WiFi Issues With MacBook Air

Hi,

Owner of a Macbook Air 11 (late 2010), i had no particular issue for month to connect to my home network (or never really noticed it), I was on 10.6 and migrated to 10.7 still no issue with the Wifi.

But i did have a problem with my screen and needed a replacement under warranty.

And it's when i got my macbook air with the new screen that all the wifi related in this post happen to me.

Wifi drop, horrible ping to my routeur, ramdom connection after a restart with sometime ping under 10 ms to have a usable internet and drop to more 1000ms with lot of time out.

Posting in a different forum, it looked like something happen when they changed my screen, maybe related to an antenna not connected correctly.

I then took a first appointment at the Apple store was, able to reproduce the issue on one of the network but the other was working fine.

First visit (after 5 days waiting for an opening)

Genius acknowledge the issue, took my MBA in the back, come back telling that it refixed the antenna and apologize for the previous mistake.

we do a quick test, page are loading, i feel like it's the end of it.

Come back home and got the same issue with my home network, so i check my router, all ym other PC or phone are connected correctly, i deceide the separate the 2.4 and 5ghz network on my linksys E4200. but nothing happen and i can't get a stable conenction without lot of drop out or high response time.

Second visit (the same day)

I went back right to the apple store, of course without appointment they made me wait for a free genius (1 hour wait) .

Genius take my MBA, see it got lion and said that it's an OS issue, plus an external hardrive with snow leopard. try again and internet work. i try to reproduce the issue but it seems to be stable.

He then tell me to reinstall OSX snow leopard to fix the issue for the time being.

When home, i find my USB stick with snow leaopard, wipe out my disk and put a fresh install of Snow leopard.

fist connection on the brand new OS, i connect to the wifi but got bad connection with the same issue. I cannot even update OSX as the update server time out.

Very disapointed i take another appointement with the Apple store.

Third visit

I explain again my issue, one of the genius start to say that it come from the osx and explained that i putted back snow leopard. In the apple store i show that the connection isn't good on their wifi, he compare on his mac book pro and got the same 300ms response to ping and said it's normal.

I explained that i tried with three difeerent localtion and network and can even reproduce it with their wifi connection. and after 15 min of pushing that i think the antenna within my screen aren't working he accept to change the screen again and the airport card.

Got my MBA a week later (visibly it was ready the next day, but it seems that their phone call never reached my phone) try again in the apple store, got a ! mark error and high latency. i let the genius know that i will check at home.

Came back home and have the same issue 😟. only way to have a connection it's to physically site the MBA on my lynksys routeur. I also installed istumbler to check the strenght of the signal and 3 meter from the routuer it's already down to 50% when my Vaio show 98% signal.

In the mean while i reinstalled snow leaopard again to be sure that i don't get the Lion OSX is the issue

After that, i am not that convinced that the issue is fully related to OSX as i didn't have any particular issue even with lion, before i had my screen replaced. so maybe the issue is related to the antenna and some of screen have Issue with it.

For those who had an issue, could you install istumbler and check the strenght of your signal. and if you have another mac without any issue, install it on it too and compare the two result.

on my case, i don't know what to do, probably another trip to the apple store, in order to receive the same condescending talk.

Thanks for any advice on how resolve this.

Chris

^ I feel your pain Chris and cmtyeson.

I tried to do some investigation on signal strength when I got the dreaded black screen freeze up tonight. This has happened on my beautiful MBA about a dozen times since I bought it. It it not a crash and I don't even think a freeze per se but the screen simply goes black and there is nothing you can do except restart...

There is a related issue when the MBA will not wake from sleep also.

These issues along with the ongoing WiFi problems are rendering this Mac almost useless as a traveling and/or business computer.

What advice do we get from Apple - always the same crap - reinstall your OS. And of course that almost never fixes ANYTHING. That is why I refuse. It simply takes too long to get everything set back up again.

I am going to try to tell my story to someone senior at Apple in Customer Service or write a letter to Tim Cook and let one of he "aides" read it.

This is one of the worst computers I have owned, period.

Anyway back to signal strength... One should probably use dBm as an absolute scale instead of a somewhat arbitrary percentage from a particular app. In my case iStumble reports a 30% reduction from the room with my router to my normal use spot, but the WiFi indicator in the menu bar always shows all 4 bars. That same 30% change in iStumble corresponds to almost an 40 dBm change in signal strength. It seems very odd the a 40 dBm change makes no change in the 4 bars. You can get the dBm number by holding the option key while clicking on the WiFi icon in the menu bar. Thinking maybe a bug in reported signal strengths (just like what happened with the iPhone 4) was involved I checked my wifes MacBook with OSX 10.6.8 and found a similar pattern from room to room.

Just wanted to chime in here, i'm experiencing very slow connection to pretty much any wireless network I try. Even at home with my brand new router the Macbook Air 13"/i7/256 doesn't automatically connect, I have to choose the network manually (yes the network has been saved in the preferences). Sometimes it doesn't even connect on the first go, I have to choose it manually in the wireless drop down 2-3 times to connect.

I hope this is a software issue, and can be resolved in a coming update.

I can't evne get iStumbler to stay running. It keep crashing. But I did get a reading of 55% signal strength about 25 feet from an the Airport router.

I'll report my finding with a 2009 MBP tomorrow (it's in the office).

I'm seeing the same behavior on my 2011 13" Macbook Air, 1.8, i7, Lion pre installed, now running 10.7.2

After waking from sleep (usually opening the lid), there is no connection to the network. Sometimes I get the message 'none of your preferred networks can be found'. Select the network, sometimes it connects, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it asks for the WPA Password (apparently there's an issue with the WEP passwords and this issue), sometimes it doesn't.

Have only had the MBA for a couple of weeks, this is the first Apple product I've ever owned that has failed to 'just work'.

My network uses an Airport Extreme, and today my MacPro, MacBook Pro 17", iPad2 all connected to the network automatically after being woken from sleep. Just as they do every time. The only one that doesn't is the 2011 MacBook Air 13".

I've gotten all the way up to a senior advisor on Apple Care. We reset the Keychains, the System Configurations, basically set the machine as if it had never seen a network. And today, the issue persists.

I have calls into the advisor to let him know, will post here if I get anything helpful.

Macbook Air 11, 2011, Lion ....same thing; initially connects then drops connection. I just start turning my wifi off and then on again and it'll work. If I'm lucky it'll stay connected for another few minutes till when I have to do it again. After being on for about 5 or more minutes it'll stay connected and everything's great ....but these intitial problems with getting it to connect after sleep are making me uncharacteristically grumpy.

I don't like being uncharacteristically grumpy.

I think i found my problem, remember I bought my MBA with lion installed and i got all the updates so...

Like I said it just started recently (2-3 weeks now)..

TO THE POINT.

I was keeping itunes, mail, ichat, twitter for mac, growl (mac app store version), and safari open at login, when the udates started coming in the computer started freezing and i would have to turn off and back on wifi. for the past 2 days I have turned off growl, ichat, itunes unless i needed them. Safari, mail and twitter stay on all the time and i have yet to have a problem. I think it might be something in itunes because a few minutes ago i opened itunes (while surfing) to sync over wifi and my page in safari "freezed", i turned off and back on and it was fine for a few minutes and then it started again. I said the heck with it and was just going to turn the computer off and started to close itunes. As soon and I quit itunes the page woke up (best way to put it) and finished loading. I repeated this effect 2 more times and then just to make sure I opened a few more things to run over wifi before turning itunes on. It worked, never been so happy to see the wifi freeze up and drop the connection. I am able to run itunes fine even while safari is open but not in use.

Now having said all this it will probably freeze up and drop every 10 seconds tomarrow but right it's a Good Apple. lol... try it, hope it helps!

I've described my issue of no or very slow connectivity on 40% of the networks I encounter here before, and some proposed solutions like the editing of a particular config file through the terminal window, or the altogether removing and again adding of wifi in the preferences screen seemed to work for a day or so, only for the problem to return.

Like others, I've repeatedly asked the Apple repair kids for help. Nothing they proposed worked. I challenged them, asking if they had any idea or if they were just roubleshouting. I brought this forum post to their attention and they admitted they had never heard about this problem. Yet they sell loads of new MacBook Airs, so are we the unlucky ones? What if instead of trying to solve the problem I had gone back to the store the day after I bought it and demanded to receive a replacement? Would I have been the happy owner of a working Mac? I wonder.

Either way, since it always seemed to work at the Apple store when they tested it, after weeks of troubleshooting I said "Look, just give me one of those Time Capsule things. If that combo works at least I've fixed my connectivity at home. If not, then I'll return both products because i've proven it's solely Apple's problem." It worked!

I got the Time Capsule instead of the Airport Extreme because buying a new wifi to replace a working one felt like throwing good money after bad. With the Time Capsule at least I get the added benefit of a much improved backup system.

As I reported previously here, we did take our less-than-2-week old Macbook Air in and they exchanged it for a new one. Same problems with the wi-fi connection. The apple care person we called did say they have an engineering group working on the issue. ( tried to fix it remotely several times, by adjusting settings, etc. 10.7.2 did not fix our problem. We have connected to the internet with a cable, so the computer is no good for travel and business as it is so unreliable. Worst of all, two weeks ago it froze and had to be totally reinstalled from our external harddrive (we have customized settings for the machine).

As with the rest of you, all other Apple products continue to connect to the wi-fi (3 other Apple computers, -- even our Squeezebox internet radios). We have bought a new Airport Express, had the apple router checked out, etc. Our feeling is that it has to be Lion, as our other computers have older systems and have had no problems.

Let's hope someone gets through to upper management, or Walter Mossberg or someone to bring attention to this problem.

You have consistently had good input. Do you think we could get attention from Mossberg (WSJ) if there is someway to post the salient elements of this ongoing issue? We represent a good number of folks by this time.

I have a MBA, purchased about two weeks ago. Same issue. I called Apple tech line, brought it to their attention. I also emailed their tech people under product review. I have not heard anything, but will continue to monitor this thread, it seems our voices are beginning to be heard.

Update on my end. Have been travelling to India, Singapore, Korea, China over the last 3 weeks and have no issues at all. However home network in Hong Kong with PCCW still has issues. Luckily folks from PCCW have been very helpful - they say many other MBA users have the same issue with the standard PCCW router (Netvigator), no such issues with Windows/PC. Basically they suggest switching the settings to "g" and channel 6 and seems to work. Apparently channel 11 also seems to work for some reason. So apparently in Hong Kong the fix is if connection goes down, switch wireless off then on again and move it to channel 6 or 11. So fingers crossed this should be a fix. But irritating that Apple seems to be happy selling a premium-priced laptop with such substandard ability to connect- and that my broadband provider has been a lot more helpful than Apple has. If my MBA wasn't so new, I would switch back to windows/PC right away, but I guess am stuck with it for awhile.

Thanks scalpel73, very helpful for me. It's not really an ideal fix that they have come up with in my opinion, as it's unlikely to help anyone who is needing to connect to a wireless network where they do not have access to the wireless router (a public wifi hotspot etc). however.....

I am in the UK and I'm using a Sky netgear router. After switching the wireless router to channel 11, I am finding that when I boot up, the macbook air now automatically connects to my wireless network and also is still connected when I resume from sleep. Once the wireless is connected, it stays connected and works fine, as it has always done. So I'm now happy using my macbook air at home. 🙂

I was previously using channel 13 (and other channels before that).

Have checked to make sure that no-one nearby is using either channel 11 or 13. When connected, both 11 and 13 give 100% signal. The only difference is that channel 11 is the only channel which resolves the problems (for me) with needing to manually connect to the wireless network all the time. Channel 13 and all other channels I have tried still have this problem.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how this fix will help me when I need to connect to another wireless network outside my house which isn't using this wireless channel. I expect the same problems would reoccur.

***** UPDATE *****

It's working for me, but my wife's macbook air unfortunately still isn't auto connecting to the wireless network on channel 11 for some reason !!

How frustrating.... I will report back if I resolve.

ok, here's the update...

I noticed that the only difference between my macbook air and my wife's was that hers didn't have a "location" set in network preferences, and was still set to 'automatic'.

after changing this on her macbook air, it immediately started auto connecting to the wireless network, after booting up, and also after resuming from sleep.. no problems whatsoever.

[once the wifi has connected to a network, we have never had any isses with it disconnecting again, like other users have been having..]

Just to test that it was definitely channel 11 that was the fix for me. I changed the channel back to 13, and my macbook air stopped auto connecting again, so I "thought" this confirmed that channel 11 is the solution to our wireless problems somehow.

However... I have just done the same test again, this time, changing the router channel to a few other numbers, and also, setting the channel to automatic.. and low and behold, all the channels tried are working great, and are connecting automatically to our wireless network, after boot up, and also after resume from sleep. It is only when I change the router channel back to 13 that all the problems reappear, and the wifi stops "automatically" connecting to the wireless network, after boot up, and after resume from sleep.

So in summary.. for us it appears to be a combination of having a custom 'location' set in network preferences, and also having the sky netgear router set to any channel number APART FROM 13. (I haven't confirmed this by testing ALL channels though, but I have tried a few of the channels). Or maybe somehow, by initially changing the router channel to 11, this had some effect?

This means I can use my macbook air at home just fine.. but I have no idea what will happen when I try to connect to a different WIFI network somewhere else, e.g. an internet cafe or somewhere.....

I don't know if this will help anyone... but at least it got our macbook air's working ok with our home network.

Switching from 'automatic' to channel 6 is working so far for me. No dropped connections or problems connecting after sleep. Knock on digital wood of course. Running a first gen. airport extreme btw.