?

This solution appears to be the only consistent solution, which is unfortunate:

Disabling password protection on my WiFi network results in a solid fast connection. If I have a password enabled (normally WPA2 Personal), the signal strength shows full bars, but the connection is very intermittent - erratic ping times, dropped packets (10-20% loss). And I couldn't get it to consistently drop out - some days it would be fine, sometimes it would be laggy coming off a cold boot, sometimes it wouldn't start until the machine warmed up.

I had taken my MBP into the apple store, and they tested it for 2 days without any issue, but I am guessing they connected to a router without a password. I plan on calling them back and giving them some additional information and see what comes of it. I had high hopes, coming back from the Apple Store the laptop worked great for about 2 days after resetting my Time Capsule to default settings, but sure enough, as someone predicted on this thread, it did start to drop out again.

So far without security it works fine, but I am disconcerted about running my network without security, and don't consider this to be a good answer.

Demand the store test your machine with a WPA2-encrypted Time Machine in-store.

If it doesn't work, they need to get Apple engineers on the phone (and they can.)

If it does, then it's something in your environment causing the issue - most likely interference from other Wi-Fi routers or other devices, such as 2.4 GHz cordless phones or microwave ovens.

I'm now more convinced than ever that this is an antenna issue. After playing around a bit with it last night, I can only get a good connection with the rear of my MBP in direct line of sight to the router. If I orient the computer in certain ways, even with direct line of sight, I start having connection issues. The thing that really ***** is that I need to have the computer for the next week and a half for class, and I need to be able to have internet reliably at my apartment, which means I have to sit in my living room with the computer facing exactly a certain way, or else purchase a really long and annoying ethernet cable. As soon as classes are done I'll be trying to get this thing serviced, hopefully getting some kind of fix.

Have you tried moving the router?

Perhaps there's a source of interference somewhere near it.

Yep, router has been moved multiple times to try to isolate the issue with no improvement. It had originally been sitting directly under my desk, with my Xbox and MBP both connecting wirelessly just fine, but when the Xbox was on, the MBPs wireless throughput would drop to 0 quickly. I moved the modem and router to the cable jack closer to my Xbox and hard-wired the Xbox into the router which improved things for about a day, and then it went back to being awful.

Since my last post, I've come home to see my closed MBP stuck in some sort of "opening up" loop where the Apple logo will light up and the superdrive does it's check, just like when you open it up from or wake it from sleeping. Once I opened it up, it quit, but now even when I'm in direct line of sight to the router I can connect to the router, but can't get internet. It was also quite hot as if it had been doing that for awhile. I'm now dragging a 50ft ethernet cable around my apartment.

All this kookiness is starting to point towards some very faulty hardware or firmware at some point. I've been routinely repairing permissions and doing hardware checks and nothing has come up, so as soon as I'm done with these classes next week, I'll have time to take care of this once and for all...

Hello Guy's,

I have the same WiFi Problem with my new Alu MacBook Pro 2,4Ghz, 2GB RAM, 250 5400 HDD.

My Accespoint is a AVM "Fritz!Box 7240"
I set it up to mixed mode 802.11n+g and protected the Network with WPA2 (CCMP)
With this setup, the MacBook Pro sometimes lost the connection. I can't connect to the Internetnet or internal network. Signal bar on the MacBook show full signal strength and also the the Accespoint show me that the MacBook is full strength connected with 108Mbit.

Now I switched from WPA2 (CCMP) to WPA (TKIP) and it seems to work stable. But the "N"-Draft needs WPA2 for 108Mbit, with WPA I only can get 54Mbit.

Please Apple fix this issue.

All other Devices like a iPhone, MacMini and a Acer Notebook with Vista work great in my WiFi Network.

In case of a other issue with freezing graphics and vertical stripes on the Display, my Macbook Pro just came back from service, the hole Display was switched and I told the technicans to test the WiFi too, but the can't find anything.

I also created a new User on the MacBook but that doesn't solve the problem.
Message was edited by: JoLLi

Message was edited by: JoLLi

I just started setting up my new late 2008 MacBook Pro, and a day or two into my installing software, etc., the spotty (actually practically nonexistent) Internet (not just wireless, as I checked over an Ethernet cable as well) began. It would not work 90% of the time, constantly hitting refresh or links might work 1 out of 10 or even less frequently.

I tried all kinds of things in the network settings, deleting and replacing the airport adapter, deleting the parallels adapters, etc. (Deleting the parallels adapters did seem to help, increasing the percentage of the time that some networking worked, but did not solve it by any means!)

I do believe that my issue may have started about the time a MobileMe sync occurred (just like someone mentioned earlier in this forum). I had MobileMe sync going between an iMac, iPhone, and MB Air (that was replaced by this new machine).

What did work:

Similarly to the earlier person who had the genius bar create a new account, I created an additional account (instead of deleting and reinstalling). The networking consistently worked properly on this one. Strangely, the networking almost always worked for the first 10 or 15 seconds straight when I logged back in to my regular account! But then would quit... how frustrating.

Next, I tried deleting the whole Library folder in my home directory. Logged back in... problem seemed to be solved, but of course application specific data and preferences were gone, thus unlicensing some software, etc.

Fortunately, I had backed up the Library folder. I replaced it. Everything back to the way before, problem and all. Deleted the preferences folder. Logged out and back in -- wireless worked but all preferences gone again and things like iSale unlicensed.

Then, tried this -- copied preferences back so my account was just like before with all software, preferences, etc. and BAD Internet again. SO... I backed up the preferences folder in ~/Library/ and then selected and deleted everything in ~/Library/Preferences. I logged out and back in. Network problem seemed to be solved (have to test for several minutes to be even mildly sure)... THEN I copied back everything from inside my backup preferences folder but DID NOT REPLACE any of the files that had been re-created in my preferences folder during the fresh login. This restored many of my settings and license issues but did not seem to "reinstall" the bad wireless. So far, so good. I'm wary of re-syncing now. If I get a chance, though, perhaps I can see if I can get away with just syncing calendar and contacts (but not keychain) or some combination thereof to see what affects it.

Good luck everyone with this frustrating issue, but this may be one of the easiest temporary solutions for some of you?

you wouldn't happen to know what those files were would you? Might be useful for the users here to be able to go in and just delete those specific files.

ok after a bit of time with my config (see post above) it seems to be better but NO WHERE PERFECT, it does however drop out quite often even though I have FULL BARS, And I can't figure it out. VERY Frustrating.

out of curiosity has any one tried to use a 3rd party Express WIFI-N Card to compare signal and connectivity? In their environment, does it work as it should or do you still have the same issues?

Sorry, I realized after I had copied back over that it would have been nice to have written them down for everyone. (And also probably would have helped with searching for the specific bad one).

It might actually be almost as quick, though, and easier to remember to just to try doing it the way I did. Copy the whole contents of the ~/Library/Preferences folder to a backup. Delete everything inside Preferences. Logout. Login. Wait a minute & probably access the web with Safari to make sure network preferences or whatnot get re-created. Copy the preferences from the backup folder back over all of them but do not replace files with the same name (those re-created during the login). (The dock/background screen setting will not be replaced as they're in use, too. They're probably not the offensive files, so if the preferences were copied over from another account or single-user mode, it'd probably work. The copied files might have to have their ownership reset with `chown', though, if done that way -- probably not worth it for a background and dock arrangement).

I'd prefer to have a more exact pin-point of the offending settings, too, myself, but it's hard to track down...
I have managed to turn manual sync on for Mobile ME for bookmarks, calendar, and contacts without seeming to trigger the same problem again. Once I get a few more things installed, configured, and backed-up on this machine, I may tinker again with automatic sync and if I feel brave sync with the keychain option as well.

I am planning on trying this out as well as trying the MBP out in as many wireless networks as I can before I put my call in to Apple Care. Probably won't get to do this for another week and a half, but I'll post back with my results when I do.

Hi EricPatterson,
the method you describe fixes the problem if the configuration files get somehow corrupted. This is a known problem and its solutions is described several other times in this forum. Deleting some specific files is sufficient, even if I do not remember which ones as I write.

Unfortunately many of the people in this forum have more serious problems than this, mostly related to some strange combination of Airport card and software failure (which is also my case). I authentically wish your problem was of the first kind only.

G.

Looks like I've found a solution! At least I'm working reliably, anyway. I was messing with my router because as other people had mentioned and I also observed, when encryption is off, it seems to work. While fishing around in my router's settings, I noticed that I had been set to WPA, which is what I thought all AirPorts were compatible with and everything else on my network was set to. Just for laughs, I set it to WPA + WPA2 mixed mode. It appears now that everything is working just fine, although this doesn't explay why I could connect with line-of-sight. This is all very strange to me, and my signal isn't the greatest when it should be full bars but this may just be interference. So try mixed mode WPA+WPA2 encryption!

Mixed Mode WPA+WPA2 doesn't fix the problem at my macbook pro 😟