Q: Dropping Wi FI Signal

Nutty87th wrote:
The question remains why my previous router was fine with IPhones and Windows machines, and not the MBP.

As has been mentioned before, often vendors don't bother to test their routers properly, and as a result far too many have an attitude of "If it works with Windows, ship it."

It also, obviously, could be a Mac OS X bug of some sort.

Regardless, it's good you got your issue sorted.

OK, so it's me again with rather bad news for everybody who suffers from this problem. As i wrote before, i bought a MBP last week and had wifi issues from day one. so i had it replaced, the new one arrived today, and guess what: wifi works flawlessly and blazing fast.

Meanwhile i didn't change my router settings at all. both Macbooks were exactly the same, no extra software installed. Same OS 10.6.3, same Airport Card. One had horrible wifi issues, the other one none at all.

I still have no explanation other than faulty hardware or a REALLY weird bug in SL that got triggered by something i did on the first macbook, because as i said everything is perfectly fine now with exactly the same OS.

anyway. if you suffer from this problem and still have warranty, go to a mac store, show the problem to them and have your mac replaced or fixed. if not, you're pretty much screwed, as i doubt that future software updates could actually fix this problem.

good luck to everyone!

Hi everyone,

I experienced the same problem after updating to 10.6.3

Here is where I found my workaround:
http://osxdaily.com/2009/09/01/how-i-fixed-my-dropping-wireless-airport-connecti on-problem-in-snow-leopard/
After doing all the Airport card reset steps, I changed the router's connection to 802.11b only (disable 802.11g). Now I have a stable connection again.
I don't think the router is the problem as it happens also at work on a different router, but as long as my mac connects again this works for me.
Hope this may help anyone.

Best,
Max

i got the same problem, its obviously problem of osx 10.6.3.

all you have now is a workaround instead of solution: turn off n signal of your wifi and go back to g/b/a...

I was having a tremendous number of dropouts with Snow Leopard on my MacBook 2,1 connecting to a Linksys WRT-54G v. 4. I did all the deleting the aipport prefs files, creating new locations, static ip, etc, to no avail. Today I got a NetGear 150N router and thus far no dropouts. I think there is a bug in Snow Leopard that perhaps makes it more sensitive to whether a router is slightly to eccentric to specified protocols. I am going to dissent from WIlliam's view though and say that I do think this is Apples problem, and they are only shooting themselves in the foot and by perhaps not working in a compatible fashion with the millions of older Linksys routers out there if that is what is going on for some people as I suspect.

Did anyone happen to try going back to 10.6.2 (reinstall or with time machine) and found out if it worked back then?
/Max

Now I seem to be succumbing to this one as well... MBPro 17 inch (2007 model) working perfectly, upgraded to Snow Leopard and all still well... Then took the update that came through this week and it's all gone horribly wrong. WiFi dropped out, won't reconnect (console message of Apple80211associate failed - 3905 timeout). Well, having said that I did manage to reconnect this morning for all of 10 minutes, then for no reason it disappears again and nothing since.

It's not the router - I have an iMac (10.5), iPhone, Powerbook G4(10.5), and Linux PC working perfectly happily on the wireless network, good signal strength and great throughput.

Have tried almost everything, changing channel, deleting all the preference files, resetting PRAM, removing all wireless security, even restoring from my backup taken immediately after installing Snow Leopard, and no joy. Am currently restoring from a 10.5 backup (last one before upgrade, this was working fine). If no improvement now I think I will be suspecting hardware..?

I am having this problem as well. I have a 17" 2009 MacBook Pro and a 2010 MacBook Pro and the problem exists on both of them. I have an old iBook that does no have the problem and another IBM and a Wii that is fine.

I have replaced all my equipment to solve this problem but it still persists on these two notebooks. I was using a Netgear N-router and now I am using a D-Link N router with WPA2 security. My signal strength is excellent.

To add more info, one the Airport disconnects, it will not auto reconnect until i turn the airport off and then back on again. It happens when barely using the bandwidth and when pounding it.

This is crazy frustrating. Any advice would be appreciated.
Here is the lastest log

AirPort: Link Up on en1
AirPort: RSN handshake complete on en1
AirPort: Link Down on en1. Reason 4 (Disassociated due to inactivity).
6/9/10 7:11:49 PM mDNSResponder[19] DeregisterInterface: Frequent transitions for interface en1 (FE80:0000:0000:0000:0226:08FF:FEDD:AC9B)

I have read several posts saying that this is a router issue but I have to call BS on that after changing the routers out and having every other computer on my network working just fine including an old ibook.

The workaround to downgrade to G or even B service is just plain ridiculous. I have thousands in this and it has to work faster than a 10 year old laptop or I want my money back.

Sorry for the duplicate post, I had posted in the wrong thread.

The same thing is happening to me as well. I can't do anything via wifi now because every time I try to use wifi I am thrown off after about five minutes. It is very frustrating because Apple has not addressed the issue and I have no clue when the 10.6.4 update will be here and if it will solve the problem. I know Apple doesn't like to tell anyone anything about future products but this is ridiculous.

Restore of 10.5.8 and all now working perfectly. So problem seems to be to do with Snow Leopard. But I'm rather disappointed as there were some bits of the new system that were really useful...

I'm assuming that this issue is not seen with the new MBPro machines? Is it an issue with the WiFi in the older systems and the new drivers/etc in Snow Leopard? If so then I doubt it will get fixed, although I will watch for new upgrades with some interest - just in case.

One thought, would it be worth a clean install of Snow Leopard rather than playing the upgrade game...

Well done George, this helps narrowing down the problem. Too many people still suspect their routers to be the problem. But I believe more and more it is actually Apple who is supposed to solve this, as they created the problem!

Now, I think you can still install Snow Leopard, just use a pre-10.6.3 installation. I have a first generation MBPro and I had no WIFI problems until the 10.6.3 update brought it along.

I am considering reinstalling 10.6 myself and then updating only until 10.6.2 (until Apple solves this issue). Did anyone else try this?
/Max

Unfortunately no, it's not limited to older computers or even the latest updates. My 2010 MBP shipped with Snow Leopard and has had this problem before and after the updates.

My dropouts increased recently to nonstop. My boyfriend got tired of hearing me cursing and ordered a new router, which should be here tomorrow. Since my MBP only dislikes some routers, I'm sure I'll (eventually) be stable... at home.

My mom's Leopard MB does that other trick where it says it's connected but doesn't actually do anything for periods of time. I always blamed their budget network even though it was illogical--this crabby MBP and all other devices run perfectly on that network--and her MB runs great on my network.

But in researching my issue I've came across a lot of people with her issue as well. I couldn't believe it! I think these wifi problems are more widespread than we realize.

ben3175 wrote:
finally i went to the apple store and talked to them. they also told me that they have not heard of this problem (well i told them to have a look at this post). i had the same issue with the wifi in the apple store, so i could show it to them. they tried to boot the MBP from an external device, discovered some kind of "kernel panic" (no idea what this means, i'm a noob) and they told me to have the MBP replaced, but they couldn't say exactly where the problem was. i should receive the new MBP tomorrow or the day after, will check it out and report back.

The best way I can explain the 70% of "Kernel Panics" are hardware issues. Some can happen when software really goes haywire and screws with OS X system files. You can read out them at the Apple document About "You need to restart your computer" (kernel panic) messages.

I updated to 10.6.4 and my connection works again.