Q: iMac 12,2 (mid 2011) airport (wireless) problem

I updated to 10.7.1 tonight. After a few hours, the wi-fi signal resumed its regular dropping.

I have not done anything to my router or computer to fix this. I believe it is an inherent problem with the hardware or software and I'm waiting for a fix to be issued by Apple. If I lose patience, I will print this discussion thread and take it to the Apple Genius with my computer (after calling AppleCare). In the meantime, I use Network Diagnostic to reconnect - it's faster than turning wi-fi off/on.

When I move my iMac 27" closer to my TimeCapsule, the signal dropping disappears entirely. Since the latest Airport Extreme strengthen the singal, I presume that the iMac is not good at dealing with a weak signal -- although my signal is always at 4 bars in the usual location of the iMac.

However, this really doesnt explain people installing windows on their imac and having no drop outs whatsoever.

Are there any Mac experts around in this support community?  The fact I can toggle my Airport on and off from the menu bar to reconnect has got to be indicative of something, at least a narrowing down of the possible causes.

I'm frustrated no one has given this issue attention, considering this is a new mid-2011 iMac.  This loss of connectivity does not happen on my 2010 MacBook Pro.

I just noticed if I click on the Network icon in my menu bar and let the mouse cursor sit there, a message at the top of the resulting pop-up window alternates between "Airport On" and "Airport: Looking for networks..." every 8-10 secs or so.  Is that normal?

My problems with my imac mid 2011 are exactly the same.  Ive talked to CS countless times,, changed my settings, changed settings on my router, all the while all my other devices work PERFECTLY.  I took my imac to my local apple store (indianapolis), and they took it in, did diagnostics, and stated that shortly after I left it started dropping connection so they replaced the aircard, and it was working great now.

I got home exited and confident that it had been fixed, pluged it up, and connected to my network.  The network was working fine, and I left for about 20 min or so, came back and the wifi had froze again.  I couldn't connect and had to disconnect/reconnect the airport icon to get it working, left.. came back 2 hours later, and had to disconnect/reconnect again. 

I bought this computer in may, and this problem has been plaguing me for over a month, im wondering if we should just try and get our money back.

"I just noticed if I click on the Network icon in my menu bar and let the mouse cursor sit there, a message at the top of the resulting pop-up window alternates between "Airport On" and "Airport: Looking for networks..." every 8-10 secs or so.  Is that normal?"

I get the same thing - I've no idea if it's normal, but I have the dropout problem and see this too.

"I bought this computer in may, and this problem has been plaguing me for over a month, im wondering if we should just try and get our money back."

I've been in exactly the same situation. I managed to sort out getting a refund outside of the normal 14-day period, and the CS guy said a courier will call me to sort out collection within 3 days. That was two weeks ago. Now the CS guy's email address seems to have been shut down - all my emails are returned as unsent. Very dodgy...

LOtang wrote:

 

Update: I am on day 5 without a single dropout, or any hanging in my iMac connection. Forcing my airport ex to broadcast in only G has worked well so far. Still running wpa2. Hope lion fixes too, feels wrong to have all the hardware to broadcast in N and not be able to use it.

Well I made it 6 weeks without the drop out problem.  Again all I did was set my wireless router to only broadcast in G not G/N. No problems whatsoever, until today......................  What changed? The only thing that changed was I replaced the batteries in my magic mouse................Makes no sense whatsoever, but I have not altered any router or network settings, installed any new software, just replacing batteries in the majic mouse tripped up my connection. It is dropping out every few hours now, so still not as bad as before I switched the router on g only.  I purchased apple care for this machine and I think it's time to use it.  It's stupid we are all working so hard to solve an issue with wifi connectivity.   I may switch out the mouse to see if that helps but I don't expect to have issues like this with a Mac, that's why I purchased it in the first place......Frustrating. 

I'm having the same problem. Also with a Mid 2011 27" iMac I purchased in May. No solution. My Airport connection is constantly dropping out.

My problem having disappeared for what I thought was the swapping out of the magic mouse and a third party mouse is now back.  What a pile of rubbish.  This has been months what is going on at apple?  They have about a million people working there, can't one of them stop polishing their seat with their a**e and get up and sort this out.  For f**ks sake come on...

I posted:

"I just noticed if I click on the Network icon in my menu bar and let the mouse cursor sit there, a message at the top of the resulting pop-up window alternates between "Airport On" and "Airport: Looking for networks..." every 8-10 secs or so.  Is that normal?"

(Well this is normal apparently, because my MacBook Pro does this also, and it never loses its connection like my 2011 iMac does.)

Btw I'm using Cox Cable for internet.  I wonder if that has anything to do with randomly dropping connectivity.  Are any of you experiencing the drop issue using something other than a cable connection?

It'd be really nice if someone from Apple dropped by and weighed in on this issue for us. 

Again, whenever I experience these frequent drops in connectivity, toggling the Airport off then on again reconnects me.  What does that indicate about the drops?

I called Apple about this problem today. The first tech person I spoke with indicated that Apple was aware of the problem and was working on it. She then sent me to an Apple Airport specialist. This new tech support person asked me if my problem started after I installed Lion. Since a bunch of things happened at the same time for me -- moving to a new house, getting set up with a new cable and DSL provider, and installing Lion -- I wasn't sure, but I said I thought so. So she had me trash some system level preferences and reboot. Here is a list of the preferences she had me trash:

Go to:

Hard Drive > Library > Preferences > SystemConfiguration

and remove these four files:

com.apple.airport.preferences.plist

com.apple.network.identification.plist

NetworkInterfaces.plist

preferences.plist

Then reboot.

After my iMac had rebooted, she had me open up the System Preferences Control Panel, launch the network window, and add a new location in the pulldown "Location" window. Next she had me go to the pulldown menu with the gear wheel that appears in the lower left hand corner of the window and slecting "Set Service Order". I selected Wi-Fi, since that is my primary connection. After that, I closed the System Prefences Control Panel and went up to the top right-hand corner of the screen and turned on my Airport. That was over an hour ago. No drop outs, at all. Before this, I was experiencing dropouts constantly. Here's hoping this fixes my problem (and also helps some of you with yours). I will report back if I start experiencing regular Airport drops again...

The solution I posted above, didn't stick. I'm now getting thrown offline again. Not as quickly as I was before, but the Airport connection is still not holding...

Seems to be a common thread here. Many proposed and tested solutions (including card swaps at the Apple Store) give us false hope, ever so briefly, that we've licked this issue. We can add your solution above to that list, sadly.

OK, back on the phone with Apple. This time they wanted me to shut the computer down and unplug everything, and said that this cleared up all kinds of issues, including potential power issues with the Airport Card:

1. Shut down the computer

2. Unplug everything, including the power cord and keyboard

3. Let the computer sit for at least a minute

4. Plug everything back in and let the computer sit for another minute

5. Then Zap the Pram:

A. Restart the computer holding down:

Command-Option-r-p

Keep holding these keys down untill the computer reboots twice times. Then let go.

So far, so good. I'll report back later if this worked...

4 hours later, I'm still online. No interuptions.