MacBook Pro M1 WiFi issue

tianwg--

From your description, your display adapter is creating interference in the Wi-Fi band that is messing up your Wi-Fi signal.

Why do I have difficulty with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth devices when USB 3 devices are attached to my computer?

Some USB 3 devices can generate radio frequency interference that can cause Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices operating in the 2.4GHz band to have issues communicating with your computer. Here are some tips to avoid this issue:

• If your USB device has a cable long enough that you can move the device, place it away from your Mac—and make sure not to place it behind your Mac, or near the hinge of its display. The antennas for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are located there, and USB 3 devices placed there might interfere with your wireless connections.

• If you're using adapters or dongles on a Mac computer with Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, plug them into the front port on the left side of your Mac, or into the ports on the right side (if your computer has them). These ports are the farthest away from the antennas, making interference less likely.

• To avoid interference on the 2.4GHz band using Wi-Fi, try using the 5GHz band instead. You can change this on your wireless base station. Bluetooth always uses 2.4GHz, so this alternative isn't available for Bluetooth.

from:

About USB on Mac computers - Apple Support

Resolve Wi-Fi and Bluetooth issues caused by wireless interference

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201542

the 'classic"way to walk away from all your old settings for Wi-Fi and set it up again from scratch:

How to use network locations on your Mac - Apple Support

Use a NEW name, not the default, and give it meaningful mnemonic name.

Just tested that (with awdl0 interface re-enabled prior to toggling Bluetooth off) and the disconnections returned immediately.

After a little googling, I found a report of one more user (possibly) having the same procedure working for them: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251462554

I am absolutely baffled as to why this works. (It worked for me too, after days - nay, weeks - of pulling my hair trying to figure out why I could get 950/950mbps over ethernet, while WiFi would show a Tx rate of 866mbps, yet once I started doing anything with continuous bandwidth over WiFi, it would throttle down to approximately 20mbps/100mbps.

Network Setup:

1. AT&T Gig Fiber FTTH -> ONT
2. ER-X with eap_proxy
3. BGW-210 (cert auth only, not used for net connection)
4. Netgear JGS524PE 24-port switch w/PoE
5. UAP-AC-LR (max concurrent throughput is around 300mbps)

Hardwire Setup: MBP13 M1 2020, 256GB SSD, 16GB RAM (Network "stuff" installed: Little Snitch, Proton VPN)

• Caldigit TS3+ Ethernet connection -- using original TB3 0.5m cable that came with the TS3+
• GS105e Ethernet Switch
• CAT5e Ethernet to JGS524PE switch (see above for remaining connections)

Wireless Setup:

• MBP13 M1 connected via WiFi 802.11ac 5G, specified channel, 80MHz width

The Fix

I tried many things, including uninstalling Little Snitch and its system extension(s), deleting ProtonVPN, deleting all network preferences, changing power settings on the AP, etc.

Then I unchecked "Auto-join" for all networks except the SSID in the house I connect to primarily, and I'm back up to 280/280mbps connection over WiFi. To get all the way to the max speed the AP supports, I disabled Bluetooth, and I got ~310/300mbps.

I would really like to know what changes those checkboxes does in terms of the way the MBP's antennas listen for / send WiFi signals, because that seemed to completely cure my WiFi throttling issues. Maybe if you are set to Auto-join two networks that your Mac can see at the same time, the implementation of WiFi connections on the M1 Macs doesn't handle that very well? I thought my problem was the 80MHz channel overlap mentioned previously on this thread, but I didn't even have to switch down to a 40MHz channel for this fix to work. Can't explain that! (😂)

TL;DR - Uncheck all the Auto-Join boxes in your WiFi 'Preferred Networks' section, and that seemed to fix the problem for me.

Hello, I'm having problems also with my wifi connectivity, the internet speed is super low compare to my oldest MacBook, I'm using both macs in the same space and with the same network, and here is the big difference.

this is my Macbook pro-2015 below

<< ... the same problem... >>

There have been at least three, and likely more, completely different problems and some solutions already posted on this discussion thread. You Can Not Possibly have exactly the same problem as three different other problems.

But this thread is already too cluttered to keep ones sanity and provide individual assistance. Therefore, please do one of:

• Start a new thread, give it a title that will attract experts in the area you want help. include your MacBook model and macOS model. Hold the option key and click on the Wi-Fi Icon on the menubar and post the snapshot that includes channel, PHY Mode like 802.11n, and Raw signal strength RSSI and transmit speed achieved, like this older one:

• or use this link and ask Apple support:

Get Support

.

For everyone experiencing Wifi issues with M1 devices I've done more testing and am pretty sure I've narrowed down the problem, although I don't know if the problem is Apple Hardware or Software. Here's my situation. I have many Apple devices in my home as well as +20 other smart devices that access my wifi 24x7. All of those devices work fine, except for my M1 Apple Devices. Even my Apple devices that are not M1 work perfectly fine so the problem is with M1 Apple Devices.

My M1 devices are 1 MacBook Air, 1 Mac Mini and 1 iPad Pro. The 2 Mac's constantly drop Wifi connectivity throughout the day making them very frustrating to use and the iPad Pro drops connectivity occasionally (sometimes days between it happening). What happens is you can be browsing the web, watching a youtube video or the device can be doing a time machine backup and out of nowhere the Wifi signal drops. When in the browser you simply get a spinning wheel or the page won't reload and after a minute or two it'll say something like You no longer have internet connectivity. If in Youtube it'll take you to a reload page screen where clicking on the icon never gets it working. The only way to recover is to turn Wifi off and back on again, or reboot, or something you an put the device to sleep and wake it back up and it'll reconnect.

My home wifi is provided by Xfinity (Comcast) and they provide my router with is the new/latest Xfi router. After doing extensive testing what I've noticed is when these M1 devices (especially the Macs) are close to the router the acquire the 5Ghz network and lock onto an 80Mhz channel of spectrum. When they do this they constantly drop from Wifi. On a Mac the way to see wifi connection settings is by holding down the Option Key and clicking on the Wifi icon in the upper right part of the screen.

When I turn off the 5Ghz network so my M1 Macs only connect to the 2.4Ghz network the connection stays up and works fine. I came across a post from someone I believe on Redit that said the 5Ghz 80Mhz channel bandwidth is a known issue with these M1 Macs but I don't think it it cause I've had my M1 devices for months and there have been several software updates and Apple has done nothing to fix this. Assuming it can be fixed with Software.

In that same Reddit thread I mentioned, it said if you change your 5Ghz router settings to a Channel Bandwidth of less than 80 (options are typically 40/20 or just 20), they said that worked for them. Unfortunately for me Xfinity locks down the settings in the router where I can see the options to do this but they won't let me make the changes to test it. I called their support line and they did something to try and change that but the router still won't let me make changes.

If anyone else is having this problem and it's with a M1 Mac, do what I'm suggesting above to see what Wifi network your Mac is connected to when having this problem and post your settings here. If we can see that everyone having this issue is on 5Ghz 80 Channel Bandwidth, then I think it's pretty certain the M1 Macs have issues using those Wifi routers that offer this capability. BTW, for those who are not technical 5Ghz and 80 Channel Bandwidth offers much higher Wifi speeds for devices that can connect to it and have a high bandwidth internet provider plan. So for anyone that says, just use the 2.4 Ghz wifi my response to that is sure if you want a slow congested connection it's fine to use 2.4Ghz. But if you want to take advantage of the internet plan you're paying for from your ISP, you definitely want your Macs to work on the 5Ghz high channel bandwidth settings.

Here's a screenshot of what the Wifi connectivity options look like and what field of data let's you see which network (2.4 or 5Gzh) and the Channel Bandwidth your Mac is connected to.

As I said in my prior post, Xfinity locks down the settings in the router where I can see the options to do this but they won't let me make changes to test it (these options are grayed out, see screenshot below). I called their support line and they had me do some things to try to get the router to let me make changes but all options are still greyed out so I can't modify them.

That's why I'm curious if any else is having the same issue and has a router where they can make that change does their problem go away.

Just posting the same grievance that I am facing as well.... No tabs are opening in first try... Using wifi connected to 5G router and yet surprised to see the speed difference between my Desktop and M1 MacBook Pro 2020 net speeds....

Just really sad.... All these technological upgrades, yet unable to open Youtube in 4k in 2021 November. MacBook is giving speed of 7Mbps whereas Desktop is giving the desired speed of 142Mbps for a 150Mbps Wifi Plan.

Readers here be happy to work through this issue with you, But: ...

... this discussion is too crowded to keep each of the many voices separate and work through the details of your setup.

Please start a NEW discussion, and include the specs of your Mac and MacOS.

In addition, I ask you to hold the Option key while you click on the Wi-Fi Icon on the menuBar. This provides access to Wireless diagnostics AND please post a screenshot or transcribe the values shown there. Looks like this older version:

also, how many other Networks do you see?

I have an app called wifi explorer and one of the things it does is show me all the versions of my wifi that are available and which of those I am currently actually connected to. I have a satellite system (Orbi) and it operates 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz bands. Sometimes I get slower connection because it switches to the 2.4 Ghz band, which is just slower.

My old Intel laptop seemed much more stable and stuck with the 5 Ghz network as it should. Since I have a satellite it has to pick the best of my 4 choices: 2 2.4 Ghz networks and 2.5 Ghz networks. It was that bouncing around and sometimes picking the weakest network from the other side of the house that seemed to be my issue.

I would turn of 2.4 Ghz altogether except I am pretty sure my printer only handles 2.4 Ghz unfortunately.

If you option-click your network icon, it will show you more details of your connection, including your transmit rate. As you can see I am currently at Starbucks ...

johnjliu-

Your voice is one of many posted on a discussion that has sprawled to 8 pages of posts. Readers would be happy to give your network neighborhood a detailed analysis, BUT:

It is very difficult to do so on such a busy discussion, because each poster's details merge into one another in the Reader's mind.

For personalized analysis: please start a new discussion.

Post the details of your Mac model and MacOS version.

Hold the option key and click on the Wi-Fi icon on the Menubar. You will get a snapshot like this older one. Transcribe or screenshot the values in that snapshot:

.

Jonathan Payne1-

You have connected in the 5GHz band, with a 40MHz data pathway centered on channel 105. RSSI of -48 dB says you are very close to your Wi-Fi Router, and -94 noise less -48 RSSI yields signal-to-noise of 46, excellent.

using 802.11ac, you have achieved a transmit rate of 400 Mbytes/sec, the fastest that can be achieved on a 40 Mhz data pathway with an M1 Mac's two antennas.

If you have Wi-Fi explorer, look at its "spectrum" display for more insights. Here is an example:

(drag and drop on preview to see larger and scroll)

If you have little/no competition around channel 105, you could consider expanding to an 80 MHz data pathway. That may require you use the latest MacOS Monterey version 12.0.1, because of some high-speed problems in version 12.0.

So just to be clear my wifi works most of the time these days. Here's the spectrum display with everything but my networks filtered out:

Orbi does not use the blue channels, I think because they are required to shut down automatically if stray signals at a certain frequency are detected. That is a royal pain when it happens because your 5 Ghz network disappears and it takes minutes for it to come back. However, I kinda wish I could have access to that range ... because here are the rest of the networks visible to me:

I have been having similar issues with my 2021 MacBook Pro 16in with the M1 Pro chip. The wifi connection is consistently very spotty. My computer also does not allow me to select a different wifi network and most network settings never respond to my inputs. When opening network preferences, I get this screen:

It is very frustrating as I cannot even change from my underperforming wifi to a different network. Some sites never load via safari while I can access them through other devices on the same network.