MacBook Pro M1 WiFi issue

I haven't had a chance yet to get on the phone with them which will probably take an hour or two, but I made an interesting observation. I started up in safe mode which is generally working around the issue, i.e. internet is fast. Now I kept it on for about a week and slowness was creeping in to the extent that I had to restart in safe mode again. And it is back snappy. I am only using standard software, apart from what Apple provides (no extensions in Safari): chrome, excel, word, ppt, lightroom, outlook, signal, whatsapp, acrobat, backblaze. All is uptodate. So it feels like that something is loaded which interferes. Either from the start in normal mode, or over time in safe mode.

Ok it seems it is now stable, I enabled MU-MIMO and Beamforming options on my Orbi RBK50 Wifi mesh.

This seems to help.

Onawe--

are you running any third-party Virus scanners, speeder-uppers, cleaners, optimizers, a VPN, or third-party File sync-ers such as Dropbox, OneDrive, or similar?

I checked the DNS setting and changed it to open DNS, I also changed some of my access point setting (removed 20/40MHz coexistence. I also removed one my home Wifi networks from my known networks. Let us.

But it is a good idea to run the wifi diagnostics anyway, that may give you a hint:

https://support.apple.com/HT202663

If the "network-name" separately changeable for either the 2.4GHz or the 5GHz portion of the network?

If it is, you could name it slightly different name from 2.4GHz and selectively connect the M1 Mac to the 2.4GHz radio, skirting the problem without spending more money.

Work-arounds already posted on this thread include:

use an Ethernet cable [but Ethernet adapters have their own problems under very heavy loads]

Change to 2.4 GHz band

modify Router 5 GHz settings away from the problematic (for the M1) 80 MHz channel width, back to (more compatible) 40 MHz channel width.

What have you done to try to isolate the cause of the problem so that Apple can fix it?

tianwg -- since you can reproduce it with the HDMI adaptor, you should run Wireless Diagnostics with the HDMI adaptor and without it, and then send it to Apple.

TickyTocky7 -- you should run Wireless Diagnostics multiple times, keeping track of the behavior of the networking hardware as you do. Especially if you can generate runs where speed was normal throughout the whole run, compromised throughout the whole run, or shifted back and forth between the two states.

A lot of the evidence points to some sort of subtle intermittent hardware failure. This is basically impossible to find without having the hardware that's failing. If your mac is within the period that Apple will swap out the hardware, you should get them to swap it out and then they will have a machine to test with.

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 I run into trouble occasionally when I reboot my Mac or wake it up from sleep. I have a ping (to my router) running in a Terminal window, once every 4 seconds, to give me a feel.

I run wifi explorer when I see issues, and what I personally see when things are not going well is that one of my 4 wifi networks is missing. I have a satellite system, one base and one satellite (Orbi) and so I have two 2.4 Ghz networks and two 5 Ghz networks (all with the same name). One is way closer than the other (which is why I have a satellite at all) and if that one disappears, my system seems to connect to the weak 5 Ghz from the main router on the other side of the house rather than the really strong 2.4 Ghz from the satellite.

I don't know why it does that. When my closer 5 Ghz network reappears in wifi explorer, my wifi reconnects to it automatically and immediately and I am off to the races.

I am not sure what causes the 5 Ghz network to disappear periodically. THAT could be the bug in the chip/driver/hardware in my M1 Mac Pro laptop. OR, the problem could be that the driver is favoring the wrong network of the remaining 3 when that happens. If I still had my old laptop I could compare their behaviors to see the 5 Ghz network disappears from my old laptop as well. Actually - I do have an older laptop and I could run that experiment.

So - if you have a single router spitting out 2.4 and 5 Ghz signals OR a satellite system like me, I could see something like this as being the culprit. And adjusting the angle of your screen might change the signal strength of one of the signals such that you connect back to it and have a good connection rather than the system choosing the wrong one.

There's something wrong with your Mac! Are all those controls disabled? Are you an administrator?

Interestingly I do not have a screen like that which offers Use iCloud Private Relay, which you should turn off while you're having problems like this. I do not think the iCloud Private Relay is ready for prime time. And ... I cannot see how to turn it on with my new laptop running 12.1.

Ah yes - it's an option in your iCloud settings. So - go to your iCloud settings and turn off iCloud relay. See if that helps you in any way.

I think Apple has an issue here which it has not been able to resolve yet and sadly does not admit, like the memory leak problem which got fixed but was not admitted. 

I have tried all of the above suggestions (like disable Limit IP tracking, deleting old networks and reestablishing them...) and one gets the impression it does something but then lag is creeping in again. 

The suggestions posted in the link from the post just above do not explain why a brand new model should have an issue which older and different models have not in the same use environment. 

My suspicion is it has to do with certain routers or protocols, as if it lacks some backwards compatibility or interferes with itself. It is mostly slow at home (but all other devices in my home run just fine, including my previous 2018 Macbook), but when I take it to work it is quite a bit faster and feels snappy and normal (as it should). Backblaze might also slow things down (which I quite do not understand how this impacts download speed when Backblaze uses mostly upload). 

Interestingly, starting in safe mode is generally snappy (but this can not be a permanent solution). So apple support says that it is probably one of the extensions, but 1 hr telephone support could not identify the issue, I think it is an incompatibility with network settings (probably a driver of the new machine is the issue); and, I did migrate my machine software from a machine which had no issues, to the best hardware available, telling me my extensions work find in a 2018 machine but not in a 2021 machine (with all software being uptodate) - VERY FRUSTRATING

I have had extremely unreliable wifi of late.

My wifi system is Orbi with 1 satellite.

I noticed my iPhone was also having issues. Then I broke out 2015 laptop which is 802.11/ac at best and it, too, was having problems with a simple 'ping the router' test.

I seem to have fixed the problem by changing my Orbi router to do WPA3 Personal instead of WPA2 Personal.

The reason I made this change is (1) my printer broke and it was the only one that might not have handled it, and (2) my Orbi router said "Note: 6Ghz WiFi supports only WPA3 encryption".

I think 6Ghz is part of the back channel ... but I really don't know.

Anyway - I have not dropped a single packet while pinging my router for several hours. Prior to this I was dropping loads.

No idea if this is related or not but I thought someone here might benefit from this.

On that topic:

Resolve Wi-Fi and Bluetooth issues caused by wireless interference - Apple Support

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<< ... 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

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