New Mac Mini M2 Pro, Internet Problems

Ok, I've just changed a setting in the network hardware pane for my Ethernet connection:

switched to "configure manually"

disabled AVB/EAV mode

and rebooted.

It's been 15 minutes and internet is fast, downloads don't stall, and I haven't lost a single ping.

Patrick Proniewski wrote:

Ok, I've just changed a setting in the network hardware pane for my Ethernet connection:

switched to "configure manually"

disabled AVB/EAV mode

and rebooted.

It's been 15 minutes and internet is fast, downloads don't stall, and I haven't lost a single ping.

Sounds almost like it is a software bug if configuring manually solves the issue. Contact Apple support directly and report the issue and your work around. The issue may likely be cleared up in a quick macOS update for the new Macs if it is wide spread.

It is not all that unusual to find OS issues once a new product is released as they can't test every possible setup that can occur in the field, i.e. the multitude of routers old and new, all the internet providers with the multitude of modems, all the items consumers may have connected to their networks, etc. as all these possible combinations can count into millions of combinations.

This problem is already being discussed here Mac Mini M2 wifi issues - Apple Community

The same problem for me and others.

It seems it is wifi problem for all Mac Mini M2.

Such a shame! I hoped it would be a great device for reasonable price.

Got my Mac mini M2 pro yesterday and same issue here. When setting up the Mac Mini, I couldn't sign in with my Apple ID because connection to the Apple servers failed. Also the update from Mac OS 13.0 to 13.2 failed. The Ethernet connection toggles on and off every 2 seconds.

Then I connected the Mac mini to various other Ethernet switches to see if it would make a difference:

• Eth-Switch #1: Unstable ethernet connection, goes on and off every 2 seconds.
• Eth-Switch #2: Ethernet connection stays on, but very bad transfer rates. Internet download only approx. 15 kb/sec. iperf speed test between Mac Mini and iMac 27" in the same network showed unstable bursts of either 950 Mbit/sec or no traffic at all.
• Eth-Switch #3 (10 years old no-name switch): no problems, no packet loss, ~950 Mbit transfer rate.

If I turn off auto-negotiation and select manual configuration, ethernet works fine with all 3 switches. At least so far.

tldr: Disabling AVB/EAV also worked for me.

Brand new M2 Mac Mini arrived after a pre-order. After connecting via Ethernet I noticed the port which the Mini was connected to flapping on my switch.

Triage included:

1. Specifying Hardware speed / duplex
2. Alternative ports on my switching equipment
3. Alternative Cat6 connectivity
4. Changing IPv6 configuration based on other (older) threads detailing similar challenges
5. Obligatory rebooting of connected devices

If anyone has a reference or issue I could contribute logs to - share the details.

FYI to all who might come across this thread.

I've had really reliable connectivity since swapping my device and adjusting a few settings:

1. EAB/AVB as previously detailed
2. I have hardware speeds specified on both the Mini Ethernet and my switching - I appreciate you may not be able to do this with consumer or unmanaged equipment
3. Disabling any power save or sleep function I could find in Settings

I have been in touch with Apple a few times and provided information as best I can. They've been really great collecting information and interrogating my grey area diagnosis. Hopefully my experience is isolated as I observe 13.2.1 had made a noticeable improvement in connectivity reliability for both myself and others on this thread. If I get some time I will look at rolling back some of my changes starting with (2) above and see if I can isolate anything specific.

I just purchased a Mac mini M2 Pro and could only get 20 Mbps WiFi download speeds. Settings are all correct and a technical support call to Apple did not resolve the issue. Since the WiFi configurations appeared correct and all other apple products in the house worked great, I dug deeper in the interference aspect and found a solution. I am using a Qwiizlab USB C Hub Docking Station and the Mac mini Pro sits on top of it. Apparently, this was causing WiFi interference. I just added some felt spacers between the two and the download speed jumped immediately to 275 Mbps. I guess the Mac Mini needs some separation; I not sure where the WiFi antenna is located, but it acts like it is on the bottom. Hope this helps someone else... I was pulling my hair out.

I have very similar setup just delivered Monday; and, very very SLOW internet. Connected via ethernet/WiFi but loading a search appears after about a minute. Apple Support on first call said new item and knows very little. What? Received email stating to hook up to go over my new and great purchase. Is there a problem with the newer WiFi/Ethernet protocals causing this terrible problem. My 2011 iMac High Sierra and 2014 iMac Big Sur Are lightening fast on SAME network, same connection to Airport Extreme to AT&T Gateway - Wifi turned off, and selected router behind router, so as to pin hole security cameras through Airport easy. No problems for a decade. Doing a Recovery Mode re-install Ventura and says 45 hours. Yes, this does change; but, never seen such numbers, ever.

First Recovery Mode install failed. RM First Aide on all components of SSD, all OK.

Best, Seth

In my case the problem seems to be caused by EEE (Energy Efficient Ethernet, IEEE 802.3az). In automatic mode, MacOS turns on EEE if the remote station supports it. In manual mode it is off unless you specifically select it in the duplex settings.

The ethernet settings dialog does not reliably show whether EEE is actually enabled or not, but can be read from the kernel logs:

I tried with 4 different ethernet switches (with and without EEE support) and settings (automatic/manual): as soon as EEE is enabled, ethernet is unstable and slow. If EEE is off, everything works fine at full speed.

My old iMac 27" works fine with EEE enabled, though.

barturas wrote:

I had the same issue on my brand new Mini M2 Pro with ethernet ... disabling AVB/EAV mode helped.

It seems that we don't even need to disable AVB/EAV mode. We only need to select Configure to "Manually."

That problem could be caused by old Cat 5 cables or an old Ethernet switch.

I would first test a Cat 6 Ethernet cable between the Mac mini and your Router.

Then if that helps, I would replace any Cat 5 cables between the Router > Switch(es) > the M2 Mac mini with Cat 6 cables.

Same here (mac Mini M2 Pro), on average 30-45% ping failure. Very slow, some times impossible downloads (web page, dmg, etc.). Currently using cURL to download a 12 MB dmg file, it run's around 2.3KB/s (average over 34 minutes…).

Network is unreliable, has abysmal performances. It's a total disgrace for a brand new mac.

Yes, maybe it is internet problem. Because my new mac mini showed 2 bars of wifi connection but it was no internet connection. No one web site could load. When I placed the mac mini next to the broadband hub, web pages started to load but not that fast as on other devices. And we have numerous devices around the house, they all work fine.

I don't know if it is wifi problem or internet problem, software problem or hardware problem. I only know that I buy mac for one reason - I open the box, take the mac out and it works straight out of the box.

For all these configuring exercises and dancing with tambourines I can buy Windows machine or even play with Ubuntu on my old machine (it is what I do now).

I was having the same issue and Apple support couldn’t figure it out . Long story short I went through three machines in three days and I just saw your post and I cannot believe the simple little setting changed everything. Thank you thank you thank you.

I have the issues as well. Mac Mini with M2 Pro 10/16c. My 2.4 GHz works fine, but 5 GHz is terrible. It is slow and laggy, and it occasionally disconnects. Wired works great.

I contacted Apple Support and a Sr. Advisor gathered some logs and took some screenshots and then submitted everything to engineering for further investigation. I tried two different routers and both had same issue with 5 GHz.