Intermittent Wifi issues with iPad 2 and WiFi

I think I figured it out! If you have neighbors with a strong connection you need to go into wifi settings and turn off "ask to join networks". It worked for me.

Does anyone think this might be to do with IOS 5.1? My 32g (3g&wifi) iPad 2 has worked totally fine on my home wi-Fi for a year now - and all my other Apple devices (iPhone and MacBook) continue to work fine. But in the last week, since upgrading IOS, I've started having the same problems as everyone else with the iPad. To blame the router would be ridiculous.

yep, Apple and all its devotees will blame your router, no matter how illogical that is... I threatened to report Apple to the Department of Fair Trading here in Australia, and I've been in contact with local newspapers until Apple finally couldn't get out of the corner I backed them into after they insisted I bring in my router for testing even though it works perfectly with a load of other devices - Once they suggested I bring the router in to be tested I said there'd be 1 of 2 outcomes: either the router is at fault or not. If the latter they'd have to agree the iPad wifi design is flawed, and if the former, given it works with a dozen other devices, then they'd have to agree ipad can't work with a very common Netgear router.

So, finally, after nearly a full year, and 2 weeks before the warranty ran out, Apple sent me an airport express for free, which has fixed the problem.

So the only reliable solution is to buy more apple products...I bet you wouldn't have bought the ipad if you knew you'd also have to buy an apple router to make it work reliably, right?

Good luck...

to the usual suspects, thanks for all the help you provide here - but being a Windows user, I guess I've been spoilt by its Plug n Play technology all these years, and tweaking router settings (not that it worked for me anyway) is something I've been saved from. :-)

I had the ipad 1 and 2 and no issues. My screen was cracked and I took it in and Apple replaced it with I am sure a refurbished one. Since I have had, about a month or 2, it keeps droping wifi signals. I have never had this issue before. My iphones and PCs and Laptops have no issues with the wifi in my home. I went ahead and did a reset to factory and now, it sees the wifi, but will not connect. I think it is silly for me to spend 79 for a tech to tell me, this has hardware issues. (I am a computer tech and have been one since 1990.) I know this is a hardware issues but I have to pay 79 for them to tell me that? This is just crazy...

My wife and I are both having issues with our iPad2's. A few days ago we started to have problems with the wifi (brighthouse). My Toshiba Ssatellite and Iphone4s have not had any issues logging on. My wife is able to log on at work with her iPad and I can log on to my hotspot anywhere else, but at my house. Any suggestions?

One thing I did and tried, was I took the iPad 2 to back to factory settings and then reloaded all of my apps. Thank goodness for iCloud as I was able to just back up and download the backup. HOWEVER, make sure the iPad is plugged into to power as it takes a LONG LONG TIME to redownload.

Since I have done this and I did it right after my post, it has only lost the connection 2 times. That is much better then what it was, which was many many times though out the day.

So, you might want to try that, but as far as fixing it completely, I have no idea what the answer is for that.

Things to try for ipad 2 wifi. issues:

wifi router:

set beacon interval to 50

set channel to 11

set wifi mode to g, security to wpa

turn on mac filtering and add systems to mac filter

turn off qos/wmm

ipad 2:

ask to joinnetworks is off

reset network by going to general-settings-reset-reset network settings

vkv

Thanks vkv,

I should have thanked you earlier. I followed all your suggestions after that the performance of the wifi has improved very much. It is not that wifi is not dropping but now the frequency is much less, once in 3 hrs. Though sometimes it drops within 15 minutes. One thing extra i have done is to switch off the location finder. Lets see what happens.

Indranil.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3304

Hi,

Another thing i noticed is my wifi router showing wrong date/time. There was an option to get date/time from a NTP server. I set it to the public ntp server at country.pool.ntp.org. So for usa, it would be us.pool.ntp.org, for india would be in.pool.ntp.org. This appears to improve stability also.

vkv

Hi guys, just bought an iPad 2, updated it to its 5.1 as soon as I bought it, and facing same wifi disconnection issues after iPad goes in idle/sleep mode. .. have mtnl broadband and I tried everything discussed in this thread but to no avail...however, the issue couldn't be replicated in Istore but exist at both mine and my brother's place, both have mtnl router. My firmware is v85.2.04.02 please help, didn't expect this with iPad 2 since its been in use for so long. Thanks

Infact the issue just got worse now, I lost connection even as I was typing the above comment and again had to manually on-off the wifi switch.......Can we return back iPads in India? Not sure if the US like policies exist in India even for apple

adityabagve wrote:

Infact the issue just got worse now, I lost connection even as I was typing the above comment and again had to manually on-off the wifi switch.......Can we return back iPads in India? Not sure if the US like policies exist in India even for apple

Don't worry an update should be coming out shortly. Apple, actually most software companies, roll multiple fixes into their updates and there are a few that popped up with 5.1 -- including for example pictures appearing upside down when emailed. My tests concluded the issue is primarily related to wireless-n routers (not all of them though). First make sure you update the firmware of your router. Second, if the issue continues, some have found relief by forcing the router to connect only with wireless-g which is still sufficiently fast for an interim solution if it works.

In the worse case scenario, there have been success with more agressive tweaks; the details can be found on a thread specifically for iPad2 & iOS 5.1 here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2780293?answerId=18123057022#18123057022&ac_cid=142432#18123057

Hi,

I am still on 4.3.5 so not sure. But you maybe facing one of these issues:

www.net.princeton.edu/ipad

I also have notifications and location services off in settings and auto lock to never.

vkv

Well, thanks guys, but issue not resolved yet. I have changed the security settings from WPA to WPA2 and WEP, reduced beacon to 50, fixed 802.11 at g from b+g+n, increased the brightness of ipad, switched of location and join network switch. Still no use.

Mike you are saying the problem is with wireless n routers but apple's own airport express is an n router, right?

vkv, thanks for the link, i checked those issues and one of them was very close but a bit different since it occurs when power is connected to the device. Mine is definetely not dependent on power. I will switch the idle/sleep time to never but you really don't want to do that since its not the right solution 😟