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Level 1

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iPhone 3GS WIFI Connection Instability Problems

Hi guys

I have just recently purchased an iPhone 3GS 32GB Black, and I am experiencing problems with connecting to WIFI networks. I have a wireless connection at home and one minute I am connected to the network just fine and the next it has just totally disappeared. At first I suspected that the issue may be down to my router, as I have never previously experienced this problem with my first gen iPhone or my iPhone 3G.

But it seems that the router is working fine as I have been browsing the internet on my laptop while my iPhone 3GS is still not acknowledging the existence of the same network. However, sometimes suddenly it will decide to connect to the network at it's own will, so one minute I'm on edge and the next on the WIFI.

What is also annoying is that when I do manage to get a connection I can be sitting on the same spot and initially I may have three bars on the WIFI icon at the top of the screen, and this will fluctuate between two and one bars when I am not even moving so the connection shouldn't be disrupted.

Just to make sure that it wasn't a problem with my home wireless connection, I have tried this out at my friend's house who has WIFI and I still have the same issues. I have even tested to see if I would have the same problem on a public network so I attempted to connect to the network at my University. Although I managed to connect to the network, it did not take long for my iPhone 3GS to decide that that connection was no longer available.

Has anyone else experienced similar issues. I'm just curious to know whether it's a general fault or maybe it's just my handset or possibly some sort of settings/software problem. Either way it is quite odd that I am experiencing these problems with my iPhone 3GS as I did not have any such issues with either of the first gen iPhone or the iPhone 3G.

Please can somebody get back to me on this. Look forward to reading your comments.

Kind Regards

Anees Younis

iPhone 3GS 32GB Black, iPhone OS 3.0

Posted on Jul 4, 2009 1:30 PM

89 replies

Turko

Level 1

10 points

Jul 7, 2009 12:29 PM in response to dogear

I have similar issues (3GS, 3G, Touch all running 3.0) specially annoying with multiplayer games I play with my wife and daughter we lose wifi connectivity in the middle of the games. I did a full reset of the router (Netgear WGT624 v3) with not much luck hopefully 3.1 will solve it.

Jul 7, 2009 1:59 PM in response to 4Fabulous

I have similar/same issues with my 3GS. What I have noticed is, it seems to be possibly interference related.I manage a industrial grade WIFI network at my office and can connect fine and consistently, but show very low signal strength on the phones built in WIFI meter. Using WiFiFoFum, I can see right next to the AP, I am showing good strength (-38 RSSI) but once the connection is made, I watch the connect speed drop from 54 to 11. At my home, I see the same issue, but more exaggerated. I have tried both Cisco WRT610N and an Airport Extreme. Both exhibit the same issue, but I actually drop down to no connection and loose connectivity. I have 1G, 3G phones all connecting fine at home and at work and none experience this issue. I have also witnessed another 3gs at work that does not experience this either.

Jul 8, 2009 4:09 PM in response to 4Fabulous

Having problems with Wifi. DNS lookup seems to work consistently but websites are still spotty. For example Google seems to work fine but ABC does not work at all. Both resolve but abc does not answer ping. It's not a firewall problem because my wifi laptops works for abc and google. Ugg. Apple please help!

Jul 8, 2009 4:29 PM in response to 4Fabulous

I am also experiencing the same problems everyone else has on my 3G though. I had noticed it since day one after 3.0 but I guessed it was just the various networks I routinely connect to. I really hope apple fixes quick.

Frozo

Level 2

289 points

Jul 8, 2009 4:43 PM in response to 4Fabulous

Yep, same problem here. Ive posted this in other threads, but i will add my experience here.

Both my wife's 3G and my 3GS are running 3.0. In the bedroom, 2 rooms away from the Airport base Station, She gets a constant full 3 bars. My 3GS is 2 at best, but is usually at one. Every 5 minutes or so, the signal drops out completely and I get loading errors due to my lack of connection to the network.

This is either a 3GS hardware issue or a 3.0 software issue that affects the 3GS only in this manner.

I hope it's the latter, because I dont see Apple exchanging everyones 3GS if there is faulty hardware. I havent even gone to the Apple store about this, because until Apple officially announces a problem (which is their LAST RESORT), the geniuses usually deny, deny, deny there is a problem.

THe other problem with my taking tit to an Apple store is that i DO get full signal when I am ver close to the source. Apple Stores have wifi right there in their open space, so of course there will not be a problem for them to see.

Maybe I can bring the 3G along with my 3GS and have them follow me outside to compare the range, but I doubt they will be willing to do that.

4Fabulous Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 9, 2009 3:41 AM in response to Buhhhh

I have noticed this issue too. It just occurs without reason or explanation and sometimes I type in the correct password and it tells me it is incorrect. Hopefully this is a software fault rather than the hardware itself.

Jul 9, 2009 10:07 AM in response to 4Fabulous

I replied on a different thread that I wasn't experiencing WiFi issues. Then I began to on my 3GS. Same
symptoms as the rest here. Here's what I've tried that MAY be working.

I noticed in my WiFi settings that the DHCP address was possibly conflicting with another device. So I assigned a static DHCP address, in the high range, unlikely to ever be assigned by the router
to another device. As soon as I did this, he connection improved
greatly and so far seems more stable.

This seems odd - like an unlikely "solution". Yet, it works much better now. Coincidence? If others try it, perhaps we can learn from combined experience. Thanks, all!!

cranjass

Level 1

0 points

Jul 9, 2009 7:41 PM in response to 4Fabulous

Had same problem with my 3G and now again with my 3GS. One thing that helped me was: change your Network settings on phone to "Static" instead of default dynamic. Pick a specific, open address to match your router's settings (192.168.1.XXX for eg). Set up the other settings and go. One tip if this sounds confusing: look at what the settings are right now when you are connected. Write them down, and change setting to Staic, put those same numbers back in. Hope this helps, made my problem much better.

cranjass

Level 1

0 points

Jul 9, 2009 8:14 PM in response to 4Fabulous

Also, just went into my Routers setting, changes the quality of service setting and made my iPhone's MAC address a High (or could also be set to Highest) "priority" aka MAC priority rule. I deleted all the others, don't need them, then made a new one for iPhones MAC adresss, set QOS to on, boom, getting much better connection and speed, whooooo

Jul 10, 2009 2:57 PM in response to 4Fabulous

Looks like this could be the issue for some?

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1559

dougzuck

Level 1

0 points

Jul 10, 2009 8:39 PM in response to 4Fabulous

I'm having wifi issues with my 3GS 16GB. My 1G used to work quite well with wifi, but my 3GS takes a very long time to establish a connection with a wifi network, and then once it shows that it's connected, I generally cannot load any internet content just as if I'm in airplane mode. Every now and then it will work for a minute or two, but mostly it doesn't work at all. HELP!! This is driving me insane!!

dougzuck

Level 1

0 points

Jul 10, 2009 9:12 PM in response to dougzuck

OK, so something interesting I just learned. I realize that while the wifi was letting me specify WPA2, and it appeared to establish a connection, but i couldn't actually view any web pages or check my email most of the time, but sometimes I could, although not for very long and it didn't work well. Then I told it to forget about my network, switched the setting to WPA instead of WPA2 on the iphone and re-entered the password. Now it seems to be working properly. So maybe there is an issue with it auto-negotiating the wrong type of network encryption? Just a thought for something else to try for you all. Hopefully this will permanently fix my issue.

Eh... scratch that. It still connects for a moment and then disconnects. I can go to the network settings and tell it to "renew lease" in which case it then shows the DHCP IP address and DNS servers etc, but within a few seconds it just disappears again. It just won't stay!! Setting the IP manually doesn't seem to help. SOOOOOooooo annoying. Come on apple!! Release a fix for this already. It seems quite clearly to be a software issue.

OK, final note for this evening (I think). After setting the static IP address, it wasn't working. However, I then clicked back on "DHCP" thinking that it woud switch back to DHCP, but it didn't. Instead it kept my static IP address settings but now is highlighted DHCP instead. And it appears to be working! Strangely enough! Clearly there are some bugs in the wifi connection software at least as it works with the 3GS phone. My 1G phone with the 3.0 firmware didn't have this problem.

Message was edited by: dougzuck

d1k

Level 1

5 points

Jul 12, 2009 5:51 PM in response to dougzuck

First let me say I work IT and have been for over 10 years.

Now let me say that there is definitely a problem with my 3GS Black 32GB iPhone. I have tested it on seven different wifi networks, five that I have setup and two that I did not and all have the same result. The connection while using wifi is very shotty and unstable. I'm not going to guess at what is causing it but there is without a doubt some problem with these phones and wifi.

I am very much hoping this is just software, it would be such a pain for me if i had to replace the phone as the nearest apple store is over an hour away.

Jul 13, 2009 12:38 PM in response to Tony2009

This is the exact problem I have! It's REALLY annoying when using Orb. :[

I hope this isn't a hardware issue.

Jul 13, 2009 4:17 PM in response to d1k

There is something definitely wrong and I think it must be with Apple's OS. Sometimes my 3Gs is fine and sometimes it just won't recognise that a WiFi network even exists. However, use WiFiFoFum and it detects the network at full strength (all bars), back to Settings|WiFi and no networks detected. I can log on to the network though using WiFiFoFum, after which the Settings|WiFi also picks it up. Problem is though that WiFiFoFum is not too good at remembering networks so I often have to get the network password and enter it again = pain in the ....

Sometimes my 3Gs will sit for hours at full strength on my network other times the connection is real flakey and I end up running WiFiFoFum several times a day. This is a real problem for me as I often don't notice that my 3Gs has dropped the WiFi connection and is eating into my 3G allowance. I know it's not my WiFi network as my computer works fine all the time and also I have had the same problem with my 3Gs on several other WiFi networks. I've also got an old 2G iPhone, which sits there happilly at full strength all the time, rather like the wise old man smiling knowingly at the young upstart!

G

iPhone 3GS WIFI Connection Instability Problems