Intermittent Wifi issues with iPad 2 and WiFi

@Ramyyan

Yes, my D-Link DIR-655 is protected with long unique admin and user passwords, using WPA2 Personal security, and MAC address filtering restricting access to the dozen or so WiFi devices in my household.

Two things of note: The Auto 20/40 Channel Width selection displays as 40Mhz on the Wireless LAN Status screen, and the auto-channel scan is enabled and does change the active channel frequently.

Finally went into the store and got a replacement (it was only a week old) and was a gift to my aunt so didnt want her to not have the requisite "facetime" with her grand daughter.. So far the new ipad is holding the signal much better..so the old one must have just been a bad apple!!

@Pseudo_pad Glad to hear you have apparently resolved the problem with a replacement iPad.

@pseudo-pad good luck but After replacing my ipad twice I can tell it is not going to help.

I Bought a 64 GB iPad two weeks ago and had this problem. I was using iOS 5.0.0 and 5.0.1

I literally had an iPhone with full bars and the iPad had no signal about 40ft away from a router... No walls.

I was using mixed mode because I still have devices using b-only and WEP encryption at home. Brand new Linksys E4200....

Anyways, traded it in for a 32GB 3G model and it works perfect. No problems anywhere. I don't use the 3G service, just like having it as an option.

My recommendation is to return your iPad if your not getting good reception, the difference between the problematic iPad and this one is completely night and day.

Hmmm, interesting, as I'm writing this UPS have literally just turned up with my Ipad 2 64 gb which I returned as faulty, I had an e-mail yesterday stating that it had been fully tested and was absolutely fine..... but they'd done a firmware upgrade just to be sure. I'll keep you posted but the 'acid test' was when we tried another Ipad 2 next to mine and it performed perfectly where mine would even open the BBC web page. I'm not sure what model it was but I'll find out and see if it was a 32gb / 64 etc. Interesting bearing in mind what you're findings were Agonza. I'm a little frustrated that £560 so far has just got me a load of headache. Bit of a joke that the most expensive piece of equipment in the house that uses wifi has the worst (by far) reception. What was it that Honda said...... "Isn't it great when things just work?" Anyhow, I'll test tonight, fingers crossed..

I am quite sure that apple would know about this issue, and that they are keeping quiet until warranties run out.

Also, i do not see why i have wait days to see someone in an apple store about it. Either I am in line behind a truck load of people with faulty products or behind people wanting other services.

Further, why do some ipads work fine and some do not? Answer: because apple cannot make consistantly good stuff.

What a waste on $600.

Jason

<Edited by Host>

The Apple shops are indeed packed out with people carrying duff products.

You must get yours swapped under the warranty, before it runs out.

My experience of the local shop (Brighton, UK) is that if you turn up without an appointment, they will still see you. But getting a Genius Bar appointment was always OK for the next day, we found.

The problem you will have is that if it works with the wifi in the shop, they won't swap it for a new one, even if you turn up with incontrovertible evidence that it doesn't work with anything else.

The problem is that if Apple won't admit it's a warranty problem, what are my rights for exchange outside the distance selling regulations? (I think it's 28 days return period). The letter accompanying my ipad returned from the Apple Care Service Centre reads... "Diagnostic tests confirmed that your iPad meets Apple's specifications for acceptible performance, useability and/or functionality." So this is in a way correct but the point is why is it so much worse than every wifi other product in the house and why is it so much worse than another iPad 2 used for comparison? I understand that wifi signal strength is somewhat 'qualitative' but my previous tests showed to some degree of accuracy and consistency that my iPad 2 wifi performance (signal strength) was weak and for it's primary method of communication, I assumed it should be one of it's strongest assets.

AFAIK you can return it under the UK DSR regs, without a reason.

Just do that.

If Apple choose to develop a product today which is quite obviously incompatible with many WIFI access points made over the past decade, that's not your problem.

Apple have a bit of a history of doing this. Like the Ipad (non 3G) bluetooth GPS support. Did they make it compatible with any of the hundreds of existing bluetooth GPSs already on the market? No.

I have a 32GB Wifi only iPad 2, which I purcchased back in June. It constantly drops the Wifi signal, and it can hardly connect sometimes. Currently, I'm running iOS 5.0.1. I hope that Apple manages to sort things out with 5.0.2.

Don't hold your breath waiting for a fix. I have pretty much given up myself. If it didn't get fixed with the major update to 5.0, then I doubt it will ever get resolved. This thread has been going since March 12th, so that's plenty of time to troubleshoot and develop a fix.

I had my iPad 2 replaced but the new one was the same. My only solution was to get an additional AP closer to the place where I use my Ipad, just to extend my network. This resolved the issue for the most part, however since 5.0, my connection will drop every few days. I just need to shut down wi-fi and back on to reconnect and I'm good for a few more days. My connection is good and strong, but can't connect/load anything. It's like it can't renew my lease or something. A static IP didn't help either. I just got a new Apple Airport Extreme this weekend and see how that goes. (so far so good.) if the same as my Netgeat WNDR-3700, I'll return the AE to Apple and maybe try DD-WRT on the Netgear.

I am so tempted to get Consumer Reports involved so they can do a story on this. That would get the media interested if there's a major flaw in the hardware.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the hardware - my iPad ran fine on iOS 4.3. What I forgot to mention is my broadband. I think I am on BT Total Broadband Option 1, and, it's terrible. 4Mbps. Tops 5. I live in the UK, and the highest we have here is 100Mbps, however, that is scheduled to come here any time soon. But the thing is, it used to be that when my iPad dropped it's WiFi connection, so would my computer, and I'd have to restart the hub, or wait a few minutes/hours/days (rarely). Nowadays, when my iPad drops it's connection, which can be up to five times a day, my computer runs fine - albeit on a low WiFi connection (it never goes above 2/5 bars these days).

So it is not a hardware issue, in my mind, just a huge bug. The thing is, here in the UK, you get used to it - our broadband is so bad compared to the American broadband, that it is normal to get low speeds and a dodgy connection. I still have faith in Apple that they will sort it out.

i encountered problems with my iPad on intermittent connection to my home wifi. when all other devices (Dell laptop, Blackberry Torch) had no issues connecting to the wifi & the internet. so i ignored the iPad issue as a "unique problem".

this afternoon, my wife told me her iPad2 could not connect to the internet. this is when i did some research over the web & found the wifi connection to be a "known issue" with iOS-powered devices.

after fiddling around with the configuration of my TP-Link MR3420 router, i made the following changes which eliminated (so far) the wifi connectivity problems of my iPad & my wife's iPad2:

1. enable SSID broadcast. (previously this was disabled)

2. change the channel (my wifi router is beside my cordless phone, which also operates on the 2.4Ghz band). i originally set the channel to "Auto", but encountered problems when the TP-Link would scan available channels, presumably conflicting with the cordless phone. i set the channel to "10".

3. other websites say that WMM must be enabled (WMM = Wireless MultiMedia support). mine was enabled by default.

hope this helps.

Hi.

I'm sorry I haven't been reading alle replies in all previous 83 pages, but I was directed to this thread when googling about a problem I had with iPads/iPhones on Wi-Fi at work.

We were experiencing problems when authenticating using an existing RADIUS-server. Often we got the message "Could not connect to the wifi network" or something like that. I think I've tried every possible alternatives in the setup up until this morning.

Then I connected an iPad to my PC and started the iPhone Configuration Utility. When I connected (or tried to connect) the iPad to the network I could see everything happening in the log view. That gave me a hint of trying to set the preamble value to long, instead of the existing value of short.

I did that, deployed the changes and I haven't had a single problem with any i-Units since!

Wi-Fi solution is delivered by Juniper, so it's a bit different than lots of the solutions you guys have, but it might be worth a try changing the preamble setting.

Hooray!

Regards.