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User profile for user: LaraJones
LaraJones Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

new macbook pro 2011 weak and dropping wireless connection

Just looked throught this part of the forum and found out there are a lot of people out there which seem to have the same problem as me.

I purchased a new modell 2011 MBP on the very first day from our apple store.
At home, sitting directly beside the wireless router I didn´t noticed anything wrong.
I have got beside of the Mac OS a bootcamp Prt. with Windows 7 on it and everythign works fine so far.

Five days after purchased I started traveling on business and at present we are for some weeks in Melbourne. Were having a wireless connection in our appartement and here I have got massiv problems with my connection.

We are having altogether four windows mashines with us, my IPad, my Iphone, another HTC smartphone, and my new Macbook.

All the other devices connecting to our room wireless without problems. The net strengh is not fantastic but the other devices bringing it up to four bars on the windows wireless symbol in the task bar. None of the other computers where ever loosing the connection.

Only my macbook can not make it over three bars and its going on and off. Donwloads fail freuquently because the conection is interrupted more than one times..
In my opinion this problem is even worse on the Windows OS and a bit better but far away from beeing good and acpetable on the Mac Os.
I hope its only a driver issue and there is no hardware problem with the new mashine. Other than this I love the new notebook and I am very satisfied with its performance.

Iphone 4, Ipad 1 ,Macbook pro 13, I 5, 8GB, early 2011, Windows 7, Mac OS

Posted on Mar 8, 2011 9:00 PM

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968 replies
User profile for user: Sotsira
Sotsira
User level: Level 1
0 points

Apr 5, 2011 1:24 AM in response to LaraJones

I bought my MBP in May 2010 and never had a problem with it using various wifi signals since.
Then after i updated to 10.6.7 the problem everyone else is having started about 1 week ago.
My conclusion is that it can only be an Apple software issue as the problem is worldwide with mostly the latest sold 2011 units running 10.6.7 and those like mine that have updated recently.

It would be interesting to know if anyone out there is having this problem but still running on the old pre update system as it seems to only be a 10.6.7 issue.
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User profile for user: TomB01
TomB01
User level: Level 1
9 points

Apr 5, 2011 8:20 AM in response to LaraJones

Just noticing that the top number of hits on this board all seem to be related to networking issues... Top 3 number of hits on page 1... I know that Apple does not 'monitor' these boards, but that kind of thing is bound to attract attention. If not Apple's, then the 'PC' trade press, always looking for something bad to say about Apple....

I'd strongly suggest Apple get ahead of this issue by publicly acknowledging the issue before the trade press gets hold of it. (just in case any Apple people are actually reading this board)
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User profile for user: tmy
tmy
User level: Level 1
0 points

Apr 5, 2011 10:33 AM in response to LaraJones

I´m experiencing the same as most of you with unstable and slow wireless connection.
My system is a mid 2010 macbook pro 13" running in OSX 10.6.7.

I see that some of you have not managed to connect at all. I discovered some time ago that the supported wireless channels on my macbook did not match the auto chosen channel in my router.

I would often get the channels 12 or 13 chosen in my router, but these channels are not supported by my macbook.

Check Apple->About this mac->more info->network->airport to see the supported channels.

Does not help on the stability, but at least I now manually set the channel on my router, and I have signal every time 🙂

Br.
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User profile for user: clarkeb
clarkeb
User level: Level 1
0 points

Apr 5, 2011 1:25 PM in response to iharris

I'm having the same issue with my 1 week old 2011 13" MBP. Intermittent poor performance when streaming video, 4 times as long file download times, erratic ping times to my LAN router while the iMAC sitting next to it has consistent <1ms ping times to router.

I took it in to my local Apple store last night and they just switched it out on the spot since it was only a week old. They didn't test it. I asked if it was a known issue and they said no, and when I mentioned this board and that others were having the same issue they basically dismissed it as "people complaining". The Genius even said they don't track those issues in the store, only Engineering does that. The new laptop has the exact same ping behavior as the one I returned, haven't streamed anything on it yet or done a file download to test it.

I guess I'll call support and try to get the issue linked to Engineering that way. I just want confirmation that they are working on this issue so I can decide whether to return it or not.
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User profile for user: TomB01
TomB01
User level: Level 1
9 points

Apr 5, 2011 3:24 PM in response to clarkeb

Yep, same story here. Had a couple of Genius visits, both confirming issues, and got a replacement MBP (took a couple of days to ship) with the identical behavior.

Not sure that Apple has acknowledged the issue at this point, though lharris indicates that Engineering is working on it through his case.

Hey lharris, any feedback from them at this point?
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User profile for user: anguish
anguish
User level: Level 1
9 points

Apr 5, 2011 4:04 PM in response to TomB01

Don't think apple would acknowledge such an issue so early on with a new product ? could be harmful for sales if they did, but hopefully they have the engineers working in the background on this already.
Same deal when I bought one of the early nehalem processor mac pro's a couple years ago, bluetooth was dropping keys and mice all the time, fury on the forums and then a few months later came the update. Lets hope that is the case with this too, but quicker than a few months hey 🙂 )
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User profile for user: TomB01
TomB01
User level: Level 1
9 points

Apr 5, 2011 8:17 PM in response to anguish

Well, anguish, perhaps you are right. So perhaps someone needs to start contacting the trade press to see if they can duplicate the problem? PC Magazine might be a good place to start.... Maybe Apple needs a little incentive to prioritize this issue. Would be interesting to see what kind of press this would generate, sorta like the problems Toyota has had recently.

Not sure anything can tarnish the Apple image, but a sudden surge of people refusing to recommend Macbooks to their friends because of a sad thing like this, or providing negative review feedback to various outlets is a definite risk they are taking, should this not be resolved in a timely fashion. I am regretting, at this point, having already sold my 2009 as there have been a number of times when downloads did not complete that would have with that system, or that DO complete on my Lenovo system.
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User profile for user: bitserf
bitserf
User level: Level 1
1 points

Apr 6, 2011 4:05 AM in response to LaraJones

Hi all,

Have the same problem here, two week old 2011 MacBook Pro 15". My previous 2006 MacBook pro worked like a champ on the exact same wireless AP hardware.

Have tried two wireless APs/routers at home, one was LinkSys WAG160N, the other NetGear DGN3500, both with the same result.

I tried wireless channels, 1, 6, 11, with no difference in the result, also tried all forms of authentication scheme (WEP, WPA, WPA2). Also tried dropping back to 802.11G and 802.11B, no change.

I then went to work where some Cisco APs are used. A little better, but also drops out often, and not nearly close to proper 802.11N speeds.

Then went to a cafe, with results also poor.

My brother brought over his Lenovo laptop today, and he is maxing out his wireless speeds with no ping packet loss at all, and no drop-outs.

It must be a problem with the 2011 Apple networking hardware. There can be no other explanation.

Really hope its something that can be fixed by a driver or firmware update.
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User profile for user: transpose
transpose
User level: Level 1
0 points

Apr 6, 2011 8:30 AM in response to Uncle Baby

That didn't help here, this ping was <1ms with my old macbook

user$ ping 10.0.0.1
PING 10.0.0.1 (10.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=92.140 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=13.473 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=36.417 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=1.710 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=88.792 ms

Can you go into System profile and see what the firmware version is?
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new macbook pro 2011 weak and dropping wireless connection

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