You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

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

TomB01

Level 1

9 points

Apr 13, 2011 6:49 AM in response to anguish

Just did an interesting experiment. I have two access points in my house, one a Verizon 802.11g, and one a Linksys 802.11n/g. I found that the Verizon AP gets faster throughput than the Linksys, and if I turn the 802.11n router to g only, then my throughput magically goes from 5Mbps to 23Mbps on it! Can someone else try this? The ping test is still erratic, but I don't care so much about that if my effective network throughput is actually close to what I am paying for....

hbcht

Level 1

0 points

Apr 13, 2011 6:51 AM in response to LaraJones

hi,

just to write another message and that this thread is getting bigger and bigger so that Apple is hopefully doing something.

Im having the same problem.
With my MBP2011 13inch wireless connection drops randomly between 30secs and 5mins. Restart of Airport helps in most cases instantly.

its defs not the router as my iphone and other computer work fine.
i dont know if its the hardware or software, however a fix would be pretty nice as this problem makes my laptop thats worth a lot pretty much useless.

thanks

TomB01

Level 1

9 points

Apr 13, 2011 6:56 AM in response to hbcht

OK, so here is a speedtest.net result via my Linksys 802.11n/g router set to g only:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1250157872.png

and here is a speedtest.net result via the same router when I am connected at n speeds:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1250163599.png

Same server, minutes apart, same Macbook.

Ping tests still erratic on the G network, but....

TomB01

Level 1

9 points

Apr 13, 2011 6:58 AM in response to TomB01

Oh, still not as fast as my 2009 was, that network card regularly got in excess of 25Mbps on this identical home lan....

Apr 13, 2011 6:59 AM in response to LaraJones

I wanted to point out that I haven't had any connectivity drops, but I do have extremely erratic performance on my 15" 2011 Macbook Pro. When I turn on my system, I usually start with good (~70Mbps speeds), then after a few minutes my speed drops dramatically (~20Mbps or lower).

I have the same ping problems that everyone else is reporting, so it seems like there's one root cause causing everyone's headaches.

Please Apple, we need a fix soon!

Apr 13, 2011 9:38 AM in response to LaraJones

I can't believe they haven't even come into this thread to at least say we are working on a fix. At the very least, they should be more visibly trying to fix this terrible problem. I download a lot of music, and I am really ****** off at the erratic speeds.

LaraJones Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 13, 2011 10:20 AM in response to goldenegg001

Goldenegg...

In my case, the drop out starts only when you have got a weaker Wlan Net... beeing further away from your router or beeing on a public Network etc...

The problem is always there of course BUT:

As long as you are on a nearly perfect and strong net you dont have drop outs, only bad permormance and slow traffic in up an downloading and the ping test shows bad results as well even on very strong networks.

In my opinion this is why not more new Macbook Owners scream....they might not notice the fault, as they have strong nets and maybe only wonder sometimes about unusual slow trafics...
Not everbody thinks about doing a Pingtest when the performance is suddenly bad...usually you first blame your provider when the speed is going down ...

Can anybody tell me how to do the Pingtest on the bootcamp/ windows 7?

LaraJones Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 13, 2011 10:27 AM in response to Lt. Slothrop

slothropp,
I am absoutely sure this thread is getting seen by the relavant people of Apple. Just go back into the thread list of Internet and Networking the Macbook Pro 2008 and later... there you can see:
We are having nearly 30000 views so far and 278 answers...Compare this with the other threads in this forum. I am sure:
THIS THREAD IS CERTAINLY SEEN!!!!!

Only it would e nice to get an confirmation of Apple stating something like:

+Yes dear customer, there is a problem, we are working on it , please give us a bit of time whe will keep you informed about any progress

+

Is this asked toooo much?

Apr 13, 2011 10:29 AM in response to LaraJones

you can open command prompt, and type PING (ip address of your router)

that will do it.

I run Windows 7 on virtual machine, which means its getting network access through the OS X.. and so the PING shows similar delays. Which means its almost certainly a software issue.

aznjonn

Level 1

0 points

Apr 13, 2011 1:41 PM in response to alinitkin

I have a quick question, I am a systems guy so networking is not really my thing. But I noticed whenever my airport does drop that my wireless starts also blinking red for the wireless light on my router. Now is that strange that my macbook pro is causing my router to blink red or could I actually have issues with my router? Although I do not think so because I have all they symptoms that everyone else does with erratic ping and also my other wireless devices do not ever disconnect randomly every hour.

Apr 13, 2011 4:03 PM in response to aznjonn

That sounds like its almost definitely a router fault. No problems with the router at my end.

Birdie18

Level 1

0 points

Apr 13, 2011 5:33 PM in response to LaraJones

ping test result looks just perfect and stable as it should be <10ms in Windows 7 with bootcamp.

If you run a virtual machine (vmware/parallels), you also replicate the behaviors from OS X so ping result should be exactly the same pattern as OS X.

Apr 13, 2011 9:18 PM in response to LaraJones

Just bought my new MBP 13" two week ago and i also having the same problem with the network performance.

Bodekaer

Level 1

0 points

Apr 14, 2011 2:11 AM in response to techzapple

It feels like the 2011 model just has worse antenna.

I have a MBP 2009, and 2011, right next to each other, and standing about 15 meters from my WiFi Access Point.

My 2009 model can easily connect. Good stable connection.
My 2011 model cannot see the network. If I move a little closer (10 meters) it can see it. It can usually connect, not always, but it drops out easily, and has slow connection.
If I move close to it, within 5 meters I have good stable connection on my 2011 model also.

So yeah, bad antenna, or the signal strength is turned down or something like that on MBP 2011.
Got all the latest Mac OSX updates btw.

bitserf

Level 1

1 points

Apr 14, 2011 6:24 AM in response to TomB01

TomB01, you may be on the money.

I switched my router to 802.11g only, and not support anything else, and the dropouts ceased.

It's now been 8 hours since I made that switch, with no dropouts, whereas previously in this location I would lose connection quite quickly.

I have a NetGear DGN3500 though, and not Linksys.

Here's hoping the 802.11n support on this card is not broken at a hardware level.

new macbook pro 2011 weak and dropping wireless connection