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LaraJones Author

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

968 replies

Apr 6, 2011 5:00 PM in response to LaraJones

I did a search on "slow internet" and came upon this thread. It started in March (I think) and after reading many posts, I started to scroll down...and down...and down...and down...

It seems that a lot of people are having this problem, including me. I've got the MBP, 10.6, and it's very annoying to have this expensive machine that handles the internet like molasses.

So, with so many people having the same problem for quite some time, why hasn't Apple responded? This is quite frustrating.

Apr 7, 2011 4:08 AM in response to TomB01

Apparently, they aren't paying attention.

Apr 7, 2011 6:57 AM in response to LaraJones

I'm relieved to have found this thread. I've also been experiencing this problem, which is getting to be quite annoying. My early-2008 Macbook Pro doesn't exhibit any similar behaviour. Hopefully Apple addresses this soon.

Apr 7, 2011 4:34 PM in response to goldenegg001

It would really be nice if Apple would at least acknowledge that the problem exists. Hello? Hello? Anybody from Apple out there?

LaraJones Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 7, 2011 9:41 PM in response to aznjonn

Good Morning from Germany,

After a (like always) much tooooo long time of sitting in three different airplanes I am back from Melbourne.
First thing this morning, I was testing my Macbook wireless adapter down here in our flat in my mums house.Was courious about it....
Very strong, brand new Router and a perfect, strong internet link.
*BUT the router is located upstairs.**
Down here in our flat I have never had any trouble before with conectiong to the internet. Now, like before, the Ipad and Iphone are working. The wireless signal is not strong but everything works ECXEPT my lovely little Macbook Baby...exactly as expected.or shall I say feared?????

On the OS side I get sometimes a glimp of a connection than it fails again and on the Bootcamp Windows 7 side, NO CHANCE AT ALL!

AZJONN, that should answer your question about if the signal is better picked up with Bootcamp/ Windows. For my Macbook generally its the other way round. In Melbourne in our Appartment f.E. I could not do anything on the Bootcamp/ Windows7 side, whilst on the OS I picked up a weak and unstable net.
Seems to me that Windows requires a more stable link to establish wireless connection and cant handle the defect on the Macbook adapter at all.

„Ping“ wurde gestartet …

PING www.l.google.com (66.102.13.99): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=0 ttl=54 time=26.343 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=1 ttl=54 time=36.617 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=2 ttl=54 time=57.242 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=3 ttl=54 time=30.410 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=4 ttl=54 time=109.806 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=5 ttl=54 time=33.472 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=6 ttl=54 time=52.683 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=7 ttl=54 time=74.931 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=8 ttl=54 time=100.234 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=9 ttl=54 time=121.627 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=10 ttl=54 time=45.121 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=11 ttl=54 time=34.377 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=12 ttl=54 time=90.123 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=13 ttl=54 time=26.620 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=14 ttl=54 time=29.477 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=15 ttl=54 time=59.369 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.99: icmp_seq=16 ttl=54 time=83.406 ms

thats what it looks like here...

Apr 7, 2011 10:33 PM in response to LaraJones

So I'm having the same issue as everyone else. I previously owned a 15'' MBP 2010 and had no issues with the internet at home or at school. Ever since the upgrade to the 13'' MBP 2011 I've constantly had problems connecting to the internet. I hope there is a fix.

LaraJones Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 7, 2011 10:39 PM in response to truebluedru24

....and here the results from upstairs...sitting directly beside of the router.
Up here, the connection is no problem, as normal on a strong net and would I not know about the problem I would think everything is fine....

„Ping“ wurde gestartet …

PING www.l.google.com (66.102.13.147): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 66.102.13.147: icmp_seq=0 ttl=54 time=93.059 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.147: icmp_seq=1 ttl=54 time=116.845 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.147: icmp_seq=2 ttl=54 time=37.099 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.147: icmp_seq=3 ttl=54 time=61.888 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.147: icmp_seq=4 ttl=54 time=85.632 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.147: icmp_seq=5 ttl=54 time=115.713 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.147: icmp_seq=6 ttl=54 time=31.137 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.147: icmp_seq=7 ttl=54 time=54.010 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.147: icmp_seq=8 ttl=54 time=78.062 ms
64 bytes from 66.102.13.147: icmp_seq=9 ttl=54 time=102.866 ms

--- www.l.google.com ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 31.137/77.631/116.845/29.219 ms

Apr 7, 2011 11:09 PM in response to aznjonn

I have Windows 7 Bootcap installed. It is worse with Windows 7 in my experience. This is how I first noticed the issue.

MilesR

Level 1

15 points

Apr 8, 2011 12:33 AM in response to Scott Ellsworth

Same problem for me. The laptop got delivered on Wednesday, tested for a couple of days and have booked a Genius Bar appointment for tonight to see what they say.

Wireless connection speeds (Transmit rates) vary wildly from 5Mbps (

) to 70Mbps. Ping responses show anything up to 100ms. Using the Internet over that is painfully slow, and I can kiss goodbye any attempt at transferring files over it.

My 2008 13" Macbook connects at 130Mbps perfectly, with ping rates always under 5ms. Note that I haven't yet applied the 10.6.7 update to it. So whether it's related to that or the actual wireless card I don't know, but hopefully they'll do something about it since I spent a lot of cash on this thing.

Apr 8, 2011 5:21 AM in response to LaraJones

I got same problem my wifi connection keeps disconnecting.

I suspecting that there some problem on hardware itself, because I have also MacBook Air but i didn't experience wifi connection problem.

If this problem will not be solve I will return back this useless MBP that cost me 3400SGD

Apr 8, 2011 5:58 AM in response to SGPHNewMacUser

Apple is certainly aware of the problem with the irregular pings. In fact, it is mentioned on the featured review from InfoWorld on its site (page 7):

"Wireless ping tests between MacBook Pro and a Time Capsule base station revealed widely varying latency. In some cases, response packets lagged by more than 250ms -- latency that equates to forever in LAN terms. The lag was not present with an Ethernet connection or with a Hawking HWDN2 external USB Wi-Fi adapter.

"Apple acknowledged my report and validated my tests, but a fix was neither deemed necessary nor made available by press time. Because the issue does not affect browsing, video or audio streaming, email, or other common network tasks, it may be purely academic, but I will continue to research it."

I'm having the same problem with drops (I'm not even sure if this message will make it), by the by.

yozhbk

Level 1

8 points

Apr 8, 2011 6:22 AM in response to nordic_expat

Can you link to the article ?

Apr 8, 2011 7:06 AM in response to aznjonn

does anyone know where to get the latest firmware for the Broadcom BCM43xx?

i've been advised that this firmware for Broadcom BCM43xx (5.100.98.39.3) seems to have fixed the latency issues.

this was mentioned to me by a friend who has the 2011 Macbook Pro who was testing the Mac OSX 10.7 developer preview...

can anyone confirm this?

TomB01

Level 1

9 points

Apr 8, 2011 7:33 AM in response to yozhbk

Here's the relevant part of the article:

http://www.infoworld.com/d/computer-hardware/thunderbolt-macbook-pro-the-last-no tebook-youll-ever-need-169?page=0,6

Time to start emailing editors of magazines about this issue. My 25mbps Verizon Fios network never gets better than 5.5Mbps on my 'new improved' MBP. Perhaps it is not noticeable with regular surfing, but any kind of sizeable download makes it obvious the machine is dramatically slower than the 2009 it replaced, or my wife's Macbook Air, or my corporate Lenovo.

TomB01

Level 1

9 points

Apr 8, 2011 7:44 AM in response to TomB01

OK, signed up for an account (no charge) with Infoworld and posted a comment on that article. I'd encourage others to do the same. Also emailed the author to ask him to revisit the Apple network testing he did to try to confirm the issue, and to get more detail from Apple.

new macbook pro 2011 weak and dropping wireless connection