my macbook air wifi keeps dropping out

I have a MacBook Air circa 2015. The last 6 or so months my wifi has been flaky - at work and at home. We've tested the network at work which is totally fine and I'm the only one with an issue. A few weeks ago I got my whole wifi card replaced and it seemed to be better, but now every single day my wifi randomly loses connectivity and I have to off/on wifi and off/on my computer to get it back on again. I've run diagnostics already which all say everything is fine (on a hardware side, on the laptop it says wifi is fine, on our wifi router its saying its fine) but still having issues. Do I need to get a whole new computer? Is something else wrong?

MacBook Air

Posted on Dec 4, 2019 9:58 PM

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Posted on Dec 5, 2019 11:36 AM

At this point, and based on what you have provided, it appears the culprit is mostly likely your MacBook Air (MBA) itself. The 2015 MBAs come with an internal AirPort/Bluetooth circuit board that is replaceable (as you know) for both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. This board also has a pair of antenna connectors. It may be possible that one or both of these were not properly reconnected after the replacement. As such, this would definitely be one reason for the poor Wi-Fi connection. A hardware test may not indicate a disconnected antenna.


Please give the following a try:

  1. With your MBA on and near your wireless router, hold down the Option key, and then, click on the AirPort icon on the macOS menu bar.
  2. On the pop-up window, note the values for: Security, Channel, RSSI, Noise, Tx Rate, PHY Mode, and MCS Index and post them.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 5, 2019 11:36 AM in response to KateSpacecubed

At this point, and based on what you have provided, it appears the culprit is mostly likely your MacBook Air (MBA) itself. The 2015 MBAs come with an internal AirPort/Bluetooth circuit board that is replaceable (as you know) for both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. This board also has a pair of antenna connectors. It may be possible that one or both of these were not properly reconnected after the replacement. As such, this would definitely be one reason for the poor Wi-Fi connection. A hardware test may not indicate a disconnected antenna.


Please give the following a try:

  1. With your MBA on and near your wireless router, hold down the Option key, and then, click on the AirPort icon on the macOS menu bar.
  2. On the pop-up window, note the values for: Security, Channel, RSSI, Noise, Tx Rate, PHY Mode, and MCS Index and post them.

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my macbook air wifi keeps dropping out

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