Dropping Wi FI Signal

jodin- I've been going crazy for the last two weeks. I have a new 27" imac that has been dropping wi fi all the time. Trying to listen to music through Pandora was impossible two or three songs and I was off the internet. It also knocked off my other two mac's. I had to reboot my netgear to get back on.

Anyway I stumbled onto this forum last night and saw your post about changing to 802.11b. The Idea of changing my router to its most basic and slowest setting seamed strange, but it did work. I was able to listen to music and surf the net all morning. However when my son came home and went online with his macbook I was knocked off again. The b setting seemed to work fine for one computer but was not strong enough for multiple computers.

AS someone who has had a 20" imac connected wireless in my living room since early 2006 I was considering buying a new router 802.11n but your post made me realize we are going backwards here from g to b. So a new router is not the answer. My patiences ran out this afternoon and I ran a 50' cable from my router in the basement to the new mac in the living room. Its sad to think I avoided doing this in 2006 but had to do it now. This is not the answer either but I will maintain my sanity.

My wife and I were on the fence about a new desktop vs laptop the 27" screen won out and I'm glad it did.. I feel bad for all the people with macbooks who need to be portable and don"t have the cable option. Thanks for the post It saved me the expense of a new router

Hi all,

Here's an update...

After my son's MacBook heated up, the problem (dropouts/weak signal) recurred. At this point, I decided it most likely a problem with the airport card itself. Since I was going to replace the card, I purchased a Quickertek Ncard 802.11.n (~$85) to allow throughput speeds. The heat-up problem has not reoccured and throughput is higher (>100). So it appears our problem was a faulty airport card that manifested problems when the computer warmed up.

Jon glad to hear your issue was resolved. Mine was definitly just the setting on my router that needed fine tuning. I was able to configure to use "G" only and set to use channel 11 only, And after all the attempts and troubleshooting I had performed, fortunitly it was that simple.

We had been running with a mixed network protocol (b/g/n) for some time without any issues before the problem manifested so it wasn't router settings for us. In any event, son now has double the speed so he is happy 🙂

John Moreci wrote:
After my son's MacBook heated up, the problem (dropouts/weak signal) recurred. At this point, I decided it most likely a problem with the airport card itself. Since I was going to replace the card, I purchased a Quickertek Ncard 802.11.n (~$85) to allow throughput speeds. The heat-up problem has not reoccured and throughput is higher (>100). So it appears our problem was a faulty airport card that manifested problems when the computer warmed up.

Note that if your machine is still under warranty or has AppleCare, this would obviously be a covered repair.

With at least some machines, there have been issues with the screws that attach the AirPort card loosening over time.

Those screws also serve to ground the card and may be one reason for intermittent reception should they become loose.



Regardless, I'm pleased you found a solution.

let's see if here is still room to also comment about my WIFI. I just started re-installing Leopard on my MBP. I have it since 2006. Since I got installed Snow L. I started having a lot of WIFI problems, but really A LOT.
Must admit that before it happened too, but since I use Time Capsule it seemed all a bit more stable .
My iPhone does not catch the WIFI at all, though it sees the router.
The iMac (2008) running on Snow L. has the same connectivity problems.
My internet only works through cable now... so I wonder if I finish installing Leopard 10.5, if WIFI will work again normally... I will let you know!

@ BartSpain
I finally got disgusted with SL and downgraded to my month old Tiger backup, and guess what? Aiport Wireless works great! No dropped connections, no shutting airport off and waiting 30 seconds to reconnect, no more changing the router from G to B and from WEP to WPA to unsecured. When Apple gets this fixed, I'll upgrade again, as I do like SL.
So it's obviously not the computer hardware causing the issue.

Just adding myself to the list of users affected by this problem. It has been happening since the first day I upgraded to SL.

I am convinced that this only happens with certain access points/routers.

Me and my girlfriend have the exact same MacBook (late 2008).
At my house with a D-Link DWL-2100AP, BOTH macbooks exhibit the problem. At my girlfriend's house is a La Fonera (flashed to dd-wrt) and the problem does not exist there for either macbook.

Well, might as well add myself to the unhappy list.

Mac: Early 2009 Mac Mini, 10.6.2
Router: Time Capsule (1TB, early 2009 model)
Problem: The Mini can see other wireless networks, but it refuses to connect to any of them. iBook and iPhone have no problems.

Background:
Installed 10.6.1 on Mini and set up Time Capsule. Mini couldn't see the Time Capsule's network at all, but the iBook could see it fine when place next to Mini. Two days later, Mini suddenly sees network at full strength (both 5 Ghz and 2.4 Ghz). No changes were made to anything on Mini or Time Capsule. iBook and iPhone never had problems.

A few weeks later, the Mini suddenly stops seeing the network again.

A few additional weeks later, installed 10.6.2 update. No change.

Today, I decided to try and figure out what's going on. Moved the Mini closer to Time capsule so that it now sees the network. Still won't connect. Turned on the "Guest Network". Mini sees that just fine, but again, it refuses to connect. As soon as I try connecting, it immediately chokes. No pause as it tries to connect or anything. Just an immediate error message.

I've tried changing channels, encryption methods, passwords, just about anything that Airport Utility allows you to adjust. All through this, my iBook and iPhone continue connecting to the network with no problems.

So, for the past several months, I've been unable to use the Mini for much of anything. Good thing I still have the iBook.

Yes, I've tried deleting plist files, deleting settings, etc. Oh yeah, I also can't turn off Airport anymore for some reason.

Gonna try reinstalling 10.6, then try going back to 10.5. Last resort, I'll open it up and see if there's a loose wire somewhere.

This isn't quite how I envisioned spending my all too short break between 12-hour work days.

Not a happy camper, to say the least! 😟

OK, I finally found a solution to this problem, at least for my particular version of the problem. I got tired of trying one thing after another, so I took a shotgun approach. It could very well be that some of these steps weren't necessary.

1) Rebooted from SL DVD and ran Disk Utility (Repair Disk and Repair Disk Permissions).

2) Installed 10.6.0.

3) Installed 10.6.2 (Combo updater).

4) Deleted all "Locations" in Network Preferences", and created new ones.

Thinking it through, #4 should have been the only step necessary, but I tried it before without success. It could be the it was a Permissions related problem, so maybe #1 and #4 were all I needed to do.

All I know is that I've got a useable Mini again, and that's all I really care about. Hope this helps some of you.

But that's why I think OnyX cured mine. I reckon there is a system cache or some such that sometimes needs updating?

People... I had a bunch of problems with my TC... to cut a long story short...without being able to explain why and how..everything works back again... my WIFI, the SL, the TC... I don't have a clue where the problem was... I even had to accept all data from TC lost but after ignoring TC for several hours leaving it disconnected... I just plugged in and all systems were go.

I only have some problem now in establishing WDS access with my airport express... but right now... I can manage without...

Man, I'm now so glad that XP is my main system. I can write emails and go about my life while we all wait for Apple to fix the problem.

To be honest, I find it sad that they cannot find it in themselves to admit to having broken some people's wifi, despite all the evidence.
1) In the Linux world there would have been a fix already.
2) MS would at least admit 'we screwed something up and are working on a fix'.
3) Mac users have to patiently wait. Then wait some more. You would have thought they could at least reply on their, er, official forum when there's over 20 pages of pain and misery already?

Oh yeah, and description of the problem in case an Apple person does see it one day: fresh install of SL hitting problems immediately. Update to 10.6.2, no joy. Router is WRT54GS, with DDWRT. The other Mac (Leopard) running happily, and so is XP on my machine, as well as an iPhone. Rock-stable wifi.

Fingers crossed an update will come before Christmas 🙂

Touchée :-))

Oh for heaven's sake... You know what SL did to my laptop? Not only does it not connect to wifi when in SL, I actually get a lot worse reception even when I boot into XP! Just noticed how browsing became very slow in the past week or so... even thou I am within 2m of my router with no walls between us.

Tonight I went to my router's page which has this nifty client signal quality indicator (DD-WRT I love you). Our other MacBook (still Leopard thankfully) gets above 70%, while the one with SL on lingers at about 20%!

I have tried resetting PRAM (even thou this should have nothing to do with wifi afaik) to no avail.

Is that your experience also? Can you guys try booting into XP to see if your signal quality dropped dramatically since installing SL?