new macbook pro 2011 weak and dropping wireless connection

I just wanted to throw my experience in the mix too...

I'm a US guy, and I was travelling through Singpaore last week on business and decided to pick up a new MB Pro 13", as I was going to gift my last years model to someone special. Anywho, after I got back from the Apple reseller in Singapore, I noticed that this new MB Pro's wi-fi had trouble connecting to the hotel's wifi. It would connect, then the menu bar icon would change to an exclamation point. I had to turn it off/on several times for it to stay connected.

I had my original MB Pro 13" (Last years C2D model) with me too in Singapore, and that one had no problems with the hotel wi-fi. So I knew something was weird from the get-go. I dont know what kind of wi-fi the hotel was using, so dont have the specs for that.

So I get home to the US a few days later, and the wi-fi of the new MB Pro has no problem connecting to my home router (Buffalo WHR-HP-G54, with Tomoato v1.28, WEP). However, when I use DVDPlayer to play an uncompressed standard def DVD video_ts folder on a networked drive, the video freezes and stutters about every 2-3 seconds. I thought maybe there was a problem with the dvd rip, but I thought maybe it was a network issue and the easiest way to eliminate the problem would be to try playing the video_ts again, but this time with airport turned off and through wired ethernet connection. DVDPlayer had no problems playing back the same video_ts folder through wired ethernet. I never had problems with the older MB Pro playing back video_ts files through wi-fi either (ok, there was a rare skip here and there). So now the culprit has been identified... MB Pro's airport for sure.

I tried pinging my router through wi-fi, and was getting very inconsistent pings, as noted below:
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 1.081/29.226/86.931/29.020 ms

Wired ethernet pings were consistent... averaging .900ms

I installed the 10.6.7 update, no change. I reset PRAM, no change. I disabled IPV6 for both wired ethernet and airport in network settings, no change.

For me, the wi-fi is consistently connected, as I have not seen it drop out since being connected to my home router, but it does seem to have difficulty with large size/bit rate transfers, as evidenced by the skipping playback of DVD video_ts folders through my lan. Handbrake encodes (standard def DVD, iPod Touch preset) played back with no issue with QT over wi-fi. Bit rate for that file was set at 530 kbit/s. The problem is just the higher bit-rate stuff.

I played back a h.264 .mov file through QT that had a bit rate of 7,300 kbit/sec and it had the same constant 1-2 second stuttering as was seen when playing back the video_ts folder with DVDPlayer. Activity Monitor showed data received/sec was about 1.5 MB.

Of note: My Mac Mini (2009) connected to the same network has no issues playing back these files via it's airport.

I thought about flashing my router from Tomato to DD-WRT v24 to see if a different firmware would have an effect. At this time, I am not brave enough to attempt the firmware flash. My router has been working fine, is working fine, and I really do no suspect it is the problem. I have reset the router, for good measure, but no improvement to the new MacBook Pro's airport.

I'm sure Apple will make a fix soon. I'm going to take the time to call Apple to let them know about the problem. Im sure others have placed trouble tickets already, but the more people who complain about it, the faster Apple will fix it. Hopefully.

Message was edited by: Squid3660 ...fixed a blaring typo (date/data)

I wanted to offer a bit more information on this too. I am a brand new MAC user and have only had my Macbook Pro for 3 days. The issue for me manifested itself as completely erratic ping results, causing very slow downloads and browsing.

I took the Macbook back to the apple store yesterday and duplicated the results to their own in-house wifi. Their Genius bar folks stated they had never seen this before, and they offered to replace it. Before leaving the store, however, I had them allow me to boot up and configure the new laptop - and we duplicated the same problem there. Only difference this time was, the brand new computer was even worse than mine. The new on had packetloss and dropped connections mixed in with the erratic ping times.

They replaced the laptop a second time, and DOA'd the first replacement. The 2nd replacement had the exact same problem as my original. Long story short, I ended up going home with the same laptop that I originally had.

I will give Apple until 4/8 (last day I can return the laptop for a full refund) to square this issue away. Kinda funny, I've always used PC's - I went ahead and bought this Mac because they are supposed to "just work." Sure would have thought so for a $3k machine.

Ironic I suppose.

This is exactly why Im afraid to change my again. I think this machine is working better then the first one, as first one would droP connections all the time.

Maybe we can get serial # and firmware ver of the cards for people that are ok ?

Hi,

I am seeing the same sort of issues as described in this thread.

I am a wireless network engineer by trade. I'm involved with the day to day operations of a very large multicampus wireless network based on Cisco enterprise gear, including their latest and greatest 3500 series APs. Our network sees over 30,000 unique devices in a day, a significant percentage are Apple systems.

What we are seeing, I suspect, is a problem with new drivers and a new Broadcom wireless chipset. This new product promises to offer true 3x3 support. Using three spatial streams, this device SHOULD be capable of 450Mbit/sec but I haven't played with any AP hardware that does true 3x3. Expect an Airport Extreme speed-bump in the near future as this same wireless chipset can be used in an AP to offer simultaneous dual-band 3x3 support. It's a very awesome product and it's good to see this technology find its way into every MacBook Pro shipping today.

I am, however, seeing the following issues, testing performed with a Cisco 1252 AP running autonomous firmware (latest) and 3500i APs running lightweight firmware (latest). Systems are 17" and 13" and I can replicate these issues on both.

1. Signal strength is consistent however data signalling rate varies significantly compared to the 2010 system. I'm seeing a solid 300Mbit/sec (channel-bonded 5GHz) on my 2010 system but it rapidly changes between 162, 216 and 243. I rarely see 300 (MCS 15). Data transfer rates seem to be about half that of the old system. Signal strength is practically identical between both systems. The 2011 systems seem more likely to select the 2.4GHz band vs. the 5GHz band if both are available, significantly reducing the overall performance of the network service.

2. These systems seem to agressively roam between APs if there are multiple APs in range. This is of concern in dense Wi-Fi deployments as this will result in a large amount of hand-overs between APs and management traffic.

3. Varied ping times. I'm seeing this consistently. On a 5GHz band where there is no intereference (checked using a spectrum analyser), I'm seeing ICMP ping responses from a system between 0.1 and ~180ms. Lots of them are coming in at around 80 or so. The 2010 system is fine.

All of the above could be a result of immature driver support. The decrease in signalling rate may be a result of retransmits.

The 2010 system has had the best wireless performance I have seen out of any notebook computer shipping today (I've tested my 2010 system at a peak of nearly 200Mbit/sec sustained in near-ideal conditions). The revised antenna design was a remarkable achievement. It's simply a shame that Apple were unable to continue this with their 2011 generation and it will soon start to cause me a lot of operational headaches in the coming months if the problem is not identified and a solution made available.

I have not tested under Windows. I'm told things are better here but I shall soon find out - my XP volume won't boot on the 2011 so I'll need to install Windows 7 first and then try again.

Tried 10.6.7 but with the same results.

Hey great write up. Just to mention the new dual band airport extreme is already 3x3 and my macbook does connect at 450 but I never see it hit that most I seen for a short period of time was 430. The actual speeds range from 8.5MB to 12.5MB peak.

Just to note Im also a network engineer, not much of my work is done in wireless world, but I do some. The only time I seen issues like this were due to interference and signal loss. Of course this doesnt seem to be an issues here so I would think it has to be drivers/firmware, but again it is posible that position of the antenna or the hardware defects could produce same issues.

Really frustrated and not sure what to do, I have been at it since day 1 of this macbook release, I got my at lunch time that day, and as mentioned this is the second one already.

Looking forward to seeing this resolved. I have yet to pick up my 15" MBP from the store in which I bought it. I will ask about this tomorrow when I go to pick it up.

And I just ordered a 15" MBP...
Would you cancel the order? what are the chances of this issue being fixed any time soon?
Does Apple read these forums?
If somebody can come up with educated guesses...

Hey folks,

Just wanted to provide an update on my open case with Apple for this issue.

My case was escalated to Apple Engineering last week and after reviewing some traces and logs they have said there is definitely an issue and they are working towards a fix.

I received and e-mail today and they want my MacBook Pro to complete further testing so it's off to the Apple Store tomorrow to get MacBook Pro number 4 so they can send it off.

Let us know if #4 is the same or not.

I am also experiencing this exact same issue on my new MBP 15". I cannot access internet unless I am in the room with the router. If I walk away to another room, no internet. This is only Windows 7, Mac OS X is fine and our other Apple Macbook with Windows 7 is Fine also.

Anyone know a fix other than buying a USB wireless adapter?

MY ISP IS SKY BROADBAND SO I WOULD SUGGEST CONTACTING WHAT EVER YOUR ISP IS IF THIS PROBLEM IS SIMILAR

Problem: very week signal and kept dropping out (i have 4 other PC's and my iTouch which's wifi works fine) (my problem is pretty much exact to all the posts on here)

after hours spent on the phone to Apple technical support i got nowhere but i ended up calling sky and my problem was fixed in a matter of seconds.

log onto the router by typing 192.168.0.1 into the address bar. then the default log in is

User: admin
Password: sky

then go into setup (top far left corner) and change Channel to 11 and that should be it.

It worked for me and hopefully for you too.

my router is set up to FIRMWARE VESION 2.8 SKY so if you have different settings you may need to set the channel to a different number or something but i would suggest calling sky (08442 411 643)

hope this has helped, please pass on if possible

bee xx

I saw two issues from those threads you guys posted.

- Connection dropped out
- Unstable ping time (could even go timeout)

I'm not sure if both issues are having something to do to each other or not (i'm guessing so). Although I don't experience "serious" dropping out issue, I do worry about unstable pint time (from 1ms to 1xx ms)issue which is happening to my 2011 MBP 15.

Should I worry about it?

Well, Birdie18, if you have the ping issue, I would expect that your network speed is not what it could be. My 2011 system is 1/5th the speed of my 2009 on the same network to the same server. As someone else mentioned, I probably would not have noticed it myself if I didn't regularly download large files and immediately noticed that I was getting dramatically less speed through my 'new' system and investigated with speedtest.net and ping. So use speedtest.net to see what your system is getting network performance wise with your wireless connection, then try the same test with your wired connection.

Perhaps it is time to bring this little issue to the attention of the trade press?

I've bpught a new Macbook Pro about 9 days ago and I thought I was the only one having issues as well. I opened a ticket with Apple Care this morning, mainly just to log another call about everything I have read on here. I have to believe that the more open cases will force the engineers to find a fix. Fingers crossed. 🙂 - Aaron