Airport constantly looking for a Network

My apple desktop with Lion installed, is constantly looking for networks, with a perfectly good network connection. This is SOOO annoying. It slows it down, won't connect, I have to tell it that it has a pw protected great wireless network over and over for it to work. I have deleted the other neighborhood networks in the network app. What is up with this? does anyone know? Searching for networks... always searching for networks.... what is wrong?????

found this reply on one of the forums, yes it works!

This solved my question by DAN6 on Feb 6, 2012 8:24 AM

thanx, finally had to call Apple Support , and it took about 2 mins to solve the issue.!

In the network window, the location tab was set on automatic and i guess this caused some sort of time out with my linksys router.. so he had me enter the location code[0206 ] . Apply, reboot and thats it!

it worked!

2nd time i had to use apple suport, and they have been pretty darn good ! im on my 90 days new computer service help line..! but i like the forums too, learn a lot ! ;-)) Dan06

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I did what Natalia suggested bud did not work for me. Wi-Fi constanly looking for networks, connecting for 5 seconds and than disconecting again. Suuuper frustrating!!!

I have two identical iMacs in two locations - one is on Lion on 60Mb/s optical network wifi with these connection problems. The other one on 4Mb/s connection and it works as it should.

In the flat where I have iMac on Lion I am also using iPad, wireless Apple TV and PS3 for streaming films, PS3, two smartphones, PC on Windows 7, wireless Time Capsule, Sonos for music - it all just works beautifully and is always connected but the iMac on Lion is constantly switching on and off and driving me crazy. When watching you tube video on it I can see how much of the video is being downloaded in those 5 seconds when wifi is connected and then it stops when wifi is off.

I am just explaing this is as somebody on forums suggested that when wifi is looking for networks one is still connected, just iMac is looking for better connections. Not true as data is definitelly not being loaded.

I compared downloading video on my PC and iMac - on PC it loads up on PC 50% faster

I have disabled in network preferences "Ask to join other networks" so iMac is forced to use my wifi. In network window is says that I am connected but the data download is patchy and Wi-Fi status bar constantly jumps between On and Looking for Networks.

Any advise is appreciated as this has to drive mad tons of poeple and so far I did not found on forums something that will actually. Not sure if it is time to look at Microsoft again with Windows 8 and number of good looking comps :- (((

This is normal. Your device is NOT constantly looking but only looks again when you click the airport icon. You may want to change networks or you may have come into the range of a new network that was not previously in the list.

This is the case whether the box is checked or unchecked pertaining to "asking before joining new networks" in the system preferences.

Think of the light which only comes on when the refrigertor door is opened.

Sorry altchurch but obviously you have not seen what we experience - it is CONSTANTLY looking for new networks even when not asked to and despite the hierarchy of the networks to be joined.

Thank you altchurch but that is unfortunatelly not the case. If I am downloading the video and I loose the wifi connection the download is interrupted and have to start again. I stopped trying on this connection as it never works. When I am watching video on youtube it stops as the downloead is interrupted. If I open a website it does not display until the connection is established (for 5-10 seconds) when it loads and than jams / disconnects again...

True enough, if the connection has been dropped my remarks would not apply. Thank you for the clarification.

For those who have an uninterrupted connection, the moment the wifi icon is clicked, a network will show to be checked even though it is "looking for networks." About 10 secound later that alert will revert to: wifi on.

The reason it looks for networks is because one may be on the road looking for a an open network or just changing to a different local one. Otherwise, there would be no reason to click the wifi menu icon.

System programmers use truncated explantions in the menus to save space. This one should have been: "searching for OTHER networks" if you are indeed already connected.