WiFi Issues With MacBook Air

I went to the mall today with my MBA 13".

- got an immediate and clean wifi connection at the Apple Store;

- got an immediate and clean wifi connection at two different coffee shops;

So, the problem that bugged me seems to have been related not to wifi connectivity of the MBA, but rather indeed to ISP problems at a particular public spot. So its a good idea to run network diagnosis.
And thanks also to wifiguru for the "ping" tip.

Best regards.

Took my new 13-inch MBA on a trip last week and had no problems connecting with various WLANs in hotels and at WiFi hot spots. In one hotel, though, I had to remove all DNS servers in System Preferences - Network - Advanced... for the Airport interface before I could actually connect to the internet.

Hi - I'm getting the same problems and it's infuriating 🙂 Until a fortnight ago I used an MBP 17" and had none even though I was using the same wifi connections at exactly the same locations.

I'm in a Starbucks now and, like yesterday and the day before, I'm getting 1.83 Mb/s ( http://www.speedtest.net/result/1053993948.png). I've had one good day (on the home network) when it was at 9.83 Mb/s but within an hour or so it dropped again to under 2Mb/s ( http://www.speedtest.net/result/1053201752.png).

I took the machine in to an Apple Store and the Genius had no idea what was wrong and, of course, it was connecting to their wifi beautifully...... Back home and back to public wifi connections and I'm at snail's pace again.

The key thing for me, as I mentioned above, is that I do not have the same problems with my MBP. The one different component in my set up now is the MBA.

Any ideas what to do next?

My Mac Air 13" and o/s 4 iPhone 3Sg would not connect to my sisters wi-fi router, but an ASUS portable repeater I had with me would and then I could connect these two devices to the internet. Directly to the router the units acquired IP's and showed as connected in the router setup, but they could not connect to the internet The IP's were usually something like 169.205.x.x No amount of configuring would change this.

Coincidentally, my sister in Montana who has a new iMac 27" had a similar problem with her router. Her older iMac 21" connects ok. Apple service came out and changed out the wifi card, and it worked for awhile then stopped working.

Here is what Apple concluded: ++The results are that in this year's Apple computers they have upgraded the wireless (Airport) card in the machines to match the world wide protocols for wireless protection. The ActionTec, which is now at least 3years old (maybe more) is out of date and will not work on the new Apples with the most recent OS X versions. The 2 year old iMac connects wirelessly with it because it has the old card inside.++

She has a new modem router on order.

I am having similar problems with my new MBA. Sitting in a coffee shop a friend sitting beside me with a new MBP logged right in and had good access. I could not get in though the menu bar showed a strong signal. Today, same location, fewer people, I got right in, the speed is good. Does it have anything to do with the number of people logged in and the power of the computer ? I have the basic 11 inch model.

Have had my new 13 inch Macbook air now for 5 days and think it is lightning fast and a sensational piece of machinery. I was concerned about the WiFi issues but have not experienced any problems working on public WIFi networks (Starbucks, Kinkos, Borders). Borders network is somewhat weaker than the other two but I experienced that slowness with my previous Dell as well. Furthermore, my Verizon 3G mobile broadband card is giving me WiFi-like speeds in an apartment building where I have had a notoriously weak signal.

Andrew

I've had my new MBA for a little over a month now, and I love it. However, I can confirm that there are issues with the WIFI. On the same WIFI network I loaded speedtest.net on my new MBA and on my old 2006 MBPro. I got 9MB/s on the old machine, and only 1.8MB/s on the MBA. Tried multiple times and always the same result. Now, at home I'm having all kind of intermittent connection issues with an Airport Extreme while my wife's ThinkPad has no issues at all. All firmware up to date, all systems rebooted multiple times. And yet I bet tomorrow I won't even think of this issue once. I've tried everything I can think of. It's really frustrating, the MBA is great in every other way. It's like I'm using dial-up!

@wifiguru Please don't give this stock reply as it's just not true in every case. It is particularly not true in this case where clearly the wireless network is working fine for everyone else but not for particular MBA's.


I experience the same issue - trouble trying to make a successful connection to the internet through a insecure wifi hotspot, but once I do it is completely solid.

Same thing every day:
1 - Establish a connection and wifi all day
2 - Come back the next day and it's unable to connect to the internet - clearly I can see the network, and connect to the router, but it does not establish a connection to the internet (other laptops are working fine, including my other MBP).
3 - I randomly turn both the router (which happens to be in my office, though I don't own it) and my MBA on and off repeatedly until a connection is magically established.
4 - Work hassle free on wifi for the rest of the day again.


SUCCESS:
I've just followed the advice here:
1 - leave the MBA connected to network but not internet (wifi logo with "!")
2 - then Shut Down MBA
3 - then Boot MBA and connection is established with internet connection.

So Mr Apple, tell me, how exactly is this a problem with the ISP?


IMPORTANT OBSERVATION:
When I have my MBA in it's connected but unconnected state, if I then turn off the wifi router my MBA still sees the wireless network, and still sees it with full strength. This does not go away even after a good few minutes of the wireless router being completely powered off!

Strange? Just a little. I suspect that the problem IS with the MBA in that it is not correctly communicating with the wireless networks and is certainly not snowing me the truth.

Just to add my own experiences to Nick's post, in the hope that it might help the fog clear for those of us who are currently struggling with this :

I have an Airport Extreme (c2008) running 802.11g/n which is the wireless access point for my mid-2008 MBP, iPhone 4, and iPad, all of which have been running perfectly well straight from the box. At no point have I ever had any networking issues and the setup of every device has been really easy to do...

...until last week when I bought a late 2010 13" MBA (2.13Ghz), which is really struggling to make or maintain any sort of connection with the internet. The symptoms are exactly the same experienced by others in the thread(s) on this forum - connection fine one minute, no connection the next, successful connection to the Airport Extreme and Network, but no connection to the ISP and Server. With Wi-Fi off, ethernet takes a little time to sort itself out but then works like a dream.

I've checked settings across all devices and they appear perfect - the common settings you would expect to be the same are the same; each unique device has its own unique IP address; all are using WPA2 security; there are no issues with subnet masking and each device is even recognised and accepted by my ISP router (an ethernet based BT Home Hub 1.5). Refreshing the DHCP lease for the Wi-Fi connections has no impact.

I've run the hardware test on my MBA and - as you'd expect - its 100% functional. I've even checked the RSSI levels for every device and they're spot on - each device is receiving the same signal strength.

So, every other device on my network is fine. Given that 99% of the settings are the same across all of these devices (unique IP addresses and MAC address being the obvious exception), and that my MBA is the only device which has a problem, I'm of the same opinion as Nick - it absolutely must be the MBA which is the heart of the problem.

Sorry I can't offer a solution, but I hope that my contribution might help in some small way - in the meantime if I manage to learn any more I'll naturally post my findings here.

I have always thought that for some reason Mac's have more Wifi issues. I just bought a MacBook Air and find with my Netgear WNR3500 V1 the mixed mode works fine for days then all of a sudden I lose the connection. Sometimes even requiring deleting the connection and reconnecting. I have tried it in G only mode and see very little difference. One thing I have learned is that different manufactures of WiFi chips don't always work well together. Even though we have plenty of standards that should not let it happen. I have at least 3 or 4 other routers close by and I would not doubt some conflicts with other signals. I see a bandwidth drop more in evenings when more people are probably using their routers.

Just to add to the discussion... here's what I'm experiencing.

I have an older Airport Extreme (b/g) providing wifi to my iMac (no problems), iPod Touch, Android phone, and new MacBook Air 11".

Here are the issues I'm experiencing with the MBA: I can connect to my network and the internet fine, and then all of a sudden there's no internet connection. I'm still connected to the network (Airport status still shows full signal, can connect to the iMac), but no internet access. The only solution I've found to regain internet is to turn Airport off and then back on, on the MBA. Then internet will work fine, and randomly go out again. I can go from 30 minutes to 3 hours, but at some point or another, I always lose internet on the MBA.

Just to clarify, there are no connection or internet access issues on the other devices, which are connected via the very same Airport wifi. This leads me to the conclusion that the problem lies with the MBA.

There seems to be three symptoms:

1) Those who can't connect at all to some networks
2) Those who's computer says no, but after a restart can connect fine.
3) Those who can connect fine to a network and then randomly drop the connection for no reason.

Does anyone think that Apple give the slightest consideration that there might be a problem with THEIR software rather than just saying 'go and fiddle with the router'?

10.6.6 and I'm still having problems 1 and 2 on various networks, I've not experienced symptom 3 yet.

My issue is a bit different

When im in close to my time capsule it finds my MBA and connects when Im more than 5 meters away it finds my home network but it askes for my password and when I put the password in it saids wrong password!

Anyone else have this issue?

We've really got to get away from thinking it's a problem with the router - this is a total red herring, and will keep Apple complacent by letting them think it's not their problem.

That being said I agree that some routers are better than others (my home configured network kit is clearly awesome and I've never had a blip). But the fact that on a whim our MBA's sometimes connect and then sometimes just give up the connection is a clear indication it's a OS/Airport Driver issue that needs fixing.

I love Apple in most respects, but they are a complete fail at admitting their own cockups.