Dropping Wi FI Signal

I have noticed that this dropping WIFI signal issue was not there like a month ago, may be because of a new update, things got screwed. I have decided to reimage my mac, unfortunately, i cant go back to 10.5.8, because SL wont allow it, all i am going to do is reimage it to factory install version (without updates). I will post back if i see any improvement in WIFI signal

I have switched back to 10.5.8 and guess what, wireless is rock solid. It's definitely SL issue. I have made couple of experiments and it seems to me that somehow Snow Leopard is not sensitive enough to hold connections with lower signal. By the term lower signal, I mean signal lower than -80 dBm. However, this level is good enough for my Lenovo R61, iPhone, iPod touch and 10.5.8 and not for SL.
I tried almost everything, changing channels, changing WPA/WEP/WPA2 and nothing helps. I have to be very close to the router and I need at least -60 dBm to avoid dropouts.
I would recommend everyone to wait with SL upgrade, it has serious WiFi issues.

@ dean_novak: you are absolutely right. it is a software issue with SL. I actually thought i will not be able to downgrade to 10.5.8 so i just did a clean reinstall of SL and i downloaded all the updates but the AIRPORT CLIENT UPDATE issued on Dec 13 2009. I was suspicious about that update because i started experiencing signal drop outs right after that update. Now everything seems working much better. I still get WIFI drop but just once a day for 10 seconds. I feel much better than before, guys trust me. back up your data and do a clean reinstall of SL because apple screwed up with some updates, thats why this all is happening.

Hi. I do not use OSX or crapple products myself however my wife does and I , have to support them as needed. Support and listen to her complain about this wireless problem that you all are describing in this huge thread. I am amazed that apple has not responded to this problem. I called Apple after getting tired of hearing my wife complain about the wifi dropping and the lack of knowledge from the apple tech guys at level 2-3 was amazing! Their answer was to reboot my "router". It is an access point that I was trying to connect to but anyway it doesn't matter that is their answer and they also suggested reinstalling the OS. They also claim that most of the problems has to do with linksys 'routers' and suggested we buy some airport extreme. We did and same thing oh, and I will be returning this overpriced pos that you cannot manage without a OSX system too. Come on now.

The hw in question is a mac book that is a few years old. I believe it is running an broadcom wifi card. Does anyone know if I can swap in an intel 2200BG (iwi driver). I'd like to know this beforehand because swapping any parts on these systems is such a pain in the @ss for some reason. This is the last mac garbage I will let in the house. We are also returning a mac mini POS with the same problem.

Has anyone else swapped out the minipci for an non broadcom card? Very frustrated at apple and really do not see what the hype is about this hardware and OS anymore.

iamatt, great first post. 🙂

I'm using a mid-2009 MBP running Leopard. I've got an ancient Linksys wireless router, and the MBP is rock solid with this router. I will not install SL until issues like this are sorted out. I did change the router's operating frequency to channel 1 several years ago to reduce the chance of interference.

More of the same added to the thread; thanks for the useless post. Does anyone know if it is possible to put another minipci wireless card in these macbooks. If so, I would consider this as a workaround for this very annoying and lame problem.

I have the same issue. Installed Snow Leopard on my father-in-law's Mac Mini over Christmas. The upgrade went fine. Everything worked until I performed a SW update. It downloaded a mammoth 500+ MB combo update, installed it, and boom. No wireless.

His network has no security; it is open. The Mac could see/find the network, but timed-out when connecting. Connection Doctor and Network Diagnostics; all red lights. His Dell and my iPod Touch had no problem connecting. I tried switching user accounts, turning Airport ON/OFF, trashing Locations, inactivating interfaces, disabling firewall, restarting, PRAM reset, and probably some other things I can't remember.

I couldn't leave him without any Internet, and I didn't have a patch cable to try, so I restored him to 10.5 using Time Machine. His wireless went back to normal and is working fine. So he has my Christmas gift, but he can't use it.

I haven't seen a solid solution in this forum, so I'm throwing it out there again. Anything I try will now need to be done remotely over iChat Screen Sharing, as he is 190 miles away.

Same thing here. Problems appeared after I installed the airport client update. What is strange is that it started a couple of days after.

The only "annoying" thing that works for me was to restart the router, connect to the network, then renew the dhcp every minute or when I needed another web page. VERY annoying!

Please come up with airport client update 2010-01 SOON! Let's say tomorrow!

In my case, maybe the Airport client update was included inside the mammoth combo update? Not sure. I know I did not update the Airport client separately.

Not exactly a techy but my friends think so because of info I find on the internet to fix things, so if anything I say here doesn't compute, please forgive my ignorance.

I got a new 15" MacBook Pro for Christmas (ie. 1 week ago) with v10.6 pre-installed to replace an older 13" MacBook with Tiger. Six months ago we purchased a Netgear dual band wireless router that supposedly splits signal into "n" & "g". Older MacBook connected to "n" without problems. Even MUCH older Dell only recognizes "g" but connects without fail. Because of all festivities I finally sat down yesterday for first time to get on internet with my new MBP. Guess what, I'm having the same issues with Airport dropping signal. I have tried several of the "fixes" listed on this thread and a few others including:

Deleted the .plist files
Moved System Preferences to desktop, rebooted, then deleted folder from desktop
Turned off Bluetooth, FireWire etc and put Airport as the first network port
Created a new location
Deleted all settings in Keychain
Turned off IPv6
Reset my cable modem

...all before and after downloading the new updates to v10.6.2 and the AirPort Client Update 2009-002. I've even tried OnyX as was suggested somewhere.

NOTHING is working. If it was suggested and I haven't tried it it's because there weren't any specific "How to" instructions and this is the first time I've posted on the discussion boards so maybe I should go back through and ask how those are done.

This is the main thing I have noticed with my problem. If I click on the Airport icon in the top bar on the screen and leave it open it shows that every 10 to 15 seconds Airport is "Looking for Networks..." Most of the time it reconnects quickly to my router. If my web activity becomes idle (ie. I linger too long trying to read a solution), the connection will drop altogether and the ONLY way I can reconnect is to go through "Diagnostics" under Network in System Preferences.

Count me as one of the many. Any help (with a lot of detailed explanations) would be greatly appreciated! Hoping for a happier New Year soon.

Kartyna wrote:

This is the main thing I have noticed with my problem. If I click on the Airport icon in the top bar on the screen and leave it open it shows that every 10 to 15 seconds Airport is "Looking for Networks..." Most of the time it reconnects quickly to my router. If my web activity becomes idle (ie. I linger too long trying to read a solution), the connection will drop altogether and the ONLY way I can reconnect is to go through "Diagnostics" under Network in System Preferences.

Hi Kartyna,

The looking every 10 seconds or so is normal behavior. Mine does it without ever dropping out.

You may want to start your own thread for best results.

Joe

Hi all just to let you know it may not be interference. As I have 2 Apple machines running 10.5.8 and one windows laptop for work and my macbook running 10.6.2 connects but only if it is the second connection or later to the system then after 30 - 60 mins the whole system freezes. I can run my system all day with out the Snow Leopard system and not problems at all. Put the SL machine on and it comes crashing down. Ergo its a Snow Leopard issue. The Wi-Fi system comes from an Airport Express unit.

I have a case id and will continue to chase Apple and may even go back to 10.5.8 as that system was robust and ran and ran and ran.

Apple please get this resolved it is the most read discussion on the forum.

Actually, the evidence does seem to be mounting that interference is a factor in at least a large proportion of cases, but that sensitivity to signal interference seems primarily something that began with Snow Leopard (though some users encountered it with earlier versions of the OS), and it occurs with pretty well every wireless router on the market, including Apple's own. So changing wireless channels can reduce the problem, sometimes dramatically. Apple's error here is not realizing that they are marketing a consumer product, and that means it should work with the range of routers in use (provided they are relatively new and the firmware is up to date). The irony, of course, is that hitherto Apple's huge market edge was that their products could be used "out of the box" by customers without technical knowledge! With SL you have to master the basics of network engineering just to get online.

For me, interference does not seem to be the main cause. I did analyze the wifi networks in range of my home (i live in an urban area) and retuned my TimeCapsule to broadcast a few channels away from the others. This did not seem to produce any significant change. I even had a frustratingly difficult time connecting to a wireless network in the boonies this weekend - strong signal strength and no other interfering networks. The other guys I was with had no problems connecting (a Toshiba and a new MBP running Leopard).

The best reduction of connection drops has been by changing my security from WPA2 to WPA. I've also had intermittent success by creating new configuration profiles in System Preferences > Network.

I've been a faithful apple user since the Apple IIe. This is the most frustrating experience I have ever had.

Definitely my first major complaint about Apple since I bought my first Mac in 1987. In case any Apple engineers monitor this discussion (if they do it is hard to fathom the ignorance of the issue displayed by Apple's telephone support personnel, whom I gave up on right after my first Snow Leopard wireless issues, when they ended up more or less saying that the problem must be a figment of my imagination), the only other clue is that, since upgrading to SL, occasionally Apple Mail will ask for my password, sometimes several times in a row, even though it is in the keychain. This happens at most a few days a month. Looks like there is an intermittent problem retrieving passwords from the keychain. I don't know if that is a factor in the wireless dropping issue.