new macbook pro 2011 weak and dropping wireless connection

Go to a bar that utilizes my services and watch the great big TV sets all over the place, that's where the stream goes, and if the throughput, error rate or latency was too much, I'd get the complaints.

So you are streaming TV over wireless ?

Again you can steam TV over internet 6megabit connection and it`ll look ok... Low stream.

What I`m explaining is diffrent and you are not willing to try it and telling me it doesnt do it...... What can I say ? Thanks for your help I would appreciate if you didnt help people on this specific threat anymore as you are not giving us anything to help with.

Thanks.

I stream the display end (after the Mac) over a 60Ghz wireless link, and the signal streams to the Mac via a wireless N link.

@ yozhbk

"Please once again, can some one on this forum confirm they dont have the issue I described with large file transfer over N network and pings do not drop and able to open webpages stream etc ?"

I don't have the issue. I'm transferring a 18GB file across my N network (29 minutes remaining, 10MB/s transferring speed), watching an HD video stream on netflix, browsing ESPN.com in a separate tab and watching my pings in my network utility.

I see no noticable increase in my ping times compared to when I wasn't streaming or transferring anything (all pings are between 0.5ms - 4ms before testing and during testing).

March 2011 17" MBP

OSX Lion (but no problems when running SL before installing Lion).

Netgear WNDR3700 router

This is just what I'm seeing guys, no more and no less. I have no change in my browsing experience and I don't have drops of any kind, ever. Ever? EVER.

Hope this somehow helps.

Finally a straight answer thanks. Maybe it is APBE I have to get a WNDR3700 to try somewhere.

yozhbk wrote:

once again on a Early 2011 MBP open terminal with a ping to something local like your gateway while transfering a large file approching high speeds

Done with a 500MB Video, MacBPro 2011, AEBS, MBook 2008 ... no issue.

A question be allowed:

DOES YOUR FINDINGS DID BRING YOU ONLY ONE SINGLE STEP CLOSER TO A SOLUTION?

What ? What was your speed ? You were trasnfering to/from MBP 11 ? Please explain more.

Yes it does bring me 1 step closer. Maybe the early macbooks had issues.

Hi all,

I've made a couple of postings on this thread. I have been having this issue now for months, on both Snow Leopard and Lion with my 2011 MacBook Pro. I'm heading to an apple store tomorrow to try and get a new Mac. In addition to the problems on this forum, my wifi connectivity is so bad that I cannot stay logged into Skype or gotomeeting. Those are deal breakers for me. Fortunately, I have my iPad as a backup, it's really disappointing, none of my other MacBook pros have this issue described.

For those of you experiencing this, I encourage you to leave feedback via Apple's feedback link.

Hang in there,

Noah

Noah - I'm feeling your pain. Been dealing with this issue for a while, and recently got fed up and decided to try and get to the bottom of what's causing this.

Thus, I am gathering more detailed evidence/date/information. Short of lashing up a spectrum analyzer (as suggested by one post), I am looking for some more tools to confirm some things I think I am seeing on my MBP. I've come up with some things I can do to cause the problem to occur, almost at will. But, like I said I want to get more solid confirmation of what I am seeing.

I am currently using a program on my MBP called iStumbler, which gives some good info. However, it has the disadvantage of running on the MBP which has the WiFi problems, so I want to eliminate ANY possibility it is somehow influencing the problem/symptoms I am seeing when I do the analysis and see what I think is the problem.

...thus, I'm looking for is some advice/sugestions on WiFi analysis tools/software (hopefully freeware) that might be available (other than iStumbler). Could be on a Mac but better still if it ran on my Dell laptop with XP, it would be a better choice.

By the way, I ran some tests and I'm comfortable I have eliminated the antenna(s) and connection(s) to same on my MBP as the possible culprit.

And finally, if it comes to this, I have a sprctrum analyzer, high speed o'scope, RF signal generator and assorted tools at my office I can bring to the battle, but right now those tools will complicate my testing so I would rather rely on some software tools that can easily display WiFi channels, signals, SNR etc. in a histogram form.

SO...WiFi analysis tools for my laptom running XP? Mac maybe, not preferred however. Anyone????

The problem with using software tools on the computer that has the problem is the obvious one, what are you testing?

Use iStumbler on a different machine and it may give some useable info, on the problem machine? who knows.

If as you say there is an RF spectrum analyser at your office bring it home and see what you have got.

mfwells wrote:

...thus, I'm looking for is some advice/sugestions on WiFi analysis tools/software (hopefully freeware) that might be available (other than iStumbler). Could be on a Mac but better still if it ran on my Dell laptop with XP, it would be a better choice.

At first I suggest you to run WireShark on your XP machine to analyze and log what exactly is going on IN your network whether the Mac is in the wireless or not.

This will enable you to detecd collisions, bottlenecks or "bad packets" in your network traffic and eventually to identify a source or disturbances causing the events.

You may do this twice. First without any user data in the net. Means: without any running application except WireShark to monitor the plain ubiquitous network traffic.

On the second run with user generated traffic like accessing Internet.

In both cases, you may parallel monitor the wireless conditions to find eventually time correlating events from interferences or other radio sources in the surroundings.

Best to use a tool that are able to generate a logfile.

After all the hard working part starts. Compare the logs from WireShark, WiFi monitor and Router.

WireShark let you filter the outcome to eliminate all unsuspicious entries.

I eases the job a lot if you have the logs as plain text files, best in the same layout too.

Very helpful will be the use of the diff and grep commands on the files in Mac's Terminal.

Good luck - Lupunus

"So how could it be that I have this Problem only with my MBP 2011 running Lion, but not with my MacBook air also with Lion and not with my Netbook running Ubuntu Linux."

One question that comes to mind. When Lion was installed on the two computers was it a clean install or an upgrade.

If it was an upgrade then perhaps at least part of the issue is that there are old pre Lion settings files still in the system and they are creating a conflict. I would suspect that kind of an idea if it turns out that the MBP was upgraded and the Air was bought with Lion preinstalled.

PJRives wrote:

"So how could it be that I have this Problem only with my MBP 2011 running Lion, but not with my MacBook air also with Lion and not with my Netbook running Ubuntu Linux."

One question that comes to mind. When Lion was installed on the two computers was it a clean install or an upgrade.

I'm not sure till now if there is a matter between upgrade and clean install regarding to the wireless issue.

Could be, could not be, *shrug* as eventually old configuration scripts get preserved or mix up with new settings. Really don't know yet. *shrug again*

But (from another thread about similar issues) new suspects are in the interrogation room.

I just drag&drop my post from there:

wrote:

If drivers were the root cause,

Unfortunately it's difficult to compare e.g. the firmware version due to the fact that there are different "numbers" on the versions depending on the country of the participants here. Although the firmware functions in general are identical, for instance USA, Europe and Japan have different regulations on wireless; e.g. number of channel's.

Let's first concentrate on the Broadcom and 2011 MB side of the issue to simplify it a bit.

As the 2011 used Chipset is the same regardless of SL and Lion the "driver" have to be basically the same.

Looking over the rim of the plate let us see, that SL users with 2011 MacBook's are also affected by the WiFi issue. (As I was too)

They blame in their respectively threads about the issue the 2011 hardware; e.g. "never had that with my old MBPro and SL".

So where are the differences on chipset respectively Lion / SL in the handling of WiFi?

Did a bit research as I've some spare time today 'cause it's my home office day. 😉

Found only one major difference between Lion and SL matching the WiFi handling question. Airdrop.

Additional findings where:

• The actual wifi chipset firmware (aka driver) enables the "Airdrop" functionality on the chipset although the Airdrop function is not active (available) in Snow Leopard due to different settings in the controlling configuration file(s)
• Aside of Lion, Airdrop requires as well that all Airdrop using systems are member of the domain "local"

leads to ->

• Having two different domains in a network segment causes name resolution (DNS) trouble.
• Name resolution trouble may cause unwanted network traffic and timeout's and therefore disassociation of clients.

Had a case couple of day's ago with a UK based "My Mac drops network all the time".
Working resolution there was: The guy got a new BT DSL/wifi box which have (not changeable) the local domain "home" fixed. Changing on the Mac the domain from "local" to "home" solves the wireless trouble. To proof the solution I scanned some UK-forum's and found similar reports about the fixed "home" domain on that boxes and that changing (mostly Windows machines involved) Windows default set domain "workgroup" to "home" does the trick.

This will under certain circumstances also explain the wireless trouble in mixed networks or with some router's users of 2011 Mac's reports as "WiFi drops / bad connection with my new 2011 MB-MBPro-Air".

Eventually also, the used BC-Chipset gets along the activation of Airdrop ability more sensitive on interferences (this cause bad packets) in the wireless stream due to security reasons when password free computer to computer connection for Airdrop.

But that is at now only speculation.

What means, aside of possible infrastructure, radio interferences and eventually hardware faults, at least we have two more possible causes for wireless trouble with Lion or 2011 systems.

Lupunus

yozhbk wrote:

What ? What was your speed ? You were trasnfering to/from MBP 11 ? Please explain more.

Yes it does bring me 1 step closer. Maybe the early macbooks had issues.

OK ... just for you and to proof my "had no issue" post.

Setting:

MacBook Pro assembled May 2011, Airport Extreme 5Gen., MacBook early 2008

Network: 802.11n 5GHz.

Displayed connection speed: MacBook Pro 450 MBit/s, MacBook 270 MBit/s.

Running applications on sender:

Safari, Firefox, iCal, iTunes, Keynote, System Profiler, Activity Monitor, Network Utility.

Running applications on receiver: none.

File size: 600MB (Video) - Peak transfer rate: 10.2 MByte/s = 81.6 MBit/s

Ping to Router with Network Utility during file transfer until transfer is completed:

PING 10.0.1.1 (10.0.1.1)

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=9.299 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=8.679 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=9.707 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=6.892 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=9.782 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=255 time=8.593 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=255 time=7.746 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=7 ttl=255 time=6.161 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=8 ttl=255 time=5.967 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=9 ttl=255 time=4.374 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=10 ttl=255 time=5.212 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=11 ttl=255 time=12.435 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=12 ttl=255 time=1.016 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=13 ttl=255 time=9.092 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=14 ttl=255 time=13.311 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=15 ttl=255 time=3.980 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=16 ttl=255 time=7.463 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=17 ttl=255 time=6.632 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=18 ttl=255 time=6.394 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=19 ttl=255 time=3.558 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=20 ttl=255 time=7.939 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=21 ttl=255 time=6.389 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=22 ttl=255 time=7.283 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=23 ttl=255 time=8.027 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=24 ttl=255 time=7.483 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=25 ttl=255 time=9.672 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=26 ttl=255 time=11.312 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=27 ttl=255 time=8.234 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=28 ttl=255 time=7.712 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=29 ttl=255 time=4.009 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=30 ttl=255 time=6.710 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=31 ttl=255 time=3.922 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=32 ttl=255 time=3.294 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=33 ttl=255 time=0.773 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=34 ttl=255 time=1.769 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=35 ttl=255 time=1.651 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=36 ttl=255 time=3.186 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=37 ttl=255 time=3.500 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=38 ttl=255 time=3.479 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=39 ttl=255 time=3.459 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=40 ttl=255 time=3.559 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=41 ttl=255 time=3.362 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=42 ttl=255 time=3.384 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=43 ttl=255 time=3.268 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=44 ttl=255 time=1.708 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=45 ttl=255 time=1.072 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=46 ttl=255 time=0.769 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=47 ttl=255 time=3.143 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=48 ttl=255 time=0.816 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=49 ttl=255 time=0.794 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=50 ttl=255 time=0.825 ms

"I'm not sure till now if there is a matter between upgrade and clean install regarding to the wireless issue."

I'm a little surprised you don't seem to have considered that issue. I would think that any good trouble shooter would have. Way before trying to deciper ping output etc. Particularly given the talk about how SL etc and Windows can use multiple forms of security that Lion ditched.