Q: WiFi Issues With MacBook Air

Could anyone please explain, are bluetooth-wifi interference (aka "turn bluetooth off - wifi works ok") and wifi-wake-from-sleep (aka "wake from sleep - wifi doesn't connect") the same issue? Is this topic about wifi-bluetooth or about wifi-sleep? Both?

I have a new MBA 13 and a wifi-bluetooth one. When I turn on bluetooth and magic keyboard+trackpad, I have 80% packet loss on wi-fi network. When I turn bluetooth off, everything is fine again.

Beevee_ru - I have both of those issues. When my Bluetooth is turned on, whether it's connected to anything (magic mouse/wireless keyboard) or not, I get interference and the wifi connects very slowly/inconsistently and/or doesn't recognize preferred networks. One of the symptoms is that wifi does not connect when I wake my MBA 11-inch 2011 up from sleep. It doesn't find my preferred networks, and oftentimes when I manually select them from the list, it tries to connect for about 20 seconds then I get a "connection timeout error" message popup. This doesn't happen every time, but it happens most of the time. Other times, wifi will try to connect for abotu 20 seconds, then I just get the little exclamation point on the wifi menu logo instead, and it says "couldn't find IP address" or something like that.

I've tried deleting passwords, keychain access etc for known networks and starting from scratch, I've had my wireless card replaced, I've wiped the hard drive and started over, I've created a test account to see if it was my files that are causing this, I've had my whole machine replaced, I've tried changing the service order on my Network settings so that wifi is first. Whew.

When bluetooth is turned off, I have virtually no problems. However, this is NOT a decent workaround since I use BT wireless keyboard and magic mouse at work with an external display every single day at work. I shouldn't have to turn BT on and off at the beginning and end of every day just to connect to the internet.

My problem is just the same. Bluetooth ON - wi-fi "OFF"

Sadly, I've found similar reports back from 2009, so this is probably not a Lion issue. Or not a software issue at all.

Problem seems to be solved by switching router to channel 11 (channel 6 does not help). Of course, this is not an option at work or at public places.

UPDATE: this effect is probably random. As you can see on this picture, BT and Wi-Fi overlap on all channels:

Interesting. I'll probably try that at home anyway. Do you have a Verizon router?

Though honestly, my MBA still has some difficulty connecting to preferred networks even when BT is off. Or rather, it connects when I find the network manually, it just doesn't remember it to connect automatically.

No, I have a plain old ASUS WL-500gP. So far, connection is good on 11th channel with WPA2 enabled. I can't say whether speed is higher with BT on or off, but it is just enough for me.

Still, I can't connect to a secured 802.1x network in office with BT on. Authorization timeout :(

AFAIK, router in my office is on channel 9. I'll ask our administrator to switch to 11 if it's possible.

Not a news, but i tryed windows with bootcamp and, like already told.. sadly, works perfectly, today I reached 1MB/S downloading some stuff.. i never, ever saw this speed on mbair.. connection is stable and strong, even going far from AP (before was for me a big issue, just 2 rooms away connection getting very,very slow allowing to browse only html pages.

I change to apple this year with this MBAir, and I would expect, as stated by apple itself, just a great experience.

After 2 weeks a key jumped out from keyboard.

After 1 month system became soooo slowww (yes, yes.. my blame) and i decided to reinstall Lion, and havin such problems with wifi you can imagine what was use their "internet restore".

After 2 Months it began, sometimes, to not charge laptop randomly.

Just to mention, my HP printer seems not to have drivers for apple....

and above everything, never had normal wifi.

Ok, maybe i'm unlucky, but about wifi... i don't kow, if this is the "welcome in apple world", i think that i will soon take the train back to Redmond...

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEElp. My mac book air has been upgraded to LION. Now it connects to public routers OK but doesnt connect to the internet. At the same location my iphone 4 and Ipad access the same public wifi and get internet access!

My MBA does work Ok at home via an Airport Extremme wireless router.

I have spent days trying all sorts of solutions but yet to find one that works. Does anyone have a solution. Or failing that can I revert to snow leopard, which worked Ok everywhere

I did it ...I finally fixed my wifi issues!

I traded the piece of $hit for an equivalent iMac.

Read the "book" (Isaacson), drank the koolaid...errr, i mean bought the mba. major uptick for someone running win98 on a 12 year old beige box out of the dump....movin' on up! so guess what? big dough for no go. mba went back to cupertino, or asia, or wherever the heck. money went back to bank, and i type this on an brandy new $350 kid toy asus from best-buy. works just fine, and will get thrown in the pile behind the barn with the beer cans when it wont. problem solved indeed! skeet me a tweet when yer heads come out of your poos fan-boys, eh?

Hey, thanks jimmy, that's really helpful! Thanks for your constructive input. Seriously, do you get a thrill out of being a troll?

Anyway, for those talking about switching channels on the router, I haven't had any luck with that on my end.

Извините друзья, но писать будем на родном. Имеем MacBook Air '2011. Периодически наотрез отказывается подключаться к домашней сетке, настроенной на работу в режиме "N-only". В поисках причин обнаружил, что карта периодически забывает, что поддерживает этот режим. О чём рапортует в "About this Mac"

Иногда помогает сброс параметров SMC и на некоторое время всё нормализуется

А вопрос собственно в следующем: деффект системный или железный? Если кривой драйвер как с этим бороться?

SOLVED... Tried all the usual, deleting the confg folder, renewing location and dhcp lease, turning wifi on/off, restting safari but none of these worked. What die was applications/utiliies/Keychain access/keychain first aid. The run verify and repair. Can now get stable internet access at all public wifi zones I have tried. Worked for me and didnt involve any deletions or work arounds...

I gave up on Lion and reinstalled Snow Leapard (10.6.5).  All is working fine now...

One thing I noticed, is when the wireless adapter supplied its MAC address to DHCP it would be something like 4d4443 instead of the conventional address (e.g. 78ba29d250cb).

Like that troll bit. My fit of pique resultant of being gulled overrode my fundamental reserve. The MBA was a beautiful device, a genuine thrill to unpack and turn on. That it could not function with well established protocols was extremely dismaying. I feel strongly that this is an issue of an an entirely different nature than say: not having a diskette drive; or burning drive; or hard drive. To me those "features" represent advances, and I can accommodate them as readily as I accommodate not writing "if / then", or punched tape / cards. However due diligence on the way into the store never gave me an inkling that I might wonder about the thousands of people scratching their heads pondering what to do with expensive state-of-the-art devices that do not cooperate with the world as it exists. A network device that will not reliably connect with a network could be seen as a deeply flawed device. The substance I brought to that table was not. Good green money, and glassy-eyed belief, were rewarded with "You asked for that, but you're getting this. Get over it." I didn't, and I wont. And as of this writing it would appear that new rubes are still lining up bleating "Hey, what's the matter with this thing?" Troll? Perhaps. Stupid? Not hardly.