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New MacBook Air Wireless Problems

Hello -

I'm a longtime Mac user (20+ years) and have owned more Macs than I care to count. I also can't seem to get logged into the support discussions under my usual username, but I digress. I upgraded to a new MacBook Air about two and a half weeks ago, opting for the 13" i5 model. I took it home and was impressed by its blazing fast speeds. A few days into use, however, I began experiencing intermittent and unexplained chokeholds on Internet access via my wireless network. I've done hours of troubleshooting with a colleague on this, eventually tearing down the home network - AT&T DSL - and rebuilding it. I also ended up swapping out the first Air for the one I am currently on, the 13" i7 1.8 GHz model.

Here's the symptom: I'll be browsing or viewing something on the web, checking mail via Mail.app, etc., and the network connection suddenly drops precipitously - pages take several minutes to load, or stop loading altogether. Mail.app is unable to check or retreive mail. When I test the connection throughput using speakeasy.net's speedtest, my typical 5.17 Mbps download speed drops to 1.x or slower and takes minutes, rather than seconds to complete. During this time, I have _full bars_ on my Air. This happens in different physical locations in my home. This does not happen to any of the other 4-5 machines and myriad devices used to test alongside the troublesome Air (among them, a 2007 series MacBook Pro run 10.6.x, a late 2009 MacBook Pro running 10.7, a 2008ish MacBook running 10.6.x, an XBox, two iPads, two iPhones, an Airport Extreme, printers and probably other stuff I'm forgetting).

Here are some things I've done, in chronological order:

- After many hours messing with the 2Wire-as-wireless-router, I reconfigured the network to use AT&T's 2Wire router as simply a modem and connected my Netgear wireless router (auto-negotiating mode, set to channel 5 at present but also set to auto-select channels in the recent past) to serve out WiFi. All other machines are able to use this setup successfully (but also had no trouble when it was just the 2Wire modem/router combo). This has made no real appreciable difference on the problem with the Air, as far I can tell.

- Swapping out the first MacBook Air for the current one, the i7.

- Run Keychain First Aid and followedother suggestions as described here: this resulted in an error in my Keychain that was corrected by running Keychain First Aid as follows:

Permissions incorrect on ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.plist, should be -rw-r--r-- , they are -rw-rw-r--

This was repaired. I also told Keychain to "allow all applications access to this item" in the Access Control settings. This did not result in a solution, as the slowdowns/chokes continued not long after I changed this setting.

I have spent probably 10 hours total troubleshooting this problem, and am probably glossing over some of the things I've checked and tried, but now I'm looking for more suggestions, as well as any other confirmation that others are having a similar problem. Again, this is not a case of losing bars on the Wifi indicator, and all other machines are working without incident on this network. It's the Air that is choking.

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7), 13" i7 1.8 GHz

Posted on Aug 10, 2011 11:09 AM

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ubiquity75 Author

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Posted on Aug 11, 2011 11:39 AM

Well, here's today's update:

I took my Airport Extreme that has been in use as a network client hosting my HP printer and have turned that into the wireless router for my network. Note that this took an extremely long time, due to the fact that the Air could not configure it no matter how many hard/factory resets I did to the Extreme. In the Airport Utility, it returned with an error of "An error occurreed joining the selected wireless network" over and over again. I then decided to try configuration via ethernet - except, oops, my Air doesn't have it, so I went and retrieved my 2007 MacBook Pro (currently up for sale on eBay and about which I am now having second thoughts re: selling) to plug it in. Surprise - I didn't need to; the Air saw the Express (reset and identifying with its factory default name) in Airport Utility and allowed me to seamlessly configure it.

I set it up using WPA2 Personal for the security protocol and OpenDNS servers 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220. The setup is now:

AT&T DSL -> AT&T 2Wire modem -> Airport Express using WPA2 and OpenDNS -> my machines

The 2007 MacBook Pro has had no trouble grabbing and staying on this network. The Air successfully authenticated to it, then had some issues losing connectivity twice but has been up for about 10 minutes or so as I write this post. I'll continue to test. The loading times continue to be strangely slow, with hangups constant on the Air. The MacBook Pro continues to behave as expected. Whatever the problem is, the Air is definitely affected by it in a way that none of the other hardware tested (see list in previous post) has been. This makes me very concerned about the viability of this computer as my main work machine. I'm still within the window to return it, if I must, as I can't seem to get any feedback on what to do about troubleshooting this further, and my own extensive troubleshooting is neither leading to a conclusive source of the problem nor resolving the issue.

My next bout of testing will take place shortly, when I take the machine to a public WiFi hotspot to see how it behaves there. There is no authentication to that network; one theory I currently have is that the Air has trouble with authentication. Thoughts?

In fact, I'm going to go into my Keychain right now and "Allow all applications to access this item."

Any comments, thoughts, ideas or feedback are _most_ welcome. Thanks.

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38 replies

Nov 10, 2011 11:18 AM in response to ubiquity75

I called the Apple Support line today and brought it to their attention. Maybe if enough people call, they will make a patch or update to fix the issue. Please everyone, call.

Pj Morris

Feb 15, 2012 6:44 PM in response to ubiquity75

I am also having the same issues, but only with this MBA 13" that I purchased in Oct11, I have a MBA 11" that I had used for 6 months and passed to an employee and it never had an issue, and like several posters I have iPad1, iPad2, several iPhone's and iMac and a 15" MBP that all work fine. After conducting side by side tests I took the unit into the Apple store and they said they would replace the airport express card, I went back and they said they did not need to do that they just did a software fix, (wiped network settings and reset, which I had already done unsuccessfully.) I tested the unit at the store and it failed to connect and so complained that the problem was the same, they took it back to the tech and they wanted to do some other software wipe and reset that would take a few hours, so I left and came back. Tested at the store again, and again it failed. I looked at the guy and said, um, do you check to see if what you do actually works? They said they would now change the airport card, which they did and I picked it up the next day: today. And guess what...Still does not work. So if any of you find a solution, it will be celebrated, and maybe Apple will give you a job, because their techs are not doing it. (And according to another post, they are not allowed to look at these posts???)

Feb 15, 2012 9:24 PM in response to johnfromleduc

I had the same problem for a long time with 2 different Macbook Air laptops (both Late 2010 models).

The issue couldn't be solved by Apple and in the first case they agreed to give me a new 2011 model to replace the old one. And in another case they told me to take the laptop to a dealer where the whole logic board was replaced.

I'm not sure if the new 2011 model worked well as I sold it right after it arrived, but the another one (with brand new logic board) has been ok ever since.

I think you that all of you with the same problem should get a MBA or a new logic board. I'm pretty sure that nothing else helps. In my case we (me and Apple support) tried every possible software fix without any luck.

This is a hardware problem.

Feb 15, 2012 10:08 PM in response to pekkis234

Thanks Pekkis234,

I also thought that this was hardware and I have had both the logic board and the airport card replaced.

My unit does now perform better, but it has a real range issue. Unless I am within 3 meters of my wireless router, it drops off very quickly.

I have several other mac machines that perform beautifully and it makes this seem extra terrible, as I suddenly feel like I have PC again.

I will point out that even after 5 runs with the apple techs they still had not loaded the current version of Lion, which shocks me.

And one final point, this is the first unit I have bought directly from the apple store. All the rest I have bought through a long time apple dealer, and never before have I felt the service was poor. The apple store was a mistake that I made out of convenience, i went to the closer location, but I won't do so again, In Edmonton, Westworld has always looked after my personal and business computers and when problems arose, it was never the hassle I have faced with the store. They are faster, more skilled and when things go wrong, they one up you and you leave feeling great. With the store, I had a young guy, look at me, tell me he had been watching the whole thing and how bad it was and when I asked him, how about a credit or something for all the timeyou wasted for me...he smiles and says sorry.

Not the way I like to do business. Sorry Westworld, it won't happen again.

Feb 15, 2012 10:45 PM in response to johnfromleduc

Yep, Apple Customer experience has gotten worse rapidly during the

last year or two. I guess it has to have something to do with the

rapidly increasing numbers of Apple users. But it will be a way to

destruction, since the customer care has always been one on the main

reasons to stay with Apple during the last 10 years.

Mar 27, 2012 4:13 PM in response to ubiquity75

I am WAY late to this party but have this same problem. 3 Macbooks in the house and my Air is the only one with wi-fi issues. Has anyone tried changing security from WEP to WPA? I have WEP at home and can't keep a connnection. At work, I have WPA and never seem to have a problem.

May 17, 2012 12:08 AM in response to merrifromorange park

I've got a fix! - All you do is upgrade to the latest OS X (10.7.4). Did that yesterday and problem solved!! I've been having this issue since I bough this MBA last year. Tried everything and suddenly... Thanks Apple, better late than never, I guess...

erseee

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Jul 14, 2012 10:16 AM in response to ubiquity75

You have all described my problem perfectly. Macbook Air 11", ipad2, iMac and PC all on my linksys (wrt 54g) network. MBA consistently drops wireless signal as does ipad2. Local Apple store cleansed wireless link software on MBA and no change in performance. I am running 10.7.4 on MBA so that is NOT the soultion for me. Also running latest on ipad2 and 10.6.8 on iMac. My only solution (reliable but tedious) is to run upstairs, unplug the wireless router, wait a few seconds, plug it back in and then run back down stairs to a renewed connection on my MBA - whew!

For me there are several variables to this whole issue (starting at the cable and going to my computer):

1. My cable service;

2. My cable modem;

3. My linksys router;

4. The wireless link on my linksys router;

5. My MBA wireless card (or ipad2 wireless or iMac wireless or PC wireless);

6. My MBA or my ipad2.

I'm pretty sure that (1) and (2) and (3) are not the problem since my hardwire connections do not drop signal. So that leaves (4,5,6). But my iMac when on wireless does not drop the link nor does the PC. So, that maybe eliminates (4). My MBA and my ipad2 both share the same problem in that they are typically 10' to 30' distant from the wireless router (the PC and iMac are closer <10'). So, it is either a distance problem or a wireless card issue with the MBA or the ipad2 (the MBA and ipad2 themselves don't show any other. problems). Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated.

New MacBook Air Wireless Problems