Q: Dropping Wi FI Signal

Submitted a bug report.
I SUGGEST EVERYONE SU MIT A BUG REPORT AT HTTPS:BUGREPORT.APPLE.COM

DaveC.Boston wrote:
My Turn. Last week I received a brand new macbook pro, loaded 10.6 preinstalled. It works fine at work on the 802.11a network with wpa2 enterprise encryption. I brought it home and immediately noticed issues with my wireless. I've tried 'everything' thats been posted here and elsewhere and the only thing that works consistently at home is setting it to 802.11b with wpa2 and a static ip, and even then i still get dropouts, but its the most reliable. I've tried mixed b/g and g only. I can't try n as I don't have an n router to try. This testing was done with a second macbook pro from 2007 with 10.5.8 and it works flawlessly. I've also tried two pc's and they have no trouble.
I then went to a neighbors house with both mac's and the issues are still there. One works and the other has issues. This is not a router specific problem, or an upgrade vs. clean install issue. This is a software/hardware/driver issue pure and simple
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APPPLE! YOU REALLY NEED TO ADDRESS THIS ISSUE! YOU AND YOUR SOFTWARE ARE AT FAULT AND YOU NEED TO COME UP WITH A FIX.
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For users of Airport Extreme and this issue with 10.6.x on MBP, it is resolved by downgrading the firmware on the extreme to 7.4.1

Hi all,

I thought I would offer a possible solution. My son's MacBook started having access problems to our Airport Network a while back. It seems to coincide with a major upgrade (he is also on 10.6.2). He could get access at college but when at home he had to be extremely close to one of our Airport Extreme stations to get any access and would often lose connectivity. After several months and looking at several discussion boards with no success, I decided to disassemble his MacBook and remove and reinstall the same airport card. After reassembly, voila - everything works. I don't know what the actual problem was but reseating the antenna connections and the card appeared to solve it. I don't know if this will solve your problem but it did for us. The job requires a little patience and a small phillips head screw driver. I followed the directions at the:

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/MacBook-Core-2-Duo-Airport-Card/519/1

Hope this helps.

Regards,

John

I had this sam problem. Thursday night during my third call with Apple Tech Support, they escalated me to a Senior Product Advisor. He solved the problem. I haven't had a dropped connection in three days. Here's what solved it for me:

1. Contacted AT&T (my DSL service provider) and got the numeric codes for their primary and secondary DNS servers.
2. Clicked on the Airport icon in upper right hand corner.
3. Open Network Preferences
4. Clicked on “Advanced.”
5. Clicked the DNS tab.
6. Clicked the + sign at lower left corner and added the two DNS servers from AT&T to the list.
7. Clicked “OK.”

That solved my problem. Hope it helps some of you, too.

virtualtapas,

please read the rest of the posts before you say something we all know isn't helping with the Airport dropping the WiFi signal.

Thanks for your help but I need another reason why my Airport in my MBP keeps dropping the obvious signal that is there.

You need a sense of humour on this thread:)

1. Drag the System Folder to the desktop and reboot.
2. Reset PRAM, though OSX does not have network information in there.
3. Run tedious cleaning applications, not knowing what needs cleaning.
4. Re-instal operating system.
5. Dismantle computer on kitchen table.

Now I understand the Second Law of Thermodynamics...

I'm guessing all these things result in clearing a system cache somewhere, but there must be an easier way?

24Golfer:

I did read the other posts. And FYI, my "obvious signal" was always "there" too when Airport kept dropping my connection (yes...those four black waves stayed black the whole time, you'll be disappointed to learn).

But if you're smarter than Apple Tech Support and don't want to try the solution that they came up with to fix my problem, then I wish you good luck and continued fun in these chat rooms.

Good bye.

For everyone still having this problem, please try my solution on page 21 and downgrade your airport firmware. It works! And it was confirmed above as well by another user! Let me know if you tried it and if it works. I'm interested to see if it is a widespread solution.

Cheers

+>>For everyone still having this problem, please try my solution on page 21 and downgrade your airport firmware. <<+

That would be a simple solution if we all had Airport Base stations, but we don't. I have a DLink DI-524, and have the wireless dropping problem. All the suggestions here are good suggestions, but nothing has solved the problem. Until Apple engineers quit blaming all the dsl and cable modem routers (that suddenly went bad) and start assessing their own OS (combined with certain airport cards) that is causing the problem with some routers, we won't have a fix. Unfortunately -- swapping airport cards isn't the simple task it used to be.

I see, so it works for airport owners...that would suggest its airport related....but if others without airport are having the same problem it must be computer related... strange that downgrading the airport firmware works. If its computer related, I would think it wouldn't. Well good luck non-airport owners!

alwaysalwaysapple wrote:
downgrading the airport firmware works.

You can only use the Airport Utility with an Airport or Time Capsule Base Station....

Use AirPort Utility to setup and manage the following products:

* AirPort Express Base Station
* AirPort Extreme Base Station
* Time Capsule


from <http://support.apple.com/downloads/AirPortUtility_5_41>

I having the same problem since upgrading to snow leopard, it is so annoying, please resolve this!

Sorry buddy, if you had read everybody's posts, you will see that people have tried this DNS trick, in various ways, to no avail. It seems to work for people who were having such DNS problems, but we are talking about the MBP's habit of deciding to stop recognizing the signal that was just there, a minute ago, full steam. It literally does that - it drops the signal.

I was hoping that the 10.6.2 update would fix a few things including this, but it hasn't.

Sorry if you misunderstood.

alwaysalwaysapple wrote:
I see, so it works for airport owners...that would suggest its airport related....but if others without airport are having the same problem it must be computer related... strange that downgrading the airport firmware works. If its computer related, I would think it wouldn't. Well good luck non-airport owners!

Sorry to tell you this but I've had this issue since I got my MBP in Jan. I've tried everything in this thread plus help from Apple with hardware and computer replacement and nothing helped. Upgrading to SL didn't help. The only solution that I didn't try was replace my 2Wire residential gateway router (AT&T Uverse), a few weeks ago I bought a new AirPort Extreme and it fixed my problem (this however, didn't work for everyone). My firmware on the AirPort Extreme is the newest and I haven't had any issues. While some people may have this issue because of what you suggested, doesn't mean it applies to everyone using that router. It goes to say Apple has a lot of different configurations to sift through to find the common underpaying issue here.

On a related note, was anyone contacted by an Apple rep to help fix this issue? I just got an ema from someone claiming to be from Apple and they have some news on my issue. But I think the email is spam cause the sending and receiving email address is the sender when the receiving address should be mine. Plus it looked pretty unofficial. The sender email address was @apple.com, and I'm not sure if that would be the rightaddress or not. Any insight? Don't want to contact them and then all of a sudden my entire bank account was transferee to some African prince lol.

Message was edited by: forum1983

I've just been contacted. Anyone else who can confirm that it's not scam?