new macbook pro 2011 weak and dropping wireless connection

Hi there - after having tried all the different suggestions from people over multiple posts on this subject, all without result, I finally ended up just buying an external USB Wifi-adapter. It's ridiculous, a 3000 euro laptop, with a $11,95 USB adapter sticking out to get wifi. But not as ridiculous as sitting literally next to my my wifi router and not having an internet connection. It's the easy solution, and works also for Mountain Lion: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Mini-USB-802-11b-g-n-300Mbps-WiFi-N-Wireless-Adapter- Dongle-Network-LAN-Card-/180857119047.

I had this problem on my MBRr early 2013. Was reading all week looking for a fix before I found out what it was, It was my Galaxy S4 blocking it somehow.

Whenever I have my Galaxy S4 logged onto my home network my Macbook Pro Retina slows down and cuts off every now and then, so what I suggest to people before they follow other methods is to log everything off your network includind all phones and then restart you macbook.

Hopefully somebody this works for other people as I know how frustrating this can be, mine was only a week old and was totally stressing after paying out £2700 on my first mac, I was starting to regret it but now everything is fine although it does get pretty hot when streaming movies haha but that's another story.

Good luck to everybody.

I had this problem on my MBRr early 2013. Was reading all week looking for a fix before I found out what it was, It was my Galaxy S4 blocking it somehow.

Whenever I have my Galaxy S4 logged onto my home network my Macbook Pro Retina slows down and cuts off every now and then, so what I suggest to people before they follow other methods is to log everything off your network includind all phones and then restart you macbook.

Hopefully somebody this works for other people as I know how frustrating this can be, mine was only a week old and was totally stressing after paying out £2700 on my first mac, I was starting to regret it but now everything is fine although it does get pretty hot when streaming movies haha but that's another story.

Good luck to everybody.

I have the same problem with my early 2011 MBP. iPad, iPhone both are perfectly ok. I don't have a USB dongle handy to test the NIC difference. I find that if I turn off my NIC radio and then turn it back on I get a fresh start ... for about 5 minutes. I'm running Mavericks and have a brand new router. The issue doesn't happen at work, however. I've got no packet loss and ping test seems ok. Thoughts?

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

This is exactly what cured the problem for me, turning off wi-fi on my Galaxy S4 phone.

It also explains why the problem was so perplexingly intermittent. I only turn on wi-fi on my phone when I'm downloading podcasts. I just never thought I had to turn it OFF while it was still plugged in.

Again, many many thanks.

Hi all,

I just wanted to help by outlining how i repaired the wifi issues that plagued my MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Early 2011 (Released February 2011 2.2 GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 Processor, thunderbolt, Broadcom BCM94331PCIEBT4AX wifi/bluetooth card)

The issue

After a while of use, the wireless internet dies. The signal strength indicator fan in the top right corner still indicates five full bars. Right Clicking on the icon and clicking on "Turn wi-fi off" makes the fan icon go blank as it should, but the previously connected to network remains in the list check marked, which it shouldnt. All other wifi networks in the area disappear from the list. The status at the top of the drop down box says "Wi-Fi: looking for networks".

Right clicking on the icon and clicking on "Turn wifi-off" makes the icon go blank, as it should. Right-clicking on the icon and clicking on "Turn Wifi-On" does not enable the wifi. The fan icon stays blank, which it shouldnt. The previously "connected to" network remains checkmarked, but there is no connection to the internet.

Putting the laptop to sleep with the lid and waking it again results in five faded bars, but now no wifi networks can be found, and there is no connection to the internet. The issue occured round once a day at the beginning. By saving my work and rebooting the laptop, the issue has been manageable. However, it became unmanagable when it occured more and more often to the point where I had to save my work reboot my laptop every 1-2 hours of use.

What I tried to do to repair the issue

1. Reboot the laptop. A temporary solution is to reboot the laptop, in which the wifi performs as it should until the issue occurs again.
2. Use a USB dongle. A semi permanent solution was for me to buy a Ralink usb wifi adapter, that worked fine but was not ideal. It felt a bit rediculous and cumbersome to have to use a $10 usb adapter to repair a Macbook Pro that cost $2000.
3. Connect to a different wifi network. This did not work. The issue occurs when connected to other wifi networks, such as my parents one at home. This hinted that it was not a wireless router issue.
4. Reset PRAM, NRAM, etc. This was only a temporary solution, as was just simply rebooting the laptop.
5. Deleting my Airport settings files. Again, this was only a remporary solution, bus so was simply rebooting.
6. Wiped the harddrive and installed Mountain Lion. The issue remained, even with a clean installation with no restoration of my old settings from TimeMachine. The issue was the same when I installed Lion, and Mavericks. I even noticed the same issue once with the wifi when I booted off just the OSX installation disk. As such, I believed that the the issue is hardware related.
7. Visual inspection of the hardware. I took off the bottom cover of the laptop to see if there are any visually obvious loose connections, but there are none.
8. Took the laptop to an Authorised Apple Repair Center. They did nothing. As it was an intermittent issue, they said that the wifi was working fine when they ran their DVD of hardware tests. As far as I know, they dont do any long-term tests, even though I had requested them to do so. They blamed the wireless router (which I knew was not an issue, see above) and mu wifi settings (which I also knew was not an issue, see above).
9. Replaced the wifi card. This did not work. I bought a new Broadcom BCM94331PCIEBT4AX for around $35 off ebay. Following a guide on ifixit, http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Unibody+Early+2011+AirPort-Bluet ooth+Cable+Replacement/5887 I replaced the card easily enough. It was just around 10 screws in total, easily managable in an hour if you take your time. Unfortunately, the issue returned again after a few hours of use.
10. Replaced the motherboard, and the screen, which I assume means that the wifi antennas got replaced. This did not work. On an unrelated issue with the graphics card, Apple agreed to replace the motherboard, lvds, and LCD screen out of warranty (really good of them). Unfortunately, their authorised repair center took nearly 6 months to do the repair (again, they were a bad repersentation of Apple). Unfortunately, the wifi issue returned once again after a few hours of work.

What repaired it in the end

Finally, in a last ditch attempt, and as it seemed to be the only part in the laptop not replaced (including software), I bought a replacement wifi/bluetooth cable off ebay for around $30. This worked! It has been going strong now for nearly three weeks with no drop in wifi. It was pretty expensive for a simple black ribbon cable but I am glad that it worked. There was no visual damage to the old cable, but I suspect myself that the bottom cover may have pinched the cable against some edge near the motherboard, thus causing the intermittent drop-off in wifi.

If needed, I have a slightly more detailed repair outlined on my blog here, with iamges.

http://warrantyvoidifremoved.blogspot.com/

TL:DR: Issue with intermittent wifi on Macbook pro. Repaired it by replacing the black ribbon cable between the wifi/bluetooth card and the motherboard.

Hi guys,

I had exactly same problems as you are all describing ( with my MBP 2011) , it was driving me nuts in Windows 7 (x64) every 3 - 10 minutes wifi problem, only solution was connect / disconnect, I even bought new AP, but problem remained same. Yesterday I tried roll back to older Windows driver, Iam using: 5.106.199.1 (13.11.2012) now. No issues with Wifi connection since I did that.

Hi, did you manage to get this problem sorted out? I went to the Apple store and they said it was fixed, but I had my doubts because they had 36 routers in the building! I tried several locations outside the Apple store and it's the same thing - I have to be in very close proximity to a router otherwise the connection drops. Would really appreciate a response!