Q: Dropping Wi FI Signal

No matter why it may have worked, Apple's not going to (re)install support for an old, deprecated standard.

That's one reason why even Apple-invented technologies such as AppleTalk have disappeared from Snow Leopard.

As far as your coffee house example, are there really public Wi-Fi hot spots that use encryption?

I've yet to run across any, though that doesn't mean they're not out there.

Almost everybody is yelling about this problem since Leopard broke Wi Fi. Remains same in Snow Leopard. Perhaps Apple is telling us there is no fix except moving to Windows.

Here's another one with wifi-trouble as shown up in this thread. I'm having a lot of fun with dropping airport, timed-out connections and unknown passwords for my wifi since 10.5.x and now with 10.6.1 it's worse then ever. And I really hoped 10.6 would fix these problems...
I tried everything, new router, several new installs of 10.5 and 10.6, a macbook pro, an iMac, a macbook... nothing really helped for longer than a few hours max.

I'm using a recent Linksys router with WPA2 Personal. There's no way anyone should have to drop to a lower encryption type like WPA or even WEP to fix this problem.

The fact is Leopard worked fine for me since I got my router about 4 months ago but since upgrading to Snow Leopard the link drops continually.

Have you checked for a firmware upgrade from Linksys?

I've got two MBPs and have not had a Wi-Fi drop on either for over a year, first with Leopard
then with SL.

I'm not saying you're not seeing an issue but rather we need to narrow down what it is rather than just blame Snow Leopard.

I've just purchased a MB Air for 2 weeks ago and have not been able to get a stable and usable wireless connection since day one.

I own as well 2 iMacs (10.6.1), 1 MBP 17"(10.5.7). I'm using Airport Xtrem and Airport Xpress.
• I've had no issues with the 2 iMacs even after updating to SL.
• I've no issue with the MBP 17" which is still running 10.5.7
• The new MB Air (10.6.1) wifi connection is dropping so often that it's simply unusable wireless

I've decided to run a bunch of tests in order to find out which device / system was involve in the problem.

NB:
Before every test when booting from the MB Air, I 've created a new admin account and remove all system preferences form /library/preferences
All security and encryption on the Airports has been removed and Airports have been resets.

Test at Home with _Airport Xtrem_ (ISP: tele Danmark-Router: Siemens sb5880)
Test 1:
*Boot the MB Air on an external USB hard disk with OS X 10.5.8
Result: The MB Air is still dropping connection and really slow in browser even with full access to airport
Test 2:
*Boot on MB Air intern SSD disk (OS X 10.6.1)
Result: The MB Air is still dropping connection and really slow in browser even with full access to airport

Test at Home with _Airport XPress_ (ISP: tele Danmark-Router: Siemens sb5880)
Test 3:
*Boot the MB Air on an external USB hard disk with OS X 10.5.8
Result: The MB Air is still dropping connection and really slow in browser even with full access to airport
Test 4:
*Boot on MB Air intern SSD disk (OS X 10.6.1)
Result: The MB Air is still dropping connection and really slow in browser even with full access to airport

Test at the Office with _a different Airport Xtrem_ (ISP: Telenor-Router: ZyXEL ZyWall 2Plus)
Test 5:
*Boot the MB Air on an external USB hard disk with OS X 10.5.8
Result: The MB Air is still dropping connection and really slow in browser even with full access to airport
Test 6:
*Boot on MB Air intern SSD disk (OS X 10.6.1)
Result: The MB Air is still dropping connection and really slow in browser even with full access to airport

Test at the Office with a _different Airport XPress_ (ISP: Telenor-Router: ZyXEL ZyWall 2Plus)
Test 7:
*Boot the MB Air on an external USB hard disk with OS X 10.5.8
Result: The MB Air is still dropping connection and really slow in browser even with full access to airport
Test 8:
*Boot on MB Air intern SSD disk (OS X 10.6.1)
Result: The MB Air is still dropping connection and really slow in browser even with full access to airport

In my case I can see that the ISP, the airports and the routers are not part of the problem.
What's left is the MB Air and it's OS. Since I've tested with 10.5.8 and 10.6.1 I can "almost" rule the OS out unless the source of problem is as well in 10.5.8.
I called Apple support, explain my problem and what I had done. I was told that there were no big difference between 10.5.8 and earlier version (10.5.7) of the OS and that it would probably not help. I was told that it was a faulty wireless airport in the MB Air and was given a case number in order to go to the nearest Apple Dealer and have the MB Air repaired.

I don't really believe it's going to help but I've no alternative.
Let you know what happen…

If it's only two weeks old, either return to the store where you purchased it or contact AppleCare; it could simply be defective, especially given your other Macs experience no such issue.

hudson1dotcom wrote:
Is there a way this can be escalated up the Apple support chain? Or is there was way to find out if they even acknowledge this is a problem? It would be nice to know if they are working on a fix versus us banging our heads on the wall. I can live with this a little longer if I know they are at least working on a fix.

You could join the +Apple Developer Connection+ — the +ADC Online+ category is free, here:




...then you can use this to create a trackable problem report:



And no, you don't need to be a "developer" to join — just an Apple user who wants to make sure Apple knows there's a bug and have the ability to track its resolution. And if the problem has already been reported, they'll simply tell you that — it's no big deal.

There's also this feedback form — but Apple cannot respond to the comments you submit:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

My MacBook Pro has been dropping network connection...but strangely, not ALL connections. It seemed like I could still navigate websites that I'd established connection to before the drop, but going to any new websites didn't work.

That sounds like a DNS problem to me. I did a google search, and found one random post by someone like me (static IP and DNS settings) who removed their secondary DNS server address and eliminated this problem.

I did that about an hour ago, and have been smooth sailing ever since. Hope it's a permanent thing. I was dropping sometimes every 30 seconds, and could only fix it by switching locations back and forth. Ugh.

Hopefully this works for others as well. It it flakes out on me again, I'll report back.

Alancito, thank you for posting the info for the Apple Developer Connection

Just to aadd another voice to this tale, I have a MBP and both a Belkin router and an Airport Extreme. I am lucky if I get more than 5 - 10 mins connection before it drops, sometime I can get it back by renewing the DHCP lease, or switching the AP off and on again. I have the same issue at work as well and it is driving me knutts. Come on APPLE sort it out, this is getting to be a joke, I have tryed every suggestion on here from reloading the SMC to removing the config files nothing works

My issue is IP conflicts. Every time a new device joins my network now, the network stalls for all connected devices and my MacBook says another device is attempting to use its IP address. I have been gradually setting my Macs to manually take specific addresses so the others in the wireless network can take the first few dynamically. This is a major pain and it never happened until Snow fell. I suspect many of the folks reporting these dropped signals may be suffering from the same issue.

I don't know if anyone suggested this.

Turn off IPv6 in the network preference. I have not noticed signal drop for few days after doing so.

I hope it will work for some of you.

I'm having the same issue as ColPanik. On the internet I use at home, it is a WPA personal network, I can only use it when there is no one else connected, and even then it cuts out intermittently but at least it works. This is super annoying. I had no problems when I was using 10.4

I tried many of the solutions posted here, even configuring it with setting the DHCP Manually and nothing worked.

On open networks I have no problem.

I hope Apple fixes this. I am so ****** I upgraded.

DTsui wrote:
I don't know if anyone suggested this.

Turn off IPv6 in the network preference. I have not noticed signal drop for few days after doing so.

I hope it will work for some of you.

Yes, that did seem to help as my initial impression was that my Internet connection was more responsive than it has been of late, i.e. after upgrading to SL. (Although it could also just have been my provider having a good moment...)

A big downside, though, is that if you use Apple's Remote Desktop software to connect to other Macs on your network these will no longer be available and you will have to turn IPv6 back on in order to connect to them.