I have a 27 inch iMac that I bought just after they came out. I will be connected to the internet just fine and then all of sudden I lose internet connectivity. I got up and click the airport icon and it doesn't list any networks. If I restart my computer I can connect again for a day or two before this happens again.
Just got an imac today (27" i7 8gbRam) and used my macbook pro time machine backup to get started. I'm a musician so just want the same as my laptop but with the extra power.
All was going well until i ran software update on the imac which installed 10.6.3 and now it cannot connect to my wireless network. The MBP is normally solid on wifi, can't remember the last time it dropped out. It has been going a bit today though, only when it's near the imac!! I'm writing this now in another part of the house on the MBP so it feels like there is interference between the two macs and 10.6.3 def screwed it too.
I've tried all suggestions from this thread on the imac, always gets stuck when I enter the wifi password by never accepting it.
Worth mentioning the imac managed to connect to another wifi network for a few mins but gave up soon after.
I started having this problem first with my ATT wireless connector. It seemed to improve by turning all sleep functions off, but remains. It cannot be fixed by simply disconnecting and reconnecting the device and interface, although that works at times. Recently, I have also started having it at home since I bought and installed a new Airport extreme to replace an old model. So I suspect it's related to the software on the Mac that deals with the network interface.
Whatever 'fixes' one does don't seem to work for long or consistently, so there's a certain aspect of superstition I experience. The only reliable 'fix' for both situations is to restart the computer. This is a drag. I have had to do this now many times a day.
Sorry to beat the dead horse. Same here. For no apparent reason, internet via the Airport Extreme died. I have the 27-inch iMac. Was working for a week, then nighty night.
All other aspects of the WiFi work fine just not internet.
Possible important note: Just got a new Airport Extreme a day ago.
Same issue as everyone else here. My iMac now *****. Can't use the internet. Luckily I have a Macbook air DIRECTLY beside the iMac that works flawlessly. This iMac sure is a great jukebox now.
I have tried all these fixes and am now downloading one of Apple's "hidden" updates. This is a bad programming flaw.
I finally installed the system update xtech noted May 12, 2010. So far it's 7 hours and counting on the ATT mobile and no problems with the internet connection. I haven't gone more than 2 hours in a long time without problems. I'll copy his early answer again here, and will update if I continue to have problems when I get home and back to my wireless. Otherwise I recommend you try it.
I have a PowerBook G4, iPhone, iPod Touch, and iMac24. All of them connects without problems to my WIFI everywhere at home, except the new iMac27. It just drops the connection and is unable to get it again UNLESS I go to the router and change the wifi name, for example from NUBE1 to NUBE2, etc. It then connects inmediately and stays put until a few days passes. Normally it looses the signal when awaking from sleep. Changing the name of the wifi is painful as I have to put passwords again on the mobiles, etc.
I can see the wifi, but it always complains on the password. It is correct, and keychain and airport settings has been wiped several times. All cache files too.
I am now connected through ethernet cable connected to the iMac24 which is receiving the wifi. The configuration is exactly the same, since on the new iMac27 I did a complete timemachine restore. The only difference is iMac24 and Powerbook are Leopard, and faulty computer is Snow Leopard (latest, all updated applied, even 10.6.3 1.1 like someone suggested.
Been reading loads of similar posts and my own testing since my last post in this thread, quite sure its a combination of the iMac27 (which I bought weeks back) being exceptionally sensitive to interference and OSX 10.6.3 having issues with the wifi. I have reached the point where I have eliminated all potential interference sources (although my rather old iBook G3, Windows Vista machines, PS3, etc do not show similar issues) and now get to the point the signal drops like maybe once a day. I am connected to an Apple Extreme router which I am sure is not the issue with the dropping wifi for which only the iMac27 suffers from.
Have 5 Macs. At least 2, the MB and 1 of the 24" iMacs drops the connection almost daily, usually at about the same time. Sometimes, the other 24" iMac drops the connection, too. I just turn off airport for about 20 minutes then turn it back on.
All 5 rigs are submitting songs played to Last.fm in London, so when the note in the menu bar turns back to black then all is cool.
The 2 27" iMacs are usually turned to baseball games and they have no problem.
I am having the same problem staying connected to the Internet since March 2010. I had a COVAD tech come out this week and he was stumped too!! (But, he also said he did not know Mac's) He would use his PC and his downloads and connections were consistent. I have stopped using my Airport Extreme, unless I unplug and start over. I hope this issue can be resolved, because it's annoying.
i have been going thru all of these threads and my problem is similiar - but a little different.
I have a very strong signal to a linksys router that is 5 feet from the MAC. The network is working great for my PC via wireless or for my mac when connected via the ethernet port
when I switch to the airport, I get an IP address from the proper range - but I have no useful connectivity. When I open an xterm window and ping the default gateway on the router, I get intermittant responses - usually about an 80% failure rate.
I have tried all the items on this thread, and not of them have worked yet......I keep coming back that this feels like a software issue - but I can not nail it down
I spent some time on the phone with Apple support recently. They had me try a couple of things which haven't worked. I will keep pursuing it.
The interesting thing that I learned is that on their end of things, Apple has no record of wireless connectivity problems with these iMacs... I suggested that they might take a look at these pages to see the apparent breadth of the problem.
I encourage others to contact Apple and raise the issues with them - even if they're not fixed immediately, I believe it can only help to make them aware that this is a problem.
just to to try something different, I changed the address the my linksys provides from 10.10.10.1/24 to 192.168.10.1/24
this increased my success rates on pings to the default gateway from about 10% to about 70%
this is still not good enough to actually work - but it makes no sense to me why it would improve when you assign a different network
