WiFi randomly disconnects and "airportd" + "efilogin-helper" process using 100% + 250% of CPU

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WiFi randomly disconnects and "airportd" + "efilogin-helper" process using 100% + 250% of CPU

Hey,

I have an A2251 (macos 14.3) Macbook Pro and recently (last 2-3 months) I started having massive issues with WiFi. (Haven't tested with ethernet, but I need to use WiFi in many places so it is not always an option)

What happens is that at random times, my WiFi drops out, everything stops pinging, the system becomes unresponsive, it takes a couple of minutes for the WiFi settings to open from the action center, and the network shows as "not connected".

When I open Activity Monitor, I can see the airports and efilogin-helper processes taking up 100% and 250% CPU respectively, and after a couple more minutes, the network is accessible again.

I tried to do everything on the router side, changing channels, switching back to 2GHz, using WiFi 6, and it seems to have no impact on my system as it still keeps randomly borking itself and making me waste half an hour fixing it every single time, multiple times a day. Previously I tried resetting the SMC and PRAM, it seemed to have fixed the issue for a few days, but the issue is back again, and I am completely frustrated with this OS.

Has anyone faced this issue besides me? Has anyone any reason/explanation/fix for this?

MacBook Pro (2017 – 2020)

Posted on Jan 27, 2024 6:01 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 28, 2024 8:52 AM in response to dodancs

This has been happening to me for the past 24 hours. CPU running high (process is "airportd"), network drops and reconnects frequently (once a minute or more).

I switched from my home's 2.4Ghz network to its 5Ghz network and now everything is running nice and smoothly. I've been using the 2.4Ghz network with many devices for 8 years without issues. Same for the 5Ghz network (both are actually the same wifi system).

I'm not convinced the "problem is solved", but for now I am able to work again.

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Answer 2

Mar 27, 2024 3:50 AM in response to dodancs

I'm finding this on an M1 MBP as well - (14.4.1 currently, but been happening for many versions now).

The laptop is just sitting there doing nothing but pinging my internal gateway address, and then it randomly starts dropping pings, and the "airportd" daemon spikes up high in CPU utilisation.

After a random (varying) number of seconds, the pings return to normal and airportd disappears again.

Rinse and repeat all day long.

Have tried changing all the wifi settings - nothing helps.

Meanwhile I have a cheap, old Windows laptop sitting next to the MBP on the same WiFi and it never misses a beat.

I hate this rubbish apple wifi; it's terrible.

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WiFi randomly disconnects and "airportd" + "efilogin-helper" process using 100% + 250% of CPU

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