Airport quits, restart necessary

Tiger and Lost Wireless Network Connectivity
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx/.68ae4ead

Though if there are neighbouring networks it may be interference. If it is a closed network you will not realise that it is there (without using something like kismac) and it could be on the same channel as your Airport network.

Try changing the channel to 1 or 11.

AirPort: Potential sources of interference
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58543

I had a similar problem in the past. In my situation, the AirPort (in my case AEBS) power cord had come loose. Believe it or not, that is all that was wrong.

-Ted

Hi Scott: I work at an Applecentre, I got this as part of my Staff discount (yes, one of the few advantages in working part-time!); I am experiencing the exact same issue as you; even the RAM upgrade is the same; a 1Gb chip.
I promptly replaced it but the issued reappeared after a day. I suspect the logic board. I adore the new iBook but I am not surprised at this problem cynic - I think we will both have to have them booked in and repaired, I only hope the logic board is better made 2nd time around; I don't look forward to having the same logic board replacement problems that the older G3 (Dual USB) iBooks had; I know of two that had their's replaced twice.
Hopefully this is a very rare thing!

Hi, I am experiencing the exact same problem. It seems that this problem is happening to me whenever I have a steady flow of heavy network traffic. By this I mean, if I start multiple downloads with Safari, or if I am doing multiple file transfers off of a file server, then after a minute or so, I suddenly lose my Airport connection - the Airport icon in the menubar just suddenly greys out. The only way I can get Airport working again is to restart. Deactivating and reactivating the port in Network prefs doesn't work. Turning Airport off and on again in the menubar doesn't work. This happens to me several times a day, and I am very frustrated. Happens on my wireless network at home (Airport Express) and at work (Airport Extreme). My iBook is a brand new G4/14.1"/1.42GHz. This has been happening since the day I brought it home.

Examples of how to make Airport fail:

Go to any software download site, ie, www.apple.com/support and start downloading several items simultaneously. Usually after three or four, the network connection quits.

Or, mount a file server, and start copying multiple items off the server one at a time so that you have several simultaneous file transfers.

One other detail: Whenever this Airport failure occurs, my mouse starts behaving strangely. It sort of moves slowly/stuttery like the system is not responding well to the trackpad, and in general, the whole system seems to slow down.

So how do we go about escalating this issue with Apple to get it resolved?

I had the same thing happen to me yesterday while downloading a large number of files. The only way to fix it was to restart.

I doubt this is a hardware problem though - more like software. Probably some process crashing.

No, not a process crashing. I get this in the system log:

Aug 28 21:20:27 cooper-2 kernel[0]: AirPort: Link DOWN (out-of-range 0)

Followed my a load of error messages related to there being no link. Could be a kernel driver issue (I hope) otherwise a hardware error except a hardware error should of been logged.

I get the exact same problem. 5 day old iBook G4. Installed 1GB of ram (Crucial) network drops when downloading heavily or just after a while. Only way to fix is to resart. I'll be taking my iBook to the Genius Bar in NYC in two weeks time if this isn't resolved by then. Is anyone at Apple aware of this discussion?

I just bought an iBook about 3 weeks ago, and I'm having the same problem, but with a few other aberrations. When I boot up, I have my network, followed by "linksys" and "wireless." Now these may be networks in my neighborhood, but after a short time of downloading, everything stalls, and my network is no longer listed. Like right now - my network crapped out, I went on to "linksys" and mine disappeared from the Airport menu. Now it's back on again and would like to switch back, but downloads will not continue seamlessly. And oftentimes there is no access at all. I switched to the iBook shortly after the logic board died on my Ti Powerbook, but I NEVER had an airport issue with that machine. It has to be something in the iBook. The Ti was running Tiger too (the latest), so it's not that either.

It's very frustrating. The Apple tech told me to get a new airport, but it seems awfully coincidental that it would work intermittently, and only have a problem after I introduced the new iBook to the network.

Very strange...

Have had the same exact problem, including the mouse problems just before the network card craps out. The mouse problem seems to be due to the root kernel task shooting up to take up most of the CPU btw. I've gotten the RAM replaced, the computer replaced and I'm still having this problem. Apple needs to do sometihng about this. I have also installed 1 GB of RAM from Data Memory Systems.

Seems to me that all of us that are having this problem have a memory upgrade. Is there anyone out there that doesn't have this problem and has a memory upgrade?

Also, it seems to be specifically a 1gb 3rd party ram upgrade. Does anyone have this problem using a 512 stick or using apple RAM?

I didn't upgrade my RAM until two weeks after I bought the computer, and I've had this problem since day one. I don't think that's the problem.

So...I'm new around here. Does Apple read these forums and work with people to resolve these issues, or is this strictly a user area where Apple never participates?