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claybear Author

Level 1

9 points

Lost Ability to Connect to WiFi

Hi Everyone:

There have been lots of discussions about not being able to connect or losing connection to WiFi routers with very few solutions. Here is my saga, so far:

Took delivery of an iMac 27 with OSX 10.6.4 in September 2011. Connected it to my home network, 802.11 b/g with WPA. Worked fine for a week then wouldn't connect. Didn't recognize the known network even though that network was in the know networks list and was the only one. Rebooted a couple of times and cycled the router. Started working again.

Another week passes and the same thing happens but this time couldn't get it to recognize the network. Tried lots of things, some suggested by some of these discussions. No luck until I disabled the WPA protection. Now, it connected.

Fast forward to last night. Everything was working fine then I decided to try to protect the network again so I enabled WPA. The iMac wouldn't connect. Removed the WPA and still wouldn't connect. Tried more stuff like deleting the known network from the Airport preferences and rebooting. Nothing. Cleared the PRAM. Nothing. The iMac won't connect.

I have a Macbook Pro, 2009, OSX 10.6.8 that connects to the network with no problems. I have two iPod touches, a 2G and a 4G that connect to the network with no problems. I even have an iMac G3 that has no problems connecting.

Any ideas?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.4), iMac 27

Posted on Nov 3, 2011 6:40 AM

20 replies

wjackman

Level 1

10 points

Nov 13, 2011 5:49 PM in response to amigon

You may be facing a known issue in recent iMacs. I bought an iMac in August, and after much calling back and forth to Apple, they failed to resolve my problem of the internet randomly cutting out (despite having a good Wifi signal AND my iPhone had no problem connecting). Upshot is, I went to the Apple Store and they replaced my machine. I asked at the store if this was a "known issue" and they said no, their engineers were just "interested" in what was going on. Sounds like a known issue to me, they don't just replace a computer for nothing.

claybear Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 13, 2011 6:27 PM in response to wjackman

amigon:

I understand what you are saying. I am in the same (sort-of) situation that you are. All my other Apple devices, an iPod 2G and 4G and a Macbook Pro from 2009 have never had any problems at all connecting to my somewhat ancient b/g router but when I spoke with the Apple help person at the local store he said that the hardware implementation is different for the wireless access from device to device even though, in the case of the Macbook Pro the operating system is the same (10.6.8). Right now and for the last few days I'm not having any issues at all connecting with this iMac but I'm ready to swap out my modem and router anyway to isolate the iMac and Macbook Pro from the slower iPods. I don't have any experience with Windows machines and wireless issues but my brother did a couple of years ago and I'm sure others have also. Exact standards aren't always followed and the tolerance for deviation is no doubt different from device to device. I does seem that the newer iMacs are a bit more finicky (less forgiving) about how they connect to networks if I use these boards as a reference. But, my machine is working now and has off and on for the last several weeks so I really don't think it is either a software or hardware functionality issue, just compatibility with the router. We'll see . . .

rkaufmann87

Level 10

144,294 points

Nov 13, 2011 8:24 PM in response to amigon

OK, I'm done with you. I can tell you are frustrated but being critical of someone trying to help you isn't going to help you solve your issues.

Best of luck.

claybear Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 15, 2011 8:24 PM in response to claybear

OK, here's an update. The iMac has stayed connected with the old router for several days now. But, I went ahead and bought a new modem and router, both Netgear, anyway. The router is dual band to take advantage of my newer Macs' connection speeds. I've connected everything and all is well. Now I just need to wait and see if there will be any disconnects in the future. I'm really not expecting this to happen though.

My intermittent problem was somewhat different than many others' in that I didn't lose connections constantly, just that for periods of time the iMac wouldn't connect but when it did it was always a fast data transfer. I'm not sure if I found a repeatable fix with the old router but the last time I was able to regain the connection with it came after I turned off Airport then recycled(turned off then on) the router then turned on Airport again. I'm hoping, with high confidence that I can put all of this behind me. Good luck to anyone else having wireless connection problems. I think that they are very common with many computer/router combinations.

claybear Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 29, 2011 1:22 PM in response to claybear

It's been a week now with the new modem/router combo and I have had no connection issues so I'm going to say that this problem is fixed. Won't ever really understand the intermittent nature of the problem though.

Lost Ability to Connect to WiFi