Q: Poor wifi reception on new iPad

Guys, I am still working on the testing and want to report only what is 100% certain as results are a bit mixed.  I was not able to go out side to test signal strength with range as it was raining.

My wifi range thus far is normal when not applying the special grip, however I did discover I needed to update the firmware of my router.  At first I thought I had found a definitive combination which didn't work with the iPad (Wilrelss-n + WPA + TKIP)...however after upgrading the firmware to the latest version, the wireless configuration app notified me it was invalid -- unlike before.

Now with the new firmware, I would have to redo all the tests as they are not too valid.  Preliminarily, I don't see the need to connect manually anymore and I always (thus far) see the "forget this network" button.  Another observation is the connection latches on to the wireless-n pretty fast now.

I restored my router to the settings I had originally (Wireless-n only + WPA2 + AES and connected the iPad fine automatically instead of manual.

I don't have the option to try this on my router, but would be keen to know if it makes a difference for anyone who has these configuration points in their router. Note that post below refers to ipad2

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1808797

Here's what worked for me. Under the "wireless – advanced" settings, I changed the RTS threshold to 2307 and the fragmentation threshold to 2304. (Both values are 2346 by default). Bingo. It worked. My iPad stays stuck on the wifi like glue and its Speedtest speeds are only a fraction behind my Ethernet wired PC. It's like having a new router. (All the other wireless clients show no difference, in case you're wondering.)

Tis is interesting. While searching, I discovered a thread for the iPad2 for the same exact Wi-Fi issues since the upgrade to iOS 5.1 and that thread is actually longer than this one.  Some users on that forum found a work around by tweaking the routers settings.  I this agree with having to do this and believe Apple should address it and make it work like the other devices as surely Apple doesn't expect my grandmother to tweak her router.

Nonetheless, I had firmware from 2007 in my router and after upgrading my firmware to the latest firmware I have not been able to replicate any of the issues that I was reporting earlier from sporadic connectivity the forget this network etc.

The signal attenuation continues occurring however I believe this is related to low power and therefore any type of attenuation is dramatically exacerbated.  My MacBook air can see half a dozen Wi-Fi routers around the area while the iPad can only see my routers and only one router around the area so it's reach and susceptibility to attenuation may be affected for low power reasons.

My recommendation are:

- update your routers firmware first and foremost if you haven't already done so

- if you're unable to update your firmware then I suggest switching it over to wireless G only with WPA ( not WPA2) and TKIP -- note those two settings are not valid for wireless-n networks.

Clearly Apple can't expect your local Starbucks and local Wi-Fi areas and my grandma to update their routers and firmware and so forth to make them compatible with iPad while everyone other device is working fine so something has to happen sooner or later.

This is the link to the iPad 2 thread which is already on 100 pages long:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2780293?start=1500&tstart=0

I'd like to quote one response from this thread by an iPad 2 user who never had any issues whatsoever and now has the same intermittent quality balance etc. with iPad2.

"Does anyone think this might be to do with IOS 5.1? My 32g (3g&wifi) iPad 2 has worked totally fine on my home wi-Fi for a year now - and all my other Apple devices (iPhone and MacBook) continue to work fine. But in the last week, since upgrading IOS, I've started having the same problems as everyone else with the iPad. To blame the router would be ridiculous."

This is a link to an old Apple recommendation for updating firmware because many routers maybe using the wireless-n draft specification versus the final specification and this may be the root cause of many issues.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3304

Moving forward this thread should focus on the attenuation issue as a previous person mentioned.  It is still raining here, but I plan to put the iPad through its range test shortly and compare its range to the MacBook air and if possible a non-updated iPod touch using my updated wireless router.

I still cannot reproduce the forget this network issue I was having earlier so I continue to recommend that all users update their routers firmware in the interim.

Please remember when doing the tests to compare apples to apples, no pun intended. 5ghz device to 5ghz device, 2.4 to 2.4.  This is especially true with iPhone and iPod as they only operate  at 2.4ghz and this frequency while more congested is better for going through walls and othe obstacles than the 5ghz band  which is usually less contested and quieter (noise wise) and channel is wider so throughput is usually better . Look forward to these tests to see if there are comparable to mine. FYI....I had no problems with my iPad 2 or my two iPhones (4 & 4S) after I upgraded to IOS 5.1.   My iPad2 had twice the range (about 70+ feet) than the 4 iPad3's I tested at 5ghz. Thanks ......ds

PS:

The iPad 3's range died out after about 30ft or so. Half the range of the 2. I have fully updated Airport Extremes and also tried Fully upgraded Netgear WNR 3500 and 3700, they had similar results to the Airport Extremes I own (3). No wireless device I tried had any issues with range other than the iPad 3..... Keep us posted on your range tests....

Guys,

I think I found a discrepency among two iPads.  I'm intentionally not going to say which has the problem and which doesn't yet to ensure we don't get biast replies and instead inferit from the consistency which may help proove an issue with.

First I'd like to point out, I happen to have two very distinct mac addresses. Normally the first 6 digits are reserved for the manufacturer and other device specific details.  For whatever reason, I have two completely distinct different mac addresses for both iPads (one was purchased a the Apple store (32gb Verizon) & the other at Verizon web store (16gb Verizon).

I have mac addresses starting with:

10:40:F3:.... Verizon 16gb

74:E1:B6:.... Verizon 32gb

Please check your MAC address of your iPad's wifi and tell me the first 6 characters - specifically the ones who are having problems at normal distance where other devices work fine.  At the moment, I'm not focused on the death grip, but simply the usage at normal distance is really slow or unusable.

One is showing signal strength of 100% right here infront of the router while the other is showing strength of slighly less.  When I walk to the bedroom, one had 85% and the other had 50-60%.  In these cases, the bandwidth speed to the router was still upwards of 50Mbps but one of them starts exhibiting slower bandwidth to the router of about 35Mbps.  Internet speed tests would still not show a difference and simply introduces more variables.  These bandwidth metrics are the self adjusted bandwidth speeds the router negotiates with the device directly based on the quality of signal and this is what you see on the report.

When I walked to the sidewalk outside, one had 35% strength and the other had 6% and bandwidth to the router of 11Mbps and 1Mbps respectively.  In my tests, I was careful to not stand in between the routers and the iPads as my own body would iterfere and additionally place them flat on the bed as well as flat on a tray when I went out side.  I tried videoing while walking out side, but it was extremely difficult with the drizzling rain.

This is all preliminary results and I'm now using a fully updated router too which solved all the connectivity issues previously.  One last thing, Wikipedia states the following.

"The current 'fastest' norm, 802.11n, uses double the radio spectrum/bandwidth (40MHz) compared to 802.11a or 802.11g (20MHz). This means there can be only one 802.11n network on the 2.4 GHz band at a given location, without interference to/from other WLAN traffic. 802.11n can also be set to use 20MHz bandwidth only to prevent interference in dense community."

I have the 40/20 setting on my router and will be switching it to 20MHz to see if this helps.  The one exhibiting issues may actually be more modern and simply is being interferred by other routers from neighbors, etc.

For now, only those exhibiting the short range and who have updated their routers (not the handgrip) please provide the first 6 characters of your MAC address to see if there is some consistency.  Again, I don't want to create biast and jeapordize the investigation by premautrely identifying one as faulty just yet.  Thanks for your cooperation.

Good news… The recommended settings of RTS threshold to 2307 and the fragmentation threshold to 2304 seems to stabilize the connection issues experienced by the death grip. 

Bad News… attenuation issues are still present.  I just took a fairly large sample of data using the speedtest.net app to test out the new access point settings and observed the following:    

       Death Grip= .25 > .6 Mbps    

       Holding in portrait-> 10Mbps-> 21Mbps

I have FIOS and my other Wi-fi devices consistently get 17->21Mbps download.  After trying the same non-flash app on the IPAD and PC devices, I still came up with the same conclusions.

I agree with the other poster… lets keep the subject of this forum to “Attenuation Issues”.  It looks like the problem maybe the placement of the antenna in the IPAD.

Does anyone have experience using the new IPAD with the ASUS RT-N66U as the reviews regarding coverage and signal strength seem to be positive in general…. I was wondering if it would improve performance with the new IPAD and was considering trying it out.

Glad to see its working better for you.  After updating the router firmware I don't see any issues anymore.  Even what I thought was a faulty ipad  because of lower signal strength could be a bit premature because my wife is here now and she can help me walking around to test the reception and it would be noticeable if it were not for the fact I was comparing two side by side.   While this solves problems at home it will not solve problems at some wifi spots such as Starbucks and other places so something still has to be done by apple to improve the experience for others not technically inclined.   Attenuation exists but it's minimal.

Mike,

my iPad has 74:e1:b6 mac address and it definitively has wifi range & death grip problems.

Tried something similar with the same settings.  It did actually boost my overall wi-fi performance with all of my devices (laptop, Android Phone and iPad (3rd Gen).  The problem is that my laptop and Android phone are getting approx. 1.5 time the performance of my iPad.  That was true before the adjustments and that is true after the adjustments.

I have never had a connectivity issue.  I have full bars with default settings on my router or the router settings that I tried (see previous post) which you tried.

When my battery is 100% charged, my WIFI works perfect. As soon as battery go around 95%, WIFI start to go bad. No connection at all. Gets worst at 90%. There seems to be a correlation between battery level and WIFI as mentioned in this post https://discussions.apple.com/message/11350639#11350639 .

Apple please do something soon.

Mike95,

        What model router do you have.  Did the firmware also correct the "Death Grip" issue? Have you tested using that grip with games and the SpeedTest App.  Have you tested with battery less than 80%? 

       My router is the Dlink Dir-655 with the latest firmware.  It has worked flawless until the IPAD 3.  Settings include:

        -Forced Wireless N

        -Forced 20mhz channel width

        -WPA 2 TKIP

        -RTS threshold of 2307 and the and fragmentatio of 2304

        -2.4ghz Channel 9

           These settings have stablized the connection but I still experience attenuation issues using the "Death Grip".  This grip is necessary to play MC3 and use the headphones.  The game experiences significant lag using this grip but seems to work fine holding the tablet with the headphone jack on the opposite side (though uncomfortable given the heaphone plug pinches your hand).  I confirmed the attenuation issues (as stated above) using SpeedTest.

    -MIke

lamarchemj wrote:

 

Mike95,

 

        What model router do you have.  Did the firmware also correct the "Death Grip" issue? Have you tested using that grip with games and the SpeedTest App.  Have you tested with battery less than 80%? 

 

We have the same router's. I have update 1.35N applied.  I suggest you use the status screen and observe the connection signal and more importantly the Mbps rate which is really what determines the throughput.  I've configured the router manually and left it with these settings:

- 802.11n only

- Channel Width 40 (20 didn't exhibit any discernable difference)

- WPA-Personal

- WPA2 Only

- Cipher: AES

All other settings default.  I use the following status screen for my results (Status Tab & then Wireless link on the left). If you feel it makes sense to call each other up using facetime or the like given we have the same router for additional trouble shooting, I'm ok with that and will pass you an email address you can call me with facetime.  At the moment I don't really have a connection issue and you apparently do requiring you to go through more manual tweaking of the router.  Attenuation exists, but nowhere near bothersome as I have to make an effor to position hand correctly, press with palm -- sometimes unnaturally even touching screen with palm to really make it pronounced.

I don't see any difference with varying battery charge; I've been using the iPad with out much incident previosuly with my manual connection solution and now with a regular automatic connection after the router was upgraded to latest firmware.

I am also having issues with the new ipad3 wifi signal fluctuating, and my connection droping/slowing down.

The customer service was wonderfull and replaced my ipad 3 X, but the issue presists.

I have ipad1, ipad2, iphone 3gs/4s and none of them have any problems connecting to my wifi router , i was thinking of buying an airport extreme router, but dont want to pay $200 for something that may not work.

I wish that apple would fix this issue ASAP,

Not sure if i shoild return this ipad, and wait till the ipad 4 comes out, or just go and buy another ipad 1.

PS my rouuter firmware is up to date.