gcrump
Level 1 (10 points)

Q: 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

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Q: WiFi Issues With MacBook Air

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  • by geedub12,

    geedub12 geedub12 Feb 4, 2011 2:34 AM in response to gcrump
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 4, 2011 2:34 AM in response to gcrump
    I picked up my new Macbook Air a couple of days ago and I too have had appallingly unreliable wireless performance.

    Today I solved the problem.

    My iphone and PCs all work fine so the problem lies with the Mac. The Mac worked fine some of the time so it did not seem to be an intrinsic problem in the machine.

    The cause is Airport is constantly searching for networks and it looses the current connection while doing it. It does the search every 10 seconds.

    The solution is in two parts:
    1. In Network Preferences clear the check box for Ask to join new networks. That stops the searching and solves the problem.

    2. Don't click on the Airport icon on the menu bar. If you do that it tells Airport to search for a network and you will lose the current connection.

  • by slyguy_28,

    slyguy_28 slyguy_28 Feb 5, 2011 4:47 AM in response to geedub12
    Level 2 (170 points)
    Feb 5, 2011 4:47 AM in response to geedub12
    My MBA has been flawless. I was tempted to click on Airport anyways, glad that I didn't...
    Sly

  • by Neil McRae,

    Neil McRae Neil McRae Feb 6, 2011 11:46 PM in response to gcrump
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 6, 2011 11:46 PM in response to gcrump
    Had my MBA 11 for just over a week. There is definately something up with the Wireless on this machine. Right now I've got a Cisco 1142 A/B/G/N AP. It does 2.4 and 5G. If I connect to Wireless N at 2.4G I get packet loss and alot of latency. Flip over to Wireless N at 5G and its fine. My PC also shows slight latency but nothing as bad as the MBA. About to reboot the AP to see if that solves the problem (it is cisco after all

    With another Cisco AP in my office with a hidden SSID the MBA would refuse to connect until one morning it just started working?! ***?!

    Regards,
    Neil.

  • by The Robby,

    The Robby The Robby Feb 11, 2011 10:59 AM in response to Neil McRae
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 11, 2011 10:59 AM in response to Neil McRae
    I have been having connection problems with this beautiful machine for the past 3 days or so. The internet connection comes and goes randomly. I just got off the phone with Apple and I was given a solution which I hope it works:
    Go to Network in System Preferences.
    Click on Location and add new one call it Internet
    Click Apply and restart.
    After restart, click on Airport and join your network.

    It's working ...... meanwhile

  • by johnnygeneric,

    johnnygeneric johnnygeneric Feb 17, 2011 8:21 AM in response to The Robby
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 17, 2011 8:21 AM in response to The Robby
    I've just about had it with my MacBook Air. The issue is so random. At home we discovered rebooting the ATT Uverse router SEEMED to solve the problem...but who can be sure? And why the heck does rebooting the router have to be done in the first place, when my wife is happily surfing on her Toshiba PC without the needed reboot (I've had to do it twice now)?

    The local independently owned coffee shop was my go-to place but now for some reason my MBA won't connect up with their wifi. Should I ask them to reboot it as well (rhetorical question. The answer is no)? Rebooting my MBA four times did nothing to fix the problem. In the meantime, my iPhone, my Android Phone and even my crappy OLD iPaq 210 PDA will connect up to it! Not to mention the other patrons who seem to be able to connect to the coffee shops router. ****, even those with NETBOOKS are able to get on with no problems. My $1500 MBA is being shown up by a $250 netbook?

    The MBA is billed as a light minimalist machine mainly relying on WIRELESS capability....and Apple can't get it right? I have a lot of trouble understanding this.

    I hate to say this, since I really like my MBA, but if you want to use public wifi and such, maybe, just maybe the MBA is not the solution. I for one don't like lugging my MBA (as light as it is) only to have to fish out my iPhone to have to surf. This is just happening too many times.

  • by Michaelworks,

    Michaelworks Michaelworks Feb 17, 2011 1:38 PM in response to johnnygeneric
    Level 3 (695 points)
    Feb 17, 2011 1:38 PM in response to johnnygeneric
    Boot from your USB. Run Disk Utility and repair permissions. Also run diagnostics (hold down the D) to verify everything is OK. If it still does it, call Apple Support and create a case number. They will probably have you try a few things, like delete plists etc. Get on record with them about the issue. They have to resolve it, one way or another.

  • by ttalarico,

    ttalarico ttalarico Feb 21, 2011 8:46 PM in response to gcrump
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 21, 2011 8:46 PM in response to gcrump
    I have been having connection problems but not the same. I will powerup the MBA and be connected immediately. After about 10 minutes the connection is dropped. The only way I can get the connection back is to turn AirPort off and then back on again. This will happen occasionally for about 30-40 minutes and then the connection stays. I am connecting to a new 2Wire from AT&T. My wife has an older MBP and never has a problem staying connected. Is there anyone out there having the same problem? Is it an AirPort problem?

  • by onemile,

    onemile onemile Feb 21, 2011 10:51 PM in response to ttalarico
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 21, 2011 10:51 PM in response to ttalarico
    I am having the same problems as you and it appears to be the same config as yours. I don't know what to do...this is ridiculous for an $1800 "netbook" that I just got two days ago. Is this only on a single network? Does this happen to you on other networks? If this issue continues I'm going to have to return it.

  • by EtothaX,

    EtothaX EtothaX Feb 26, 2011 6:39 AM in response to gcrump
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 26, 2011 6:39 AM in response to gcrump
    I solved this issue by adding 2 DNS Server to the DNS Server List in the Network preferences. Now everything works without a problem!

  • by evolin41,

    evolin41 evolin41 Feb 27, 2011 5:23 PM in response to gcrump
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 27, 2011 5:23 PM in response to gcrump
    This appears to be an ongoing problem and one that can really slow down the MBA. I have Linksys g speedboost WiFi and it drifts in and out of connection causing many error messages. At best, web pages can be reloaded. At worst it just hangs on a page. Other Mac's and a WinXP work great so the Linksys WiFi is configured correctly. Since I have upgraded to latest version of OS X Version 10.6.6, there is no fix. That said, I have a work-around solution - I tried connecting a Belkin 54G WAP to a spare input to the Linksys router and configured it using different SID and channel. Since this works and maintains a good connection, one can assume that the problem is with the firmware on the MBA. Maybe Apple can fix this. If not your best bet is to try a different WAP.

  • by dankohn,

    dankohn dankohn Mar 11, 2011 2:31 PM in response to The Robby
    Level 1 (30 points)
    Mar 11, 2011 2:31 PM in response to The Robby
    The Robby wrote:
    Go to Network in System Preferences.
    Click on Location and add new one call it Internet
    Click Apply and restart.
    After restart, click on Airport and join your network.


    I've been spending hours dealing with flaky Wi-Fi issues for the last several weeks. Only after tearing apart my entire home network, disconnecting video monitors, pulling batteries out of cordless phone handsets, etc., did I come across your post. It seems to have fixed my problem.

    Thanks.

  • by backwardsit,

    backwardsit backwardsit Mar 12, 2011 1:33 AM in response to The Robby
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 12, 2011 1:33 AM in response to The Robby
    This fixed my problem. From just about tearing my hair out (what little I have left) I now have a rock solid connection that is blindingly fast.

  • by Pigasos,

    Pigasos Pigasos Mar 22, 2011 10:59 PM in response to ttalarico
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 22, 2011 10:59 PM in response to ttalarico
    Hi
    I have exactly the same problem with ttalarico. My Air mac is only 2 months old yesterday suddenly lost internet connection, i obseve better and i saw that after 10 min exactly the internet not working and i have to turn off the AirPort and turn on again inorder to be connected again. i am using this internet since i bought this mac without any problem before

    is anyone out there who can suggest or help me what to do??

  • by klikka,

    klikka klikka Mar 23, 2011 2:39 PM in response to gcrump
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 23, 2011 2:39 PM in response to gcrump
    Have anyone found a solution to this? I have a 13" MBA (late 2010) model and are running mac os x 10.6.7, I have the problem on my home wifi. I suddenly loose internet/network connection, but it still say that im connected to the wireless network. I turn the airport off and on again and it works.. for a couple of minutes. Its terrible!

    I might add that I have a D-link dir 300 router (only 802.11g)
    Have already made a post on this in this thread: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13274186#13274186

  • by Susy74,

    Susy74 Susy74 Mar 24, 2011 12:32 PM in response to klikka
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 24, 2011 12:32 PM in response to klikka
    Dear All,

    I am new to MBA, but I am having the problem only since few weeks.
    The funny thing is that email and Safari have problems where Skype does not have any problem at all.

    I downloaded now the new OS X, hope it will improve, but have the feeling that was I read in a previous post, regarding App Store may be correct.

    I cannot recall precisely, but seems that my problems started after downloading the 2nd app.

    After cancelling cache, renew lease,...for a couple of times it usually works again but it is a nuisance.
    And it cannot be a problem of any of the 2 routers in different location I am connecting because they are different, pretty new and Internet works on any other computer.

    Anyone can help?

    Thanks
    Susy
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