Q: Dropping Wi FI Signal

jpdemers:

I have a new "out-of-the-box" MacBook Pro with SL as of Christmas morning. I am having WiFi dropping issues that require me to go through diagnostics in the system preferences under network to reconnect...the only way I can reconnect...every 2-5 minutes. I have tried everything on this and other threads except for changing my router, changing my Airport card, and a clean install. Some have apparently had even worse problems after a clean install. I don't have an Apple store where I live but I am going to one this weekend. I'll post here what happens at the Genius Bar.

Adding my report to this thread as well:

I am experiencing usability issues with Airport wireless after upgrading to 10.6.2. When on AC power, wireless works well, better than under Leopard in fact. However, when on DC battery power, wireless works well for approximately 10-15 minutes and then throughput performance drops to almost zero. Clicking on the Airport applet on the menubar will restore throughput, presumably by forcing a rescan of available networks and reconnecting to my wireless network.

This same issue happened to this same notebook back around 10.4.4 and was later resolved by a subsequent update (10.4.7 or .8). Can't remember exactly.

Affected laptop: MacBook Pro (1,1), 2 GB ram, 250 GB HD, OSX 10.6.2+Airport Update 2.

Also have Mac Mini (3,1) which has been upgraded to 10.6.2 with no connection issues, again, presumably because it is on AC with no way to test DC battery operation.

Have four other 10.5.8 computers on same network with no connection issues.

Issue is the same at my office: on AC power, wireless is fine; on battery, wireless drops.

For me, it is clearly related to 10.6.2 since the issue happened only after updating. Have done all the usuals (permissions, combo, etc) with no success. Bug reports are being filed with Apple.

Might be worth playing with the energy settings -- could it be that the WiFi transmitter is inadvertently being powered down?

Interesting - clearly, not every MBP does this, so it almost has to be a hardware issue. You could take it to a friend's house, or to Starbucks, and see if it behaves differently with a different router. (Information, not a solution!) I suspect the Apple store will have a WiFi signal powerful enough to keep their coffee warm, so it may not reproduce your home experience.

Where is the power settings for the wireless controlled? I'm not familiar with that.

I doubt that there's a power setting specifically for the wireless. I was thinking along the lines of setting all of the energy and battery management options to "never sleep", right across the board. Keep everything powered up, and see if the machine behaves differently. It would never occur to me to try this otherwise, but your experience suggests that it might be worth examining.

It's not purely hardware, because many of us with the problem experienced it only after upgrading to SL, and some posters (not me) subsequently clean-installed back to Leopard after being unable go get online properly after upgrading and after going back to Leopard the problem went away. But with some MBPs having problems and not all, it does seem that a combination of hardware and SL is causing the issues.

Adding myself to this thread as well.

I'm using a 2-wire 3800 router, 802.11g only, WPA2 PSK security.

I've tried most of the "fixes" listed by other users:
Change wireless settings on router:
no security, WPA, WEP, WPA2 only
Change channels
Change SSID

Delete *.plist
Update airport settings
Create new location
Assign static IP address
etc.

I still get the airport searching icon very often, and the system log shows the "Disassociated due to inactivity" message.

This is my only mac, but have 3 other PCs, 2 iphones, and a Wii all connecting wirelessly with no issues.

As California99 suggested, it can't be hardware. This is a software problem with the OS, drivers of other software that comes as part of SL. If it were a hardware problem then you would need to replace the hardware in order to fix the problem.

Having worked as a computer support technician for over 20 years, I would say that any further discussion about it being a hardware related issue is irrelevant. There may be some people with hardware problems that are stopping them connecting but that's not what this thread is about. Most of us had the connection working perfectly until upgrading to SL. Personally, I have tried booting from a clone of my previous Leopard installation from an external HDD and the connection is rock solid. I boot into SL and the problem happens. Same hardware, just different version of the OS.

We have no way of knowing what's happening here. Obviously, it isn't a software flaw that affects all 10.6 users or there would be rioting in Cupertino. It also has been reported in 10.5.x (by me among others) and earlier. There is no proof that it is a single problem either. At any given time, some people will have hardware problems that can only be fixed in hardware, but there's obviously more going on here than that--too many people reporting the same observations. Perhaps it's some evil interaction between marginal hardware, an obscure bug and environmental factors (channel interference seems to mentioned frequently, though operating temperature could also be a factor). Or something else entirely. We are not in a position to say.

What we do know, I'm afraid, is that Apple appears to be stonewalling rather than stepping up to the plate. Maybe they think we'll all just buy tablets and forget about it. I understand that Apple engineers don't read this board and cannot be expected to respond. But I would be willing to bet that the marketing people keep an eye on it. Maybe they could deliver the message: "Your product is not working for many of your customers." It's really as simple as that.

lurker412 wrote:
What we do know, I'm afraid, is that Apple appears to be stonewalling rather than stepping up to the plate. Maybe they think we'll all just buy tablets and forget about it. I understand that Apple engineers don't read this board and cannot be expected to respond. But I would be willing to bet that the marketing people keep an eye on it. Maybe they could deliver the message: "Your product is not working for many of your customers." It's really as simple as that.

But what if they can't reproduce it in Cupertino?

If they could reproduce it in the lab, they can fix it. If they can't, they can't.

That's why (once again) it's so important to contact AppleCare.

AppleCare can work with you to get configuration information, trace logs and other data engineering would need to be able to fix a problem that very, very likely does not occur in their labs; if it did, they'd fix it.

Once again, I know this problem is incredibly frustrating if it happens to you, but for millions of Snow Leopard users world-wide, it does not.

So it's very likely some interaction between hardware, RF interference and the AirPort drivers, but one incredibly hard to track down and fix.

But if you're looking for a post here that says "we're working on it," that won't happen.

That's the kind of feedback you'd get from AppleCare.

I know I'm repeating myself, but I'll say it again:

If you all want this problem solved, *every one of you experiencing this issue needs to contact AppleCare about it*.

Even if you don't believe the AppleCare techs are solving your issue, at some level the fact that they're getting so many calls about it will make the issue show up on sustaining engineering's problems list, and the more people experiencing a problem, the higher it gets on engineering's "to do" list.

I'm not trying to be an Apple apologist, but once again I haven't had AirPort drop out since 2007, so it's not a universal issue.

That means there are contributing factors, and Apple needs to discover precisely what those are before they can come up with either a fix or some type of KB article telling users what they can do to fix it.

"too many people reporting the same observations"

Count up the actual number - fewer than 20 on this thread - and divvy up by the number of different fixes that have worked for different people. Further divvy up by different actual observations (slowly loses signal strength, won't reconnect on waking, only when on battery, only at home, etc. etc.) Clearly there's a software component (pretty much across the board, it's "ever since Snow Leopard" and "10.5 and all my PCs work just fine"), but when some very rare Macs do this +right out of the box+, you have to suspect the hardware. (The software, after all, is bit-for-bit identical to what's in a million other Macs that work just fine.) Something may be going 'bzzzt' that 10.5 doesn't care about, something that 10.6 relies on.

I'm having the same issues, dropping my wireless connection with my new MBP running 10.6.2 its absolutely garbage and makes me want to get a PC again.


I have a Netgear router N WNR2000.

My PowerBook G4 connects via Airport without issue. My brand new iMac QuadCore i5 continues to have AirPort connectivity drops "The computer's Internet connection appears to be offline" is the error I get.
It's got to be an apple issue. If its the Wireless Router, then my PowerBook should have the same problem, but it doesn't.

I got a new imac and used time machine to bring over all my info from my G5. I had no trouble with connecting to my 2wire modem.. I upgraded to snow leopard and had trouble with my connection ever since. ATT says everything is fine on their side, and applecare has been of little help... My windows laptop, my old G5, and my iphone connect just fine.

Just adding my two sense to try to get apple to fix the software in the next upgrade. My hardware was fine before snow leopard!