New Mac Mini M2 has constant issues with wifi. Its unusable. Ethernet works perfectly, but when using wifi the connection will consistently drop packets. Wifi works perfectly with older Mac mini M1, MacBook Pro, Intel Mac in the same small office. I have turned off all other devices and still have same issue. Did a factory reset and same issues.
Mac mini (2023 with M2)
**Solution discovered** (but Mac MUST release a fix for this soon. Very unhappy with my new Mac Mini M2 Pro.)
it is a problem with Wi-Fi 6 routers that combine all the bands under one SSID (Wi-Fi name).
If you have Spectrum, their “smart” router doesn’t have the function to separate the bands and therefore will NOT work. You need to get another router and the bands have to be named separately as others have said in the posts.
this is an issue that shouldn’t be an issue, and I’m surprised no fix has come for this yet so regular people don’t have to become network professionals to get their internet to work!
it's the hdmi cable. unplug it, use a hdmi-usb c adapter and problem solved. mine went from unable to connect to 5ghz network to 600 Mbps speeds for download and upload after using the adapter. also, it's very sensitive to interference. speed drops to half if the power cord is bent near the mac mini.
How to turn off Wi-Fi 6E mode on your device
For Wi-Fi 6E networks that use a single network name as recommended, if you experience any other issues with your use of the network, you can turn off Wi-Fi 6E mode when connected to that network. Your device will then no longer use that network’s 6GHz band. Use of Wi-Fi 6E on other networks isn't affected.
Mac
I have also experienced the same issue, and even after upgrading to the latest version, it still occurs after a while. I suspect it's a problem with the HDMI connector because when I touch the HDMI connector, the signal improves, but the problem occurs again when I let go.
So, I switched to using a TypeC to HDMI cable to avoid using the HDMI interface.
It has been more than two days since the switch, and the problem no longer occurs. Moreover, I have tested the ping response speed, and it has become faster and more stable, without any sudden spikes in response time.
The above approach is provided for reference.
cedricwalter, could you repeat the speed tests grounding the HDMI and/or Thunderbolt plugs? Touch and hold the metal around the plug while you run the speed tests, or somehow ground the outside sheaths of the HDMI and/or Thunderbolt plugs. Other users have been guessing it is those jacks that are creating wi-fi interference and have been able to reduce Wi-Fi interference by grounding the HDMI plug.
Ken Shimabukuro,
I would like to supplement information. Since my monitor needs to connect to different devices (MacBook Pro, Mac mini M2), the video I provid was done using an HDMI (Mac mini M2) to DVI (monitor) cable connection (Case 1) . The ping statistics as below.
Case 1: HDMI (Mac mini M2) to DVI (monitor)
a) not touching on the HDMI cable:
--- google.com ping statistics ---
302 packets transmitted, 148 packets received, 51.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 8.180/728.515/5391.447/646.823 ms
b) holding on the HDMI cable:
--- google.com ping statistics ---
301 packets transmitted, 287 packets received, 4.7% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 5.371/75.366/870.181/142.597 ms
Case 2 :I also test HDMI (Mac mini M2) to HDMI (monitor) cable
a) Not touching on the HDMI cable:
--- google.com ping statistics ---
303 packets transmitted, 296 packets received, 2.3% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 6.996/483.700/1826.096/325.074 ms
b) holding on the HDMI cable:
--- google.com ping statistics ---
302 packets transmitted, 302 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 5.899/14.769/380.828/23.663 ms
For your reference.
Since CalDigit Docks are listed as causing wireless interference could you attach that CalDigit Thunderbolt 3 Mini Dock to your Mac mini using a Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) extension cable to get it as far away from your Mac mini as possible? Something like this extension cable or similar:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09L1475T3/
Then run a ping test again to google.com and report the packet loss.
It looks like the Thunderbolt 3 cable out of back of the CalDigit Thunderbolt 3 Mini Dock is maybe 6 inches long at the most. That would place any electromagnetic frequency interference emitted by it really close to the Mac mini’s Wi-Fi antenna.
I am having the same issue but I found a different reason for the WiFi issues then the other persons replying to this post.
I debugged over a week until I suddenly disconnected my HDMI monitor from my Mac mini. After that, my WiFi was stable with out any issues like packet loss or high latency. I then plugged in my HDMI cable again and the issue appeared again.
I change the HDMI cable to one with "perfect" isolation, but it doesn't matter.
After monitoring that behavior with the HDMI port, I debugged a little more and came to the result that as soon as the HDMI cable is to close to the Mac mini, the WiFi issues appears. This means, if I plug in the HDMI cable and the cable itself is going straight away from the Mac mini, there are no issues.
I got a confirmation to this behavior on reddit. Mac mini M2 Pro - WiFi issues.
It seems that the WiFi issues are home made by Apple. There is a big design failure in the Mac mini M2 Pro.
Unfortunately, it seems that there is no statement from Apple to these issues.
Can I just confirm this - I had the issues with my new Mac Mini M2 Pro and had Apple engineers calling me to go through several checks to isolate the problem. In the end I hooked up my two monitors through two new Thunderbolt (USB-C) to HDMI cables from Amazon and stopped using the HDMI port altogether and the issue is resolved. Clearly, the HDMI port inteferes with the wi-fi and is useless.
I experienced the same problem (high ping - hundreds of ms) and failing network connectivity on my macbook when my router switched to channel 100 on 5GHz. By disabling "Auto select channel including DFS channels" I solved the issue.
There are 16 DFS channels: 52, 56, 60, 64, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 136, 140, and 144. (DFS channels)
When I noticed the network is slow again I checked which channel is being used at the moment and it was channel 100 in my case. I tried to manually select "non-DFS" channel and the ping was totally fine again!
Let me share some of my recent experiences with the 5Ghz WiFi network and MacBook Pro M2 and solution.
We have some of FortiAPs in the company and some M1, M2, 2019 and 2016 MacBook Pros. Last week, some M2 could not connect to 5GHz WiFi. Other models have no problems at all. The issue is that when M2 tries to connect 5GHz WiFi, the WiFi icon will show an exclamation mark and say the network is connected but no Internet. After my testing and research, I found out that there are some channels in which M2 will have no connection. See my chart, the green channel means the connection is working, and the grey channel means no Internet when M2 is connected. So if you have control of your router, please test the channel one by one by selecting the specific channel only and let your 5GHz Wifi run only with one channel. Then you will know what channels your M2 has trouble with. In my case, the upper channel (161 on most AP)will not work with these M2s, but channel 36 works fine. I am not sure if it's WiFi adapter issues or driver issues. I will test it with a new external WiFi adapter.
I had the same issue. My monitor was connected through the HDMI port and in one of the Thunderbolt ports I had a USB-C hub with external devices connected. WiFi dropped after a while and I was unable to reconnect, it kept asking for the router password! Meanwhile my iPhone and iPad were connected to WiFi normally.
Guess what, as soon as I unplugged the USB-c hub my WiFi started working on the MacMini. Then I read something HMDI interference. I tried several HDMI cables but that didn't make any difference.
Since I connected the monitor by USB-C to HDMI cable all WiFi works perfectly. Simultaneous use of HDMI and USB-C (Thunderbolt) port seems to be the issue, at least in my case.
Perhaps a future Ventura update can improve this so that all ports can be connected without interference issues. My HDMI port remains unused because of this but I need WiFi connection!
OMFG
I've been having wifi issues with my mini; first the M1 and now the M2 pro. EXCRUSCIATINGLY SLOW...9mbps...and sometimes I had to wait a whole 5 minutes for the speed test to START to perform. Unreal. Every other device on the network was lightning fast so clearly it wasn't an ISP issue. I've had to use ethernet to get a decent connection. That's right....2023, brand new Mac mini...and I need to use ethernet. How is this even possible? I've scoured the discussion boards and discovered options like splitting my SSID which disrupted everything else in the house (ring cams) so that was a no go.
I came across a discussion that mentioned connecting your monitor using the hdmi port on the mini was causing interference with 2.4G and throwing everything out of whack. The suggestion was to get a hdmi to usb-c adapter to hook up the monitor and lo.....and f'in behold....it worked.
Yup...using the hdmi port on the mac mini will make your wifi (and life) miserable. My prediction for the next mini will be that they eliminate the hdmi port altogether or at least they should...if they have ANY pride left.
Apple....you aren't exactly giving these machines away. We pay good money and expect QUALITY. If we wanted all these **** problems, we'd get a PC at a fraction of the cost. Get your **** together. Jobs is rolling in his grave.
I bought my Mac mini m2 yesterday and was working fine (Updated to 13.6). today all sites were taking ages to load. I switched to the 2.4 ghz slightly better but not as expected. my windows 2010 machine was better :(. After doing some research it appears to be Apple has set the wifi on both 5 ghz and 2.4 to use WPA3 authentication. the routers of most people will be using WPA2 Personal. Lucky my ASUS router gave me the option to pick WPA2/WPA3 Personal and that is when everything started playing nice.
Check this on your router first as returning the mini won't resolve the issue. I hope someone from apple here will pick this and set this option as a default in the Mac mini wifi config.
I just moved it. I had it placed on top of my Mac mini (just like I do with my Mac Studio at work). After moving it, Airdrop is being more consistent so far. I transfer files via Airdrop several times a day, so I’ll quickly know if this was the issue. If it is, the the Max Mini M2 does have an interference vulnerability not seen on other Macs.
I have following update: after a little while the WiFi dropping issue returned connecting the monitor by USB-C to HDMI. This time I analyzed my router settings that offer both 2.4GHz as 5GHz network. For this I logged on to the router as admin. Per default 5GHz uses bandwidth of 20/40/80MHz, 2.4GHz only 20 MHz. I noticed no devices would connect to 5GHz anymore with the Mac Mini online.
After changing the bandwidth for 5GHz to 20/40 only, my WiFi stabilised. All devices (iPhone, iPad) connected to 5GHz, including my MacMini. I also connected the monitor back with HDMI-to-HDMI cable.
More than 2 weeks the WiFi connection has remained stable like this. Below link contains more information. Still I need to emphasize that I never ever had issue with my previous Mac on the same network with other devices connected to WiFi simultaneously.
https://computermesh.com/wifi-channel-width-20-mhz-vs-40-mhz-vs-80-mhz/#iii_80_MHz
Mac Mini M2 wifi issues
