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gcrump Author

Level 1

14 points

WiFi Issues With MacBook Air

I am about two weeks in to my new Macbook Air and love it except for the wifi. I have had five or six other Mac laptops in the past five years including the original air. I can confirm that there are some wifi issues with the Macbook Air. Based on the messages posted here and my experience here is where I am. I think if it is a "N" network it seems to work fine. I have never had an issue with my Airport Extreme at my house or my Dad's Linksys at his house which is also an N. This also I think resolves the "is it an ISP" issue, since they are distinctly different ISP's and these both work perfectly.

My problems are on non-N's it seems. I travel a lot so I hit a lot of guest networks which are almost always "g". These networks I can generally find and attach to them but not get a consistent internet connection. With these networks I have found that turning the airport on/off and refreshing the IP address does not work. Again I can connect to the browser, in most cases get what appears to be a valid IP but not gain any internet access. I have found that a power down and reboot AFTER attaching to the network (but not getting the internet connection) will then give me a steady and consistent connection.

I need to do some more testing and I guess traveling to pin down some of these things but I wanted to share what I have found thus far, but I definitely think there is a problem with the wifi on the new MacBook Air's.

Thanks,

Macbook Pro and iMac 27" and iPad and iPhone and MacBook Air 2010, Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Nov 28, 2010 6:10 AM

948 replies

Oct 23, 2014 6:43 PM in response to gcrump

I have MBA 13in Mid 2013. I pull up Airport Utility and watch. About every min to two min I see the connection drop. I thought it was my old Time Machine. So I go out and buy the new one. Same issue. So I change over to an old Linksys wireless router I had laying around. Same issue. My wife also has a MBA. I have not looked at her connection to see if it drops or not. With my two Time Machines I also have 3 AirPort Express to extend my network. My Linksys router is located pretty far from my home office. I go to school full time so I will have to see if the connection drops while I'm at school. I find it really annoying 😟.

Dec 23, 2014 3:12 AM in response to gcrump

I've been suffering from this same. After much gnashing of teeth (PRAM, SMC, reinstall of Yosemite, etc. etc.) I finally **RESOLVED** it by creating a new Network Location.

*Under -> Network Preferences

*Click drop-down for "Location" (Initially it'll be Automatic)

*Create a new location.. (I called mine "Internet")

*That's it! It started to Work 🙂

hope it helps somebody !

Aug 26, 2015 5:05 PM in response to gcrump

So I've been basically unable to use my late 2012 Macbook Air (I7, 512ssd, 8GB) for over three years because of the wifi dropping issue (which Apple says is not an "issue). Didn't matter which OS X version I used (Snow, Yose) the **** thing wouldn't stay connected for more than a couple of seconds and then revert to "Searching....." as per usual. I'm pretty sure I've tried every fix that was ever listed on the net to no avail. I have full on AC wireless in my home and every other device can access pretty much wired speeds from anywhere in the house.

Enter the weirdness....

Since the laptop was completely useless to me (after SO many trips to the Apple store), I decided to try a demo version of Windows 10 through bootcamp. As odd as this sounds, it now has unshakable, perfect wireless connection. On my driveway, on my deck, anywhere in the house.... Perfect. If I boot to the Mac OS side (I'm now on Yose), same wife problem as ever.

How is it that MS can somehow load whatever driver (or whatever) is needed to get this hardware to work, but Apple can't? I'm not a fan of Win 10, but at least I now get to appreciate the quality that was built into this $2400 boat anchor. It's actually really enjoyable to use because of it's fantastic build quality, light weight, battery life, etc. I'm off to buy a boxed copy of Win 8.1 tomorrow before they're all gone.

Not impressed Apple. Not even a little.

(edit to add that I'm connecting on the N network side, not AC)

WiFi Issues With MacBook Air