Mac Mini M2 wifi issues

A further observation I've made is that my internet connection will also drop out for a few seconds whenever I wake my nearby iPhone, so it seems this could be related to iPhone <> Mac technologies such as HandOff, AirDrop etc.

I've found a very useful free menubar app that monitors the internet connection and shows the internet dropouts very clearly for anyone who wants to monitor their own connection: https://getpingr.app/

Thanks for sharing, glad it worked for you on the Mac Mini. Unfortunately, MacBooks for example, you cannot do those steps. Disabling AWDL fixes all Mac's.

Can you do me a favor, as this has been suggested before and always had opposite results. This is assuming you have services such as Airplay, Airdrop, Sidecar, and bluetooth still enabled.

Hold down option and click your WiFi icon. What channel are you using? Next, open a terminal and ping your gateway IP or another LAN device. The pings should stay around 2-7ms. Here's 2 examples of what you should see (first picture) and what 1000's of others are seeing with AWDL on (second picture).

All, Apple just released a supplemental update days after 13.3. Very uncommon.

I suggest everyone redo your tests. Enabling all services, and checking in a terminal "sudo ifconfig awdl0" making sure status is active. Revert your routers enabling all channels, except leave 6/149 (44 UK) disabled.

I'll be disabling channels 6/149, and testing all channels invididually. I'll report back by tomorrow.

I'm using Mesh WiFi via Linksys router (one 2.4GHz channel + dual 5GHz channel: 44 & 153).

Normally my Mac mini in channel: 44

The ping of my Mac mini keeping in 0.1x - 0.2x ms only (with AWDL turned on).

During the test, I have tried Airplay & Airdrop from iPad to Mac mini.

It's 5GHz WiFi only. No any cable connected except the power cord & hdmi.

The Mac mini is connected to sub-router wifi signal.

My Mac placed inside my bedroom, The sub-router is located outside the door.

My main-router is using 1000Mbps wired at the living room.

I don't know what's happened but my network connectivity seems to have got worse in the last day or so. The 5GHz Wifi fixed to Channel 44 had been fairly stable (if I avoided trying to use AirDrop etc.), but now my pings are very variable. Here's the results of this morning's tests:

2.4Ghz Channel 6 with AWDL active

5GHz Channel 44 with AWDL active

2.4Ghz Channel 6 with AWDL inactive

5Ghz Channel 44 with AWDL inactive

After Restarting the computer

5Ghz Channel 44 with AWDL active

5Ghz Channel 44 with AWDL inactive

After a restart with AWDL inactive on 5Ghz, it's a bit better but pings are still all over the place.

Very frustrating...

Here's some further observations after another week of testing anything and everything. Firstly a recap of my Mac's specific issues:

1) Internet connectivity on 5GHz (Channel 44) had been mostly unusable. High pings, regular disconnects.

2) Internet connectivity on 2.4Ghz (Channel 6) was useable, but at ~50% of the potential connection speed.

3) Regular ping spikes every second or so, moderate packetloss and high jitter

4) Selecting AirDrop in a Finder window, or having the Displays system setting pane active caused high pings and internet connectivity to dropout.

Results of this weeks tests:

1) Re-installing macOS changed nothing.

2) Updating macOS changed nothing.

3) Changing the Wi-Fi Security to WPA2-WPA3-Personal (as mentioned in this thread) changed nothing.

4) Turning off Setting time zone and System customisation in Privacy & Security > Locations Services didn't help, even though I'd read that has caused regular ping spikes for others.

4) Rebooting into Safe Mode though did allow the Mac to connect reliably to the 5Ghz network, at the full connection speed, pings were consistently <10ms with no jitter or packetloss. However it didn't stop the connection drops when an AirDrop window or the Displays system settings are active.

5) Rebooting back into normal mode the 5Ghz connection is still working, pings are still below 10ms for 99% of the time with no packetloss. However, the Internet connection still drops when the AirDrop window or Displays system settings are active. AirDrop transfers work when initiated from my iPhone or Mac, but the Mac internet connection times out whilst the transfer is in progress. The Macs internet connection restores once the AirDrop transfer is complete (from the iPhone side), or the AirDrop window is closed (on the Mac side).

So, at the moment, for me, rebooting into Safe Mode and back into Normal mode seems to have fixed the slow 5Ghz connection, the high (regular) pings, the high jitter, but not the connection time outs when the AirDrop window or Displays system settings are active.

Here's my current pings on 5Ghz. Red is when an AirDrop window is active, yellow when the Displays system settings is active and white is when neither are active.

I'll see if things change over time, or something triggers the other issues to start up again.

If you have the WiFi connection, but no Internet, try adding the DNS servers manually in your WiFi details:

In my example above, the first entry is my router, a setting that works fine for all my other devices, but on my new Mac Mini M2 Pro I had to add the other two values (im my case I use Cloudflare) in order to get Internet.

Updated to Ventura 13.4 but still experiencing the same issues for the wifi (2.4Ghz).

The 5Ghz one is worse (dropping more often for longer durations + sometimes encountering this error "Your Mac successfully joined the Wi-Fi network, but cannot reach the internet.").

None of my other devices (including iPhone, MacBook, Windows laptop) are experiencing issues like this at the same exact location.

I have contacted Apple Support (online) and they could not figure out anything. Later, I have arranged for a Genius bar appointment at the Apple Store, but the wifi isn't dropping at the store and they could not replicate the problem there. I have informed the Apple Genius Bar team member to refer to this particular thread, and make a note of it when he sends the Mac mini to Apple Repair for further investigation. 3 days later, I picked up the Mac mini and they told me that they could not find any problems.

I have already tried the suggestions mentioned in the thread (eg. the AWDL stuff, changing wifi channels in the router settings) and those did not help either. I totally regret not returning the Mac mini when I could have done it, incorrectly assuming that it is a software issue that Apple would be able to fix easily. And wifi randomly dropping like this is making this Mac mini almost completely unusable...

Does anyone else have any other suggestions (besides using the ethernet)? Thank you

I think issue is solve, by the way using USB C to connect monitor, I ran wireless diagnostics to catch when my mac disconnect from Network and i figured out that computer flag error related with my new location (Other country), so i disable "Networking and wireless". for now its working property without incidents

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.

So, it's really weird. If I touch the TB3 adapter, the pings go to "normal time"... 2-3 or 4 ms. But when I let go, they jump back up to 400-800 ms... in that range, with some dropped packets. The same thing happened when I would just touch the power cord as well. Or if I just put my finger over the HDMI port on the Mac Mini M2. It occasionally spikes up to around 135ms. I also had an external dock connected to my Mac. It was a USB-C Dock with various ports. Once I removed that (and removed it from the space) I'm seeing an actual patter with the ping responses. They basically go down to normal, with a cycle of about 8-9 normal responses, one at 50 something, one at around 100 and then another around 150. But after 5 minutes or so, it went chaotic. Then it went back to this cycle.

I wonder if it has to do with HDMI cables being really EMI noisy...

https://tech.ikarus.sg/wfh-bad-wifi-hdmi/#:~:text=HDMI%20cables%20are%20really%20noisy&text=Without%20proper%20shielding%2C%20the%20RF,WiFi%20being%20the%20first%20sign.

And if using an HDMI cable with ferrite cores would help.

AbuYang,

what are your ping statistics if you ping google.com all while grounding the HDMI plug versus a video of you pinging while never touching the HDMI plug? What are the ping statistics if you stop the ping (press Control + C to finish the ping)? What the difference in packet loss between pinging while holding the HDMI plug versus not touching the HDMI plug at all?

Ken Shimabukuro,

following your advice,

In the past two days, I conducted interference tests on the cables I currently have in order to gain a clearer understanding of the problem. Here are the details of the testing:

Environment Information: Mac mini Pro m2, approximately 3 meters straight-line distance from the Wi-Fi.

Four cable specifications were tested, with the left side representing the Mac mini interface specification and the right side representing the monitor interface specification:

Cable-1: HDMI to DVI

Cable-2: HDMI to MDMI (no specific mention of electromagnetic interference resistance)

Cable-3: HDMI to HDMI (product description emphasizes passing EMI testing, but no built-in ferrite core )

Cable-4: Type C to HDMI

Testing Method A:

After connecting the cables in the normal manner, I used the "ping google.com" command to obtain response time statistics and packet loss ratio.

Testing Method B:

This part of the testing focused only on the cables that experienced packet loss. I connected them in the normal manner, but I placed a loop made of a paperclip around the HDMI port on the Mac mini, making contact with the Mac mini's casing.

Results of Testing Method A:

Cable-1:

--- google.com ping statistics ---

647 packets transmitted, 493 packets received, 23.8% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 7.789/497.955/3202.940/399.555 ms

Cable-2:

--- google.com ping statistics ---

643 packets transmitted, 642 packets received, 0.2% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 5.586/45.693/418.921/62.881 ms

Cable-3:

--- google.com ping statistics ---

655 packets transmitted, 655 packets received, 0.0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 5.409/25.787/387.142/37.545 ms

Cable-4:

--- google.com ping statistics ---

3451 packets transmitted, 3451 packets received, 0.0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 5.420/13.269/421.740/17.034 ms

After conducting Testing Method A, it was found that Cable-3 and Cable-4 did not experience any packet loss. Therefore, only Cable-1 and Cable-2 were subjected to Testing Method B.

============================================================================

Results of Testing Method B:

Cable-1:

--- google.com ping statistics ---

72 packets transmitted, 14 packets received, 80.6% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 7.306/20.203/56.552/12.645 ms

For some reason, after starting Testing Method B, the entire network almost became unresponsive with no response. Therefore, the testing for Cable-1 had to be abandoned.

Cable-2:

--- google.com ping statistics ---

761 packets transmitted, 761 packets received, 0.0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 5.430/12.367/180.786/14.893 ms

After two rounds of testing:

Cable-1: It was directly abandoned and no longer used on the Mac mini, as the network quality deteriorated almost every time it was used.

Cable-2: After Testing Method B, the packet loss disappeared, and the Ping statistics were similar to Cable-3 and Cable-4. However, since it requires a temporary grounding device, a longer duration of testing is needed to determine if the problem is truly resolved.

Cable-3: Similarly, it is an HDMI cable and performs normally without the need for an additional temporary grounding device. Does passing the EMI test truly achieve effective electromagnetic interference resistance?

Cable-4: It consistently performed well and helped narrow down the problem to the HDMI interface.

Currently, I am using Cable-4 and will wait until I have a longer period of free time to switch to Cable-3 or Cable-2 with the temporary grounding device and conduct extended testing (approximately half a day to a full day of normal operation).

The above information is provided for reference.