Snow Leopard and wireless connection problems

But this raises the question what SL change resulted in this issue being a major problem only for SL, not for earlier Mac OS versions, Windows machines, iPhones, etc. I'm using the same MBP as before my upgrade to SL, so my hardware is unchanged. SL is obviously doing something different at the OS level that makes the system way more susceptible to signal interference.

This of course makes it BAD DESIGN from an engineering perspective (and now I am getting close to my own professional territory), where a measure of good design is to create products that ℹ work well in the environment they are sold and used in and (ii) are easy to use by the customers to whom they are sold. Apple has always had a reputation for good design. This problem would (and likely will) make a classic case study in university Principles of Engineering Design 101 courses.

After a lot of effort I figured out how to make it work - acceptably well but still a pain since it requires manually changing channel whenever performance deteriorates - but I do have sufficient layperson's knowledge to be able to do this. Most of Apple's customers do not.

While owners of old, cheap, Windows PCs are getting onto the Internet effortlessly, owners of brand new, high performance Apple MacBook Pros are having to start their day by manually looking for a wireless channel that those Windows connections have left open. Nice work Apple.

Message was edited by: california99

Message was edited by: california99

Hot flash, from what you say it does not look like you have channel interference, but the scan I indicated only shows up nearby wireless networks that allow their SSID (network name) to be publicly available, and besides other devices can cause signal interference. So you might have to change channels on a trial-and-error basis until you find one that works (though maybe only for as long as nobody else nearby changes a channel or buys another gadget). To change the wirless channel you have to log on to your wireless router. Plug your laptop into the router using an ethernet cable and use Firefox (not Safari for some routers) to log on to the router. The URL is likely 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1. If the factory setting are unchanged from when you bought it, you do not need to enter a password, you just enter as "Admin". Then select the wireless settings page and choose "Manually set wireless" or whatever it says like that. You should find a scroll menu of 11 wireless channels. Try something that is at least 3 removed from your current one.(The channels overlap, so you want to get away from the one that causes you problems.) Then hit "Save settings". Wait until the router reboots and says you can "Continue". Then close Firefox. You may have to switch the airport off and on again, or even reboot your computer, but with luck (hah!) you should find it all works.

This is the routine Apple design is currently inflicting on its customers. It pains me that some of their lead engineers learned their craft at the institute of higher learning where I work. What did we do wrong?

For the benefit of anyone who tries my suggestion, the performance I now get is still not good. In particular, it can take a minute or more - sometimes several minutes - to connect to the router and then to get onto the Internet. But it does now regularly happen for me, without me doing anything else. (I simply fire up a broswer, tell it to go go google.com, and then go and make a cup of coffee while SL does whatever it now has to do to get onto the Internet. Sometimes I get to drink the coffee as well before I get onto the Information Superhighway.)

Once on, things work fine however, with good up and down speeds and no signal dropping. Unless I do nothing for a half hour or so. Then the connection sometimes drops and we start again. Compared with before, however, this is heaven. I can actually complete important work tasks.

I guess this is Apple's new interpretation of the "Always on Society"! I'd be interested (from a professional perspective as someone in business- and technology-related research and higher education) in hearing how others fare using the channel change "solution".

Shobedobe, This is curious. I see you are on OS 10.5.2 (Leopard), which never caused me any problems with wireless. For me, and many, many others, it was an issue that started only after upgrading to 10.6 (Snow Leopard). This looks like a complex interaction of features (with all the different routers thrown into the mix) that may take Apple a long time to sort out. I agree that it's an absurd state of affairs to have to go channel hunting, particularly given Apple's "use it out of the box philosophy). Manually setting the router channel did seem to minimize the problem for me. Since the recent Apple wireless card upgrade this week (I assume it was firmware), my system actually seems to be working extremely well all the time, so that may have finally fixed it, but I'll want to wait a week or so to be sure. I don't know what that update was meant to do. does anyone else know?

Shobedobe, I've been using Macs constantly since 1987, and this recent wireless issue is the first time I've had any significant problems. That's what is so frustrating. Ease of use and reliability was always one of Apple's hallmarks. Since they will have texted SL extensively in their labs, the problem must surely be how SL interacts with all the network routers and ISPs it has to function in. But again, you (and other posters I've seen) are having the same problems with Leopard, and that is very different from my experience. Good luck.