Loosing wifi connection irregularly

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Loosing wifi connection irregularly

Hi,

I have an Macbook, bought this year, and have an annoying problem. When I use this Macbook wireless on the university campus, I have no problem. When I use it wireless at home, having a connection or not varies for an unknown reason. The wifi-accesspoint is not the problem, because another laptop can connect to the accesspoint without problem. On the Macbook, it varies: connecting easily, connecting after some time (using wired at first), connecting and loosing, not finding an accesspoint at all, connection to the accesspoint but taking forever to connect to websites or the server.

I ran the systemtest (restart + D) and found no problem.

Can somebody please tell me what may be going wrong?

Thank you.

Macbook, Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Jul 9, 2009 6:00 AM

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Answer 1

kmac1036

Level 4

2,370 points

Jul 9, 2009 8:00 AM in response to hvn52

what wireless router do you have at home? are you running in mixed modes (b/g/n or combinations of the 3)?

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Answer 2

hvn52 Author

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Jul 9, 2009 8:12 AM in response to kmac1036

My wifi accesspoint (just a wifi hub actually, no router) is Linksys WAP-54G. It is set-up in mixed b/g mode.

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Answer 3

kmac1036

Level 4

2,370 points

Jul 9, 2009 8:36 AM in response to hvn52

What you should try is running in G mode only & use WPA protection (if you are using nothing or trying to use WEP). Reboot the device & see what you come up with.

This model isn't listed as having Mac compatability from Linksys. Not all companies post all the time that products are compatible just simply because they don't want the added support cost of having or training staff on OS X / Linux...

http://www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/products/WAP54G

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Answer 4

hvn52 Author

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Jul 9, 2009 12:47 PM in response to kmac1036

I put the device into G only mode, but the result is the same. BTW, I'm using WPA2. Do you have any other suggestions?

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Answer 5

hvn52 Author

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Jul 9, 2009 1:05 PM in response to hvn52

I just tried my Mac Mini wireless (normally wired). No problem connecting and staying connected to my accesspoint, which is in mixed mode again. So would could it be with my Macbook?

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Answer 6

kmac1036

Level 4

2,370 points

Jul 9, 2009 1:07 PM in response to hvn52

get istumbler: http://www.istumbler.net/

see what else is out there & what channel they are running on. if there are others running on, say, channel 11, & your running on the same or really close, which I think is the default, then changes yours to like 1,2,3, etc. see which one gives you the best experience.

do you have any other wireless devices in your home that run at 2.4ghz? phones, etc.

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Answer 7

kmac1036

Level 4

2,370 points

Jul 9, 2009 1:09 PM in response to hvn52

I wouldn't run in mixed mode unless you have to. mixed mode kills the G bandwidth for data transfer. the menu says it's running at xx whatever speed but your actual data transfer rate is slower becuase you are splitting the signal up to support the 2 standards.

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Answer 8

hvn52 Author

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Jul 9, 2009 1:16 PM in response to kmac1036

Nice tool. Is shows there are 2 others on my channel. My signal varies between 75% and 85%.

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Answer 9

kmac1036

Level 4

2,370 points

Jul 9, 2009 1:45 PM in response to hvn52

you can watch the graph for a while & see when it drops.

try changing the channel in the linksys setup to something else. see if that helps the macbook. if the mini is the G card & macbook has the N card, then the N cards may be more sensitive to the interference. I've seen that as the chipsets are different. usually linksys chipsets are usually compatible with the macs...

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Answer 10

hvn52 Author

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Jul 10, 2009 12:26 AM in response to kmac1036

if the mini is the G card & macbook has the N card, then the N cards may be more sensitive to the interference

As far as I know, the Macbook has a G-card. How do I know for sure? The tech specs on the Apple store site don't even mention wifi.

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Answer 11

kmac1036

Level 4

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Jul 10, 2009 6:34 AM in response to hvn52

every macbook since mid 2007 had an N capable card installed, but apple didn't advertise it. when they came out with the N base station, you could either buy a firmware update for US $1.99 or was included free on CD from apple if you bought a new N base station.

The mini didn't gain N cards until this past recent update.

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Answer 12

hvn52 Author

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Jul 10, 2009 6:55 AM in response to kmac1036

every macbook since mid 2007 had an N capable card installed

So when my Macbook detects my wifi b/g-accesspoint and is able to connect it's pure luck and the only way to really solve it is buying an Airport?

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Answer 13

kmac1036

Level 4

2,370 points

Jul 10, 2009 7:55 AM in response to hvn52

the problem is there are more than one source / company for these wifi chips & not all of them play nice. I'm suspecting that's the case with your situation at home. if you bought a router that claims compatabiliy with Mac, at least then you are buying into a product that will also offer support to Mac users. Linksys has other devices that are compatible with Macs. The Airport Extreme is much improved these days with the latest firmwares & software installed, it's been pretty reliable for me.

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Answer 14

hvn52 Author

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Jul 10, 2009 1:16 PM in response to kmac1036

According to the info I can find about b/g/n wifi, n is backwards compatible. Which explains why I have been able to connect at home. It doesn't fully explain why it gives me all this problems. Thanks for your help so far.

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Answer 15

kmac1036

Level 4

2,370 points

Jul 10, 2009 1:50 PM in response to hvn52

in theory, all of the devices should be interchangeable, but there are sometimes problems when you run into something like the macs using Broadcomm chips & the linksys may be using Atheros chips. they are suppose to talk to each other, but sometimes they don't do it properly, so you can have trouble. it's gotten better over the years. not 100% positive that's the total cause here, I think there is just something bumping the macbook off for whatever reason.

you may have to try a different router.

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