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27" imac wifi problems (intermittant)

I really wish Apple had email or online support...

I have a 27" i5 imac that I bought just before Christmas, I had lots of problems with the wifi on it, it would not connect and when it did it was very slow, all while my macbook and iphone in the same room showed full signal and a fast rock solid connection. I rang Apple support, it took ages but they were very helpful and eventually we solved it and in the end it seemed to be WPA that was the problem and whilst I was not happy switching to WEP it seemed to work so I went with it.

Fast forward a month or so and I have started having problems again, it is fine when I boot but as the day goes on it gets slower and slower before finally refuses to connect at all. I am wondering if this could be something over-heating but in truth I am puzzled.

Anybody else having issues?

imac i5 27" and macbook, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Feb 21, 2010 3:11 AM

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Posted on Feb 21, 2010 5:31 PM

I am having the same exact problem. Bought a 27 inch iMac about a month ago, the wireless connection was a little slow off the bat, but then I was able to fix it. Recently after turning it on the signal is picked up fine for about 15 minutes and then all of a sudden the airport can no longer pick up any wireless network. Meanwhile my iPhone and MacBook have no issues. I called apple support and they had me complete a litany of useless diagnostic tasks - emptied my cache, did a hard reboot, repaired disk permissions , etc. None of it helped. Seems it's a hardware issue. Anyone know if this is a known issue with this model? I'm afraid the airport card itself may be defective in some way.
443 replies

Mar 3, 2012 3:04 PM in response to DrVenture

I am also having WIFI issues even after running the latest software updates that were intended to fix these issues. General choppiness, slowness, sometimes cuts altogether, and often does not connect after sleep/wake. Reboots fix the problem only for a few minutes and then the problem resumes. The most noticeable effect of this problem is when I am streaming music via Airplay to my Apple TV. It cuts out many times each minute. I own an iPhone, iPad, and Macbook Pro. None of these other devices experience these issues.


Please help, this is extremely frustrating considering this was the most expensive of all of my Apple products and should really work better than all of the others.

Mar 3, 2012 5:41 PM in response to Holybooom

I use Snow Leopard rather than Lion, so the software "fix" was not applicable to me, however there was a firmware update released at the same time for my 2011 iMac and since that update my WiFi is constantly dropping out - it struggles to hold a connection for 5 minutes.


Of course, if I reboot onto the Windows partition on my desk, I have no problems at all. It seems ironic that to enjoy such a basic functionality (connecting to the internet), I have to run my Apple as a Windows machine !!


This had been a problem which had constantly plagued me since I bought this new machine (my 2008 Macbook Pro has no such issues), until I changed my WiFi channel to one which nobody in my immediate vincinity is using (I'd still get the odd disconnect, but not with any alarming frequency). Since the firmware update however, everything has reverted and is, in fact, worse than it ever was beforehand.

Mar 5, 2012 12:52 AM in response to neil74

I have had wifi problems for several months but as it turned out it wasn't a software (OS X lion) but a router problem.

It wasn't a connection loss with the router but the iMac lost connection to the internet.

Maybe my sollution is applicable for more OS X lion and iMac(intel) users.


Many routers can send a mixed WiFi signal like B,G and/or N.

The mid 2011 iMac can recieve both G and N WiFi signals but when a router switches all the time between G and N it gets "confused".


The sollution for my iMac:

My router was programmed to send a mixed wifi signal (G and N ) on a mixed frequency (20 to 40 Mhz)

I changed that to a fixed N wifi signal and fixed frequency.

Further more I checked which WiFi channels my neigbours where using and changed mine into a channel that was at least 2 channels different than the one from my clossest neighbours.


I hope this will help some of you.


There is only one thing that I realy have to say.

The iCentre's here in Holland suck.

I have absolutly no confidence in their skils.

They tried to convince me that setting my IP adress on manual was responsible for this problem and charged me Euro 79,- to change that into an automatic IP adress because software issues aren't covered by the standard warrenty on a almost new iMac.

Last weekend Europes biggest Apple store in Amsterdam opened its doors and hopefully they will do a better job in the future.


Also I think that the people at Apple can do a much better job in providing sollutions even when it is not directly related to one of their products.

Mar 10, 2012 3:32 PM in response to neil74

Hi all,


The latest update has resolved the problem of waking my Imac after sleep mode via a bluetooth device (mouse or keyboard) however I am now getting the problem of a dropped connection around one or two minutes afterwards. I am beginning to wonder if Apple actually know what the problem is? This is really not like them! I am really getting annoyed now with this whole issue, I paid good money for this machine and bought into Apple providing the best, I among others are beginning to think otherwise! Come on Apple! Prove us wrong!

Mar 15, 2012 7:26 PM in response to Cambo III

Still having issues with my wifi. It worked great for about a week. Then I saw it go offline twice in a span of a few minutes. Then it was fine.


Today I got home and when I logged in it was offline and refused to go online. :E


That lasted for about 10 or 15 minutes. Good thing I have a 25' ethernet cord around here. 😀


Anyway, sooooooo frustrating..........


Now it's back online with wifi but I'm leaving the darned cord in there! It looks very attractive on the carpet. 😀



Judie

27" imac wifi problems (intermittant)

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