Q: Wifi Constantly Dropping in Lion

4-1/2 days connected after 10.7.2 reinstall!  woo-hoo!

This is crazy!  For you guys that are still fighting this problem, there's no good reason why this should not work for you, but from my experience, it seems that the fix is a very individual thing depending on your computer, it's settings, and possibly the kind of fixes you have all tried so far.  Even so... this reinstall of 10.7.2 was finally what worked for me.

• mid 2010 macbook pro.
• circa 3 months ago (I think?) I bought OS-X Lion upgrade via the app store. lot's of problems (wifi connection dropping / giving error when reconnecting). I reinstalled OS-X Snow Leopard. Worked fine again.
• today I swapped harddrives. the new harddrive is from a brand new macbook pro, and so the hd came with OS-X lion installed.

My mid 2010 macbook starts up fine with the preinstalled OS-X Lion. Also, wifi seemed to be working fine, till I went to another room with less reception. Same old problem (Mac OS-X version 10.7.2).

Some more info on my configuration: I got a Fritz Box which functions as my accesspoint to the internet. This accesspoint reduces transmitting power automatically to the level actually needed.

Solution which actually worked twice: put my laptop near the access point.

For now my assumption is it must be a bug triggered by bad / no reception.

I will try it for another day I think, after that I will downgrade again if the problem is persistent. Also I am curious how the new macbook will behave with Lion in the same conditions. Haven't tried it yet - it better be good or I will have to downgrade it somehow as well.

Small update - the brand new (late 2011 I guess) macbook seems to work great as far as wifi goes. With OS-X Lion, that is.

May be a combination of the Lion software with some cripple mid 2010 hardware? Just thinking out loud... May be snow leopard has some builtin workaround for a hardware issue?

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I have a brand new mac book pro (must be late 2011) and I have massive wifi problems!! So i dont think it's a problem of combination.

Yesterday I went to a genius bar and they said that they don't know anything about wifi problems with lion (ignorance!!)  Because I bought my MB pro 14 days ago they gave me a new one, but today problems returned. Tomorrow I will try to update the firmware of my rooter, but I don't think this will solve the problem.

im happy that its working for you. i have tried everything even airport express is even put the machine back to factory state and if wi-fi ran for 1 hour without dropping i would be a glutton ha ha .lion is king of the jungle but apple lion is the mouse of wi fi ha  ha.if it was only as simple as reloadin this discussion would be closed long ago so i think apple will fix this by bringing out a new os called super lion and it will cost 30 dollars. they must be losing money on this one and their at name too

suitess wrote:

 

i think apple will fix this by bringing out a new os called super lion and it will cost 30 dollars. they must be losing money on this one and their at name too

Thanks for cheering up my day with this hysterical comment. haha. Apple shares are still going up as well as their sales. Lion is great. But thanks for the laugh.

Cheerio

@mulligans missus: If anybody else wrote that crap and you were asked to give Your opinion, what would You say? If You can't lend a helping hand, well - simply keep Your hands off, punk!

@suitess, naddi and others: Downside is You can't take a whole day off to occupy the Genius (????) Bar, but if anyone could do so, I think that would be the only reliable solution I have seen for months in this sad thread.

Did any of us go purchase a Macintosh being aware and warned that we were to toss around for weeks with system configs and deconfigs, wifi setups and -breakdowns etc. etc. ? Just a plain question.

Not to mention all the "black magic wonder" solutions in the threads ...

So off to the Genius Bar we go, and don't think of leaving before someone has brought up a decent solution!!

Hi sblahauvietz

seems promising, but how is it possible to reinstall Lion 10.7.2. ?? In my case the reinstallation is dinied with a notion that the system at hand ain't compatible with this upgrade.

The system at hand IS 10.7.2 (installed via App Store)

@keynoteservice: yes you're right i dont spend the whole day at a genius (??? ) bar! But I was hoping that the wifi problems start at the apple store as well - they don't. The only thing the Genius said to me was, that there could be (haha) problems with closed systems (I don't know how you call it in english, when you have a secured wifi). What do they thinke?? They didn't believe me when I mentioned that in university I had also problems with wifi - and there I used wifi without password.

So I'm now starting to try some things that are mentioned to -perhaps- solve the problem- if not I will return to an apple store!!! I REALLY don't buy a new Mac for about 1000 € and I cannot work with it!!!!! (And I only bought a new one because my old MB white (late 2007) had desktop problems.... )

keynoteservice wrote:

 

@mulligans missus: If anybody else wrote that crap and you were asked to give Your opinion, what would You say? If You can't lend a helping hand, well - simply keep Your hands off, punk!

 

You are not as funny as the other fellow.

Did any of us go purchase a Macintosh being aware and warned that we were to toss around for weeks with system configs and deconfigs, wifi setups and -breakdowns etc. etc. ? Just a plain question.

Not to mention all the "black magic wonder" solutions in the threads

I have no such problems and know of noone else with these problems either. If they exist then I'm sure Apple will address them when ready.

Cheer Up

3 full days giving to apple genius that on 3 different days they fine tooth combed this mac and lo and behold are you ready for this hold on tight to your seat !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! same result wi fi dropping and fine tooth combed this mac with apple dedicated experts over the telephone doing all that was asked of me and are you readyyyyyy

for this ???????????????? same result wi fi dropping. and im using airport extreme.so put that in your pipe and smoke it ha ha ha

i took out my previous mac which had snow leapard running no probs at all so in all probability its maybe the lion needs to go to the dentist have its teeth fixed hahaha

Here's an easy, simple fix that worked perfectly for me:  Turn off WiFi securty on your router.

(or try changing the protocol)

I know this isn't ideal for everyone, but if you are ABLE to do this, it works.  Without writing a novel here, this issue lies with certain WiFi chipsets that Apple uses, and how those chipsets talk with Lion when using certain WiFi security protocols.

If you turn WiFi security off, reboot your router, and reboot your Mac while resetting PRAM, that should work. 

That sounds like a horrible advice Tim.  Many people might fail to notice the implications of your "fix": anyone who can see your network will be able to use it for whatever purpose, legal or not.  They might eat your whole bandwidth, share copyrighted material putting you in trouble, and whatever else you can imagine. Yes, you can prevent your router from broadcasting your SSID, but it's still 100% visible if you have anyone in the house connecting to your non-broadcasts WiFi with a computer running XP SP2 (which broadcasts all non-broadcasted networks in their preferred network list).

On the other hand, I did a quick search, I didn't find any "literature" about this issue you mention ("certain" WiFi chipsets, with "certain" WiFi security protocols). Can you confirm a good source ?

ferkijel - You may think it's horrible advice, but you'll notice that I said "I know this isn't ideal for everyone."  This is a decent fix for anyone who lives in a larger home, or environment where strangers are typically about 300+ feet away.  (more rural area, large property, etc.)  As you may know, the range of most SOHO wireless routers is limited to about 200 feet. 

If you're looking for "literature" regarding the chipsets and security protocols, you'll have to look through the discussions in this post, and the other popular post on this issue.  I've been following it for about 2 months, and there have been several posts by others confirming this.