27" imac wifi problems (intermittant)

I'm having the same exact problem. iMac 27" constantly drops WiFi with Lion. It started happening as soon as I installed Lion. Never ever had a problem with Snow Leopard.

I can use my Macbook Pro. iPad, iPhone, etc. on the same desk, same location as my iMac, same WiFi connection, same airport, etc. and they all work perfectly except the iMac.

iMac 27" constantly drops Wifi with Lion. This is a real f**king problem and I know Apple is aware of it because the rep that I've been working with has admitted as much. They said they're trying to fix it, but nothing so far as I know.

It goes without saying that being able to connect to the Internet without issues is as critical an issue as they come... So what the heck is taking so long in terms of fixing this problem? Sorry for the rant. So frustrated.

Did you try the link I posted on the previous page - seems to help some, so it might be worth a shot.

Only thing that works for me is to stop my wife using her Samsung laptop to access the Internet with WiFi. As soon as she does my iMac loses its WiFi connection. It returns as soon as she stops. Very odd.

Paul, I just did this. Too early to provide a verdict... but will report back, thanks.

Hi all

same issue as everyone around here and a rather final solution:

- Purchased 27" i5 iMac on 2nd Jan 2012 in Spain

- Out of the box, it immediately starts to drop the wifi connection (no problem at all with other devices connecting to the router: windows computers, iPhone, iPad, Android phones, etc.)

- I call the Apple support hotline and - in a very friendly and competent way - they take me through steps to solve this

- I end up calling them 5 times in total, where at each call they take me through one of the steps which are described in this thread: resetting router, deleting & reconnecting to the router, deleting this or that file on the Mac, deleting the key chain, etc.. Each and every time the problem gets solved, I hang-up, and of course after a few minutes it happens again

- In the last but final call, they tell me: "Apple computers can only connect to routers which are set to channel 9 or 11, please change your router settings". As I am getting tired of this all, I enquire about returning the computer, and they tell me "we will not consider that your computer has any hardware fault until you change your router settings". Humhumhum... so I change the settings, do this, solved for a few minutes, then down again

- Final call: I inform the Apple representatitve that changing the wifi channel to 9 had no effect, he then tells me "We arrived at the end of our checklist for this issue, so here is the situation: We (Apple) know since about mid 2011 that there is an issue between Lion and some routers in Spain. This was not happening with Snow Leopard. As we cannot change all our customer's routers, our engineers are working on a fix and this issue may be fixed in the upcoming 10.7.3 release. You then have 2 choices: wait for the release and see if this fixes the issue, or return the computer"

So I of course returned the iMac today, not acceptable to spend 2.000Euros on a computer system and not have reliable wifi connection.

Conclusions:

- Apple is fully aware of the issue, no doubt about this

- The statement of the Apple tech support I spoke with that "this happens only with Lion" seems wrong reading this thread

- This is such a BASIC issue in this day & age that I really feel that Apple should be much more forthcoming in describing the situation and its potential solutions (or lack of solution if there is none per today), including to the new customers before they buy the product. Am actually very surprised both that such a problem exists as well as how Apple is handling it...

To all of you stuck with computers you cannot return: good luck and I really hope this will be solved in 10.7.3

I will consider buying an iMac again after being certain this problem is fully closed.

Cheers

I solved the problem, but it cost me about $150.00. Unfortunately, Paul's suggested workaround didn't have any effect.

My old network configuration was two Airport Expresses, one connected to the cable modem and the other extending the wireless range of the first. When I had Snow Leopard on my iMac there was no problem, but when I upgraded to Lion, WiFi started being interminably slow and/or dying altogether on the iMac. The Macbook Pro, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, etc. in the same area all still worked fine, even the ones that were upgraded to iOS5.

I went to BestBuy and bought an Airport Extreme. I replaced the two older Airport Expresses with one Airport Extreme and now my iMac is connected consistently to my Internet connection and is like lightning in terms of Internet speed (the same way it was before when I was using Snow Leopard on it, before I upgraded to Lion).

When I was working with the customer service rep from Apple Care, she did not suggest that an Airport Extreme could solve the problem. I didn't think of it at all as a possibility until I had ruled everything else out.

Along the way to resolving the issue myself, Apple ran their software tests all the way up the flagpole and it was not a software problem that they could identify... Nor was not a hardware problem, and Apple even replaced the wireless card on my iMac for free even though it was out of warranty (i.e. 2+ years old) and the iMac still had problems or dropped WiFi altogether.

It's 2.5 days so far since I did this, but still working perfectly and no problems with WiFi connectivity at all.

DITTO...Problem SOLVED.

But, like Rob, it took the purchase and installation of Airport Extreme (http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/).

It appears that Lion is simply not compatible with my eight-year-old Airport Express (and, judging from previous posts, numerous other wireless routers). Whatever Apple has built-into (or left out-of) Lion's programming is a major faux pas, indeed, rendering gazillions of wireless routers obsolete.

On the "plus" side, the speed and performance of Airport Extreme is awesome. My network is comprised of my new iMac, my wife's old iMac G4, our two iPhones, an HP 6500A Plus wireless printer and TiVo Premiere. All are now performing fast and flawlessly.

But this Apple WiFi boondoggle should really be a business school "case study".

I too struggled with this issue. I bought a refurbished iMac directly from Apple back in September of 2011. Ever since I've had it I had connection issues. I would lose connectivity intermittantly throughout the day. I thought it was my internet provider's modem and wireless router so I bought a new one after about 3 months. The I thought it was my service provider (Comcast). I found it weird that I would be connected to the wireless network (because I had full bars on my signal icon) but not have an internet connection. Also my email would have a problem icon next to my inbox all the time showing that it had some communication issues. Finally I started to believe that maybe that was why this was a refurbished computer. Maybe it had something wrong with the wifi connection in the past and wasn't fixed properly. Before giving up I found this thread. I decided to pony up and pay for Airport Extreme 3 days ago. That did the trick! I haven't had any issues since then. However it does suck to buy a 1500 computer and still have to buy another 200 piece of equipment to get it to work properly. I'm hiding my purchase of the Airport Extreme from my wife as long as I can because she loves to bash me and my Mac habits. So when she finds out I spent 200 to fix the problem I'm not gonna hear the end of it!!!!!

Thanks for posting this, guys. I had same problem (New iMac 27-inch running Lion hiccuped constantly on Airport Express, MacBook Pros running Snow Leopard did not.)

Bit the bullet, bought the new Airport Extreme, and now no problems whatsoever. Annoying as well, but I'm happy to have found a solution, even if it cost almost $200. I wouldn't have figured it out if it weren't for these posts.

I've been scanning these posts for the last few days because my new 27" iMac has been losing its WiFi connection on an irregular basis when my other connected devices aren't having any problems at all. All I need to do is turn WiFi off then back on again and it works....for a while. I've tried several fixes that I've come across in various places including running a constant Ping from the Terminal and creating a new network location and forcing a DHCP refresh for a new IP address, updating wireless router firmware, etc. Nothing works.

Now it seems I have to either wait for Apple to "fix" the problem with an OS update or buy an Apple Extreme router.

ugh.

Nevertheless, thanks for the insightful posts - I certainly hope I can either wait or scrape up the bucks for the router!

Stuart — sounds exactly like my problem: "new 27" iMac has been losing its WiFi connection on an irregular basis when my other connected devices aren't having any problems at all. All I need to do is turn WiFi off then back on again and it works....for a while."

Total pain in the butt, and very disappointing. Buying Airport Extreme wasn't ideal.

Then again, I thought I was going to have to lug my 27" iMac to the Apple Store, and the thought of being apart from it for a few days, while they tore it apart to replace the wifi card, wasn't all that appealing, either.

Just to add to what people are saying about buying an AirPort Extreme as a solution to this problem...I can confirm that it is not a solution as I am experiencing this issue on my iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) with an AirPort Extreme.

Wireless drops intermittently and recently it has most notably been during idle time on the computer. A solution that worked for two weeks for me was the post by Sharon Moos on Page 2 of this thread.

Sharon Moos

Re: 27" imac wifi problems (intermittant)

Mar 25, 2010 7:36 PM ( in response to Sharon Moos)

Apple called as requested. He had me go to Finder/hard drive/library/preferences/system configuration and delete the folder and restart. It's been working pretty well since. However, it's worked for a couple days in the past and then stopped again. Time will tell.

iMac G5 20, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

What is frustrating is that I am, in fact, an Apple technician. Although I appreciate the theory of this being heat-related failure, in my own observation I am seeing it drop signal in idle times as well as normal use. Also, if it were heat-related I suspect it would need to cool before performing properly again. I throw this out because if it were overheating in my scenario, it should not be able to cool in the 5 seconds it takes to power cycle it and then perform for hours longer without issue.

This appears, at this point, to be driver-related. I have yet to try the solution for downgrading the AirPort's kext, but at this point I think I'm going to have to give it a try. I've read up on it and I've heard people raving that this was the end-all solution for this signal drop issue. I'll post again when I downgrade the driver. To save you from searching the forums for what I'm referencing, here's the original post:

newcube

Re: 27" imac wifi problems (intermittant)

Dec 31, 2011 4:14 AM ( in response to neil74)

Has anyone tried this:

http://rys.pixeltards.com/2011/09/04/osx-lion-wifi.html

how to vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtxRfFAh8Pg

basically downgrades your wi-fi driver from 4.x to 3.x The theory is that the 4.x driver has a bug that causes the issue.

I've just applied the fix and am waiting with baited breath...

Amen, Neal! I have to admit that after some more thought I had used this situation to justify getting a 2T Time Capsule - I actually do need a new backup drive, it's a wireless router and I wouldn't mind having some server space for streaming media around the apartment. Unfortunately, I couldn't find one locally and it will take a couple weeks to get one from Apple. There's an certified Apple dealership not too far from here - I'll see if they have one today...

I think I'll be attempting Rys Sommefeldt's solution regarding downgrading the router driver to 3.x, but I want to be sure I have the whole system backed up first - never know when a simple task like that will cause a meltdown!

And Thank you Crapplestout, et alia, for your insights. Always good to come to a forum such as this and actually find friendly and helpful folk.

I'll post my relative success and/or failure (assuming I can get online!) after the deed is done.

Any news on this one? How did it go? Thanks!

Hi David -

No news yet. The local Apple reseller didn't have the 2T Time Capsule in stock, only the 3T for a whopping $500. Don't have that much $$ in the account after having bought the iMac just a few weeks ago. I was told that due to flooding somewhere in South East Asia that the Time Capsules were on back order.

Whatever....!

I haven't decided whether to try to order directly from Apple or what. I may have to just clean off one of my current high volume drives so I can do a backup before I try downgrading the router driver. In the meantime, I'm doing fine just restarting the WiFi whenever I lose connection. And, I have to admit that since I changed my router channel to 11 I've had far fewer problems.

Frustrating. I'll be sure to post when I do get a backup drive, Time Capsule or another solution, or if any new fixes leap out at me before that.

Cheers!

Stuart