Q: Dropping Wi FI Signal

california99 wrote:
Whoops. I meant select Network Settings. Sorry. Just got back from a trip and am a bit jetlagged.

http://support.dlink.com/Emulators/wbr2310/lan.htm

Does it look anything like this link? I see network settings button, and if you click on it you see the panel change but nothing to uncheck like what you described. Sorry you are jet lagged, sorry for being such a pest. If you give me the model number I can go to Dlink and download the pdf manual and try somemore.

I found one with a setting similar to what you described:

http://www.support.dlink.com/emulators/ebr2310revB/201/BasicWAN.html

My Netgear has a section where I do turn on my Router as a DHCP server, but I only get to input ip address range but no other selection. I wonder if there are other brands with a similar option? Not all the Dlinks had this option.

dlink has "emulators" for all their equipment, where you use your browser to pretend you are setting up the router.

Neither of those are what you get on the DLink 615. The corresponding page for that router has many more options, including the one the Apple engineer suggested I change. I assume the two pages you found are for much earlier, and more basic DLink routers.

Holy smokes has this thread grown. Back on page 52, I posted, then was responded by a few helpful fellas, and I am now responding to TSYYYY on his temporary fix for my AirPort failure concerning my 2WIRE at&t (dsl) modem and router.

Well, the news is, that it has helped considerably. Although I do still see drops, they are much fewer and farther between. I think that the steps that are described should be attempted for anyone that is having trouble, they are quite easy, and there is nothing lost if it doesn't work.

Thank you.

Nick

Wow. I'm not the only one with dropped signal in Snow leopard. This needs to be fixed...badly!

Something new has been happening in addition to dropping WFi signal, the network I'm connected to randomly becomes unselected and the internet connection is dropped. Have to reselect it to connect to the internet.

Another two people, my wife and myself having much the same trouble. What puzzles me is they always work in an apple store. Both new to internet so complained a lot to apple and our isp. We are on the third new router. The only help is all the usual interference twaddle. That said apple stores are better screened than our house. Allan

Actually, I do have this problem with one of my two Macs... and my solution is a 25-foot ethernet cable. Which (a) is pretty obvious, and (b) isn't helpful to MacBook owners who want mobile access. I did an experiment, allowing my Mac to cool down, and dropouts did not happen for the first 30 minutes after powering up. So heat could well be the culprit - and might explain why people's laptops work fine at the Apple Store: they were probably freshly turned on, and they're probably running off the battery, which cauese the MBP to run in an energy-efficient mode (generating less heat).

For whatever percentage of people have a flaky Airport card, a cable or a USB WiFi dongle ought to solve the problem.

For those with subtle inconsistencies lurking among the Mac's many settings and preferences, there's the Great Purge: Delete the entire HD/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration folder, use Keychain Access to delete all keychains and passwords for Airport and router, use the Network Prefernces to delete the Airport service (use the "-" sign to remove it), shut down (NOT "Restart", use "Shut Down"), let it sit for a bit, and turn it back on. Add back the Airport service, and cross your fingers.

And finally, this just in from Apple:

In terminal, enter
sudo vi /etc/sysctl.conf
Then enter
net.link.ether.inet.keep_announcements=0
Then reboot
Verify the setting by running the command
sudo sysctl net.link.ether.inet.keep_announcements
Your output should be 0.

(Anyone here who can tell us what this does?)

Beyond that, yeah, I have nothing to add in the way of concrete suggestions. Maybe someone can figure out how to take the old Leopard Airport software and plug it into Snow Leopard?

From the mixed results people are having with these and other fixes, I think it's quite clear that this is not a single problem, but a collection of problems having a common symptom. The next OS update might solve some problems, but Apple can't come up with a magic bullet for all of 'em.

Airport shows full bars. Web pages hang constantly and refuse to load. If I click the airport icon (or open a new browser page) the page suddenly loads like it remembered what it was supposed to be doing.

Very annoying. No idea what the fix is.

Yesterday I went to a customer to setup a TimeCapsule to use with their MBP. It's running 10.5.8. Everything was working correctly (and had been working for about 4 months) and the MBP was connecting to a BT HomeHub router.

When I opened the Airport utility I got a message telling me that it needed an update. I installed the update from the CD that came with the TimeCapsule and immediately the WiFi connection stopped woking with the BT router.

I tried deleting the prefs and zapped the PRAM etc. Nothing i did would allow me to get a stable connection to the BT router.

Eventually I changed the MBP to use the TimeCapsule's WiFi and that connection was stable.

The BT router had been using channel 11 and the TimeMachine was on channel 1. I changed the BT routers channel to 1 and set the TimeMachine to 11 just to see what happened (to rule out interference on the channel). I still could not get a stable connection to the BT router but the TimeMachine signal was still stable.

Obviously something in the Airport Utility update had broken the WiFi connection.

Here's another data point.

I have been using my 13" Macbook (well, actually my wife's with a WBR-2310 (Rev.A - fw 1.03) without problems for at least 3 years. OS X regularly updated, etc.

Two weeks ago, I updated the firmware in my router to 1.05, to allow a Wii we just bought to access the internet. And then I started getting the dreaded Wifi dropouts (i.e. connection stays solid, but nothing gets in or out the network).

After a few days of messing around trying various solutions, I downgraded my modem back to fw 1.03, and bingo! the dropouts have stopped.

I plan to try D-Link firmware 1.04 this weekend, because the Wii is not working with 1.03...

gocuk2@yahoo. wrote:
That said apple stores are better screened than our house.

That's because most Apple Stores are in commercial buildings which tend to be built with more screening in the form of metal in the walls.

PCServices.info wrote:
Obviously something in the Airport Utility update had broken the WiFi connection.

The Macs work with the Time Capsule and it's AirPort that's broken?

Sounds like the BT router needs an update and/or isn't performing up to spec.

Just to update everyone, when I took the machine in for the second time in regards to the WiFi issue, the Genius Bar opted to replace the Airport card just to ensure it isn't hardware related. 5-7 days and I should be able to tell you all if it worked. My warranty is up in April, so this is a bit of a last ditch effort from me. Hopefully all's well that ends well.

To those who mentioned static DNS, static IPs etc: I did try just about everything before taking it in, talked to Comm Escalation, reinstalled 10.6, then did a full reinstall, formatted on through the 10.6.2 update. Nothing fixed the problem. I have a hard time believing this is hardware, since Bootcamp works just fine for hours on end, but I'll check back in when its all been replaced.

Despite the issue, and how incredibly annoying it is, the Genius Bar is probably the only support I've ever had that would opt to replace the hardware before making me jump through 12 flaming hoops blindfolded. Kudos!

10.6.3 update is out...

AirPort and wireless networking fixes for:

general reliability for wireless connections.
improvements to 802.1X reliability, including closed network connections , and WPA2.
sleep/wake reliability for current iMac models when connected to 2.4GHz wireless networks.