Q: Intermittent Wifi issues with iPad 2 and WiFi

We have not imagined these issues.  We are on page 74 now of this forum and we are the people who can be bothered to submit.  Most of us are a little bit techy so we can play with our router and try and get it sorted, but there must be thousands of other people who are not submitting to the forum and not able to resolve the connection issues who are just "struggling along"...

I think to dismiss it as a small issue is incorrect.  Obviously with 74 pages of issues there is an issue which is large enough for Apple to respond and to try and do something about.

Correct. 75 pages on this site bat the issue and then a whole bunch of other forums with the same complaints. There clearly seems to be some kind of issue here with the iPad 2 wifi. Maybe it's some kind of substandard hardware that was just good enough to pass QC but infect is not good enough for the real world random varied wifi connections. Or there are some software issues. Really hope to find a way to solve it.

My main use is for the iPad is when I'm not at home and on the road so there is no way to access router/modem settings.

There clearly is some issue here, at least for some thousands, and for the price and expected quality of apple products I hope apple doest just ignore the issue.

Good to know that you don't have issues on many networks. So it is some kind of random or some defective products with wifi problems. All this talk of changing router settings etc. Is nonsense. The iPad is clearly a mobile device and absolutely has to adapt to wifi that is available wherever the same way laptops do. I'll give apple a call and see what kinda response I get.

Nobody is suggesting there is a problem with every iPad, but there is definitely an intermittent problem.  This is only 1 thread of 75 pages; there are several other threads within these forums, as well as threads on other forums. 

This is not an uncommon problem.  I have had 3 iPad Touches in my household, not one had any wi-fi connectivity issues at home nor any public hotspot.  I had to exchange my first iPad2 because it wouldn't connect anywhere, and my wife is now having to turn her iPad2 wi-fi off and then on again occassionally at home due to connectivity problems.  No such problems on any of the Touches, and my 2nd iPad2 seems to be devoid of any problems thus far. 

To suggest it is a problem with router settings or a given router is a bit ignorant of the documented problems here as well as elsewhere.  The users here likely represent a small % of the users that have problems - I wonder how many others have exchanged or returned iPads? 

Mark

Hi all, I just returned my first 1Pad2 because of connectivity issues, and got a replacement. I went into my router settings and made sure "b" was off (backward compatability). So far the newer iPad2 is working well.

I did the same about 3 weeks ago. It took mine 2 days to start having issues. Hope this garbage is fixed in iOS 5.

First Apple product I ever returned.

Why haven't we gone viral with this issue? This should go out to the net. Only then will Apple do something about it.

I'm reporting back that my "fix" is still working.  Rock solid iPad 2 wifi connection for 8 months now.

My solution was to get the Apple Airport Extreme WiFi router.  I know that isn't going to be acceptable for everyone, but $179 is more than worth the alleviated frustration.  Plus i now have an awesome 3 hotspot router, with dual bands and MIMO.

I, like many of you, had very repeatable and predictable WiFi drop offs on my iPad 2.  I posted a few months ago about my situation but in summary it was using a new iPad 2 with a Verizon FIOS provided Access Point using 802.11g and any flavor of WEP, WPA, or WPA-2 encryption.  I had experienced this issue through all iOS versions on the iPad 2 and no updates were available to my FIOS AP.

I am happy to report that I have corrected my issue and have had no issues at home for over a month.  My solution was to add a Linksys/Cisco 2500 Wireless-N AP to my Verizon FIOS router/AP combo.  This new AP was only $70 and I was interested in adding it for the Wireless-N capabilities if for nothing else.  Since this is a simultaneous dual band AP I set the 802.11g to the 2.4 GHz frequency and 802.11n to the 5 GHz frequency. 

Out of the box I was able to connect my iPad 2 to the N network and my 2 iPhones to the G network (iPhone 4 only supports N on 2.4 GHz I found).  Speed tests on the N network from my iPad showed consistent 21-22 Mbps up/down on my 25/25 FIOS connection an tests on the G network from my iPhone in the 15-17 Mbps up/down.  However, on my iPad I noticed signal issues when I would use the N network from my bedroom (which is ~ 40 feet from my AP).  I would regularly drop my N connection and automatically connect to the G connection.  To solve this I switched the 5 GHz "Channel Width" from "Auto" to "20 MHz" which some blogs I have read suggested it would increase range and decrease interference but could result in lower performance.  However, once making this change I have not lost my N connection anywhere in my house with my iPad and my performance has remained the same as it was before I made the change. 

I hope this helps those of you still struggling with this issue.

I'm not a techy and this Ipad2 is for work.  I dropped my first one a few weeks ago and the screen cracked.  I just received the new one today and was in process of starting to get set-up.  The cracked Ipad2 is connected and working fine.  The new one worked for awhile then the WI-FI was cycling and not connecting.  Then it went to greyed-out and says "no WI-FI"!  So it's not the dang router.  One IPad 2 is working fine and the new one is NOT!

I had this issue as well and haven't bothered trying out that much, but suddently everything became better! The only thing I know I have done was turning on and off the sideswitch... I have no idea whether this was the actual fix, but it might be worth trying.

And my iPad2 is also a replacement for a broken one....

@dianafrommarietta: Thanks for posting your experience. I think this seals the issue for me. Its a random problem and if your a bit unlucky then ... well, bad wifi.

I've also found that if the connection is a little weak (2 bar) then when you have the smart over fully open it kills 1 bar of the signal (only 1 left). I think there is some metal in the smart cover that helps kill some singnal.

I've had my iPad2 since June and wifi's worked perfectly - until today. The problem described in this thread is what I'm experiencing. I haven't updated software version, I've restored through iTunes. Rebooting the iPad corrects it for one access, disabling and enabling wifi does the same. All other wifi devices (iPhone, Nook, laptop) continue to work fine.  Headed to Apple...

I got a 32gb ipad2 as a surprise present 3 days ago and have suffered from this widely reported issue from the moment I started using it. I connect laptops, desktops (XP, Vista, W7), HTC android smartphones, PS3, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo 3DS without any issue whatsoever through my Linksys WAG120N wireless router. I thus categorically discount any issues with my router or internet service provider.

This issue is evidently very  widespread - this thread alone is at 75 pages as I write, and there are many other similar experiences reported on Internet. And it appears to have been an issue for several months.

My IPad will thus be returned tomorrow for a refund. A big shame, putting this issue to one side for a moment, I have been very impressed with it. But I cannot tolerate working with it like this, and will thus replace it with an

The fact that Apple hasn't appeared to have done anything about it for such a long time makes me fearful that they can't actually resolve it.

Is there a tool to "sniff" iPAD traffics for troubleshooting network problem?