Q: Poor wifi reception on new iPad

Team -  I'm going to drop out of this discussion now, as I won't have anything productive to add after this post.  Replacing my ipad at the Apple Store seems to have done the trick.  I have spent the last 4 weeks heavily using my replacement iPad3 in all sorts of challenging places, as I spent 2 weeks traveling through Vietnam and a day in Seoul, Korea.  Across 6 cities, 8 hotels, cafe access points, airports, and even a ferry boat, the iPad3 performed flawlessly on wifi.  My wife was using our iPad1 and the iPad3 was just as reliable.  No issues with reception, dropping connections, death grips, etc.  And I'm pretty sure there was a vast mix of access points, routers, firmware, etc encountered along the way.  I've also had no new recurring issues in my home.  So...hang in there.  There are good ones out there, and I hope all of you having issues are able to get them resolved.  My first iPad3, from launch day, was a wifi mess compared to the replacement.  All the best.

You give us all hope.. Can you publish the week of manufacture and factory of your working unit..?  Just send the first 5 or 6 digits in the s/n if you don't know how to decider.. Thanks and CONGRATS!!

nope

im happy because it worked for most people.

i hope they fix wireless-N rates/Mixed b,g,n bug with an update like they did with ipad one.

@it_caveman i agree with you, we paid for an expensive device it is supposed to work with 802.11n & Mixed b,g,n

I was following this thread since day 1, but only today bought my iPad 3 at the launch day here in Israel.

After all the tests I can say that my Wi-Fi is working flawlessly, much better than my iPhone 4S

The first test I did was a drive thru the city (passenger seat). I was holding both the iPad 3 & iPhone 4S side by side and looking at the available Networks in Wi-Fi Settings. While driving thru the city, the devices were picking up hundreds of Wi-Fi APs every minute. iPad 3 was at least 3 times better in finding new APs than iPhone 4S.  

Also iPad 3 is much more accurate than iPonee 4S and was dropping unavailable APs, whereas iPhone 4S was holding them much longer and by this providing inaccurate results of available APs.

At home I have done many tests and my iPad 3 is at least equal to my iPad 2 in terms of speed. At 13 meters (42 foot) away from the router I am getting full speed.

I did confirm the death grip, but only when I am far away from the router, about 13 meters.

Also what is interesting that my router got reset last week by my ISP and all the router settings got reset to default. When I began testing the Wi-Fi, at first all the devices were doing only 50% of the usual 10MB speed.

I have made the following changes to my router and doubled my Wi-Fi speed compared to the default settings:

Channel:  > was: 6 > now set: 12

54g™ Rate: > was: Auto > now set: 54Mbs

Multicast Rate: > was: Auto > now set: 54Mbs

Basic Rate: > was: Default > now set: Wifi2

XPress™ Technology:  was: Disabled > now set: Enabled 

Below is my iPad 3 data ===================

Name: iPad 3

Group1: iPad

Group2: WiFi-4G

Generation: 3

Machine Model: iPad3,2

Model introduced: 2012

Production year: 2012

Production week: 14 (April)

introduced test: GOED

CPU speed: 1.0GHz

Family name: A1430

Screen size: 9 inch

Screen resolution: 2048x1536 pixels

Colour: White

Capacity: 16GB

Factory: DY Please tell us where this machine is manufactured.

MyHand,

Thanks very much for this information.. I am not sure which factory "DY" is but with units purchased here in the US,  DM (AT&T) and DL (Verizon) are both Foxconn I believe.. and these factories are the sources for the 6 iPads I have tried so far.

I've been a little concerned that the posts to this thread have been sparce lately.. not sure why.

It sounds like your unit is good except for the Death Grip issue, which is the main complaint of all the units I have tried.. It is only apparent when you are some distance from the router as you have noticed.

You mentioned both full speed at 13 Meters and reduced speed starting <?> at 13 meters.. have you experienced a significant reduction in speed beyond 13 meters compared to the iPad2?  We are seeing as much as 50% degradation or more compared to an iPad1.

So far, I have seen no data on mfg week from those that have finally found a "good" iPad after experiencing a "bad" one.. this information would be very helpful, IMO..

Thanks again for posting!!!

The iPad 3 outperforms iPhone 4S at maximum range, about 5 meters apart. To lose connection I have to go outside my apartment, 1 floor down to kill the iPhone 4S and 2 floors down to kill the iPad 3.

can you please tell  me where to replace it in  greece? to be precise i bought 2 one for me and one for girlfriend. i want to take the i pad and put it in the dishwasher. wifi mess i hated apple and i hope it closes because apple is ignoring this stuff

If I listen again about a router I will start sending to ****. Routers are routers OK, enough of us have the same problem.  I just got back form a trip and could barely use the iPad in hotel rooms.  Signal reception is weak and comes and goes.

We've heard enough about bit rates and fragments on this site.  Such information is not relevant in a hotel room. 

So, does Apple ever weigh in on these discussions? Its clear this community does not know the answer to the question “What does Apple have as a solution to reception problem with the iPad 3?”  

I really do not want to return mine but I will.

All

I thought I would weigh in with my experience. I posted another thread specifically about my experience with 5Ghz but thought I would post the latest updates here.

I was an early adopter like others and had my new iPad (64GB Wifi + 4G on AT&T) delivered on launch day. Immediately in the first evening I noticed the WiFi issues. Specifically I was seeing degraded signal, fluctuating signal and lock ups on certain network related tasks including browsing the web, opening iTunes etc.

Its worth pointing out that at this time I have 2 high end routers (Netgear WNDR 4500 and Asus RTN56U). These routers were both setup as isolated networks (only one router on at a time) and setup for 2.4 & 5 Ghz networks. I have other devices working without issue on these and even my original iPad was not experiencing the same issues.

As we all know, signal indicators can sometimes be inaccurate based on software etc (sensitivity can be adjusted with subsequent patches). Due to this I wanted to prove that there actually was a true issue with signal strength and speed rather than just an indicator problem. To prove this I started with simple tests such as Speedtest.net and moved up to Lanalyzer / Wifi Analyzer type of kit. Unfortunately this proved there was truly something going on. Specifically with close to a 40Mbps pipe I was seeing around 30 Mbps on the original iPad 1, 4S, 4 and other devices. With the New iPad this dropped in the same location (approx 18ft from router) to 5Mbps on average. The maximum I saw was 12Mbps.

With this new information in hand I switched from the Asus to the Netgear (both with latest firmware by the way) and saw slightly better (1Mbps gain on New iPad) but not a lot. I then started WiFi analysis on a channel by channel basis (also ended up doing this on the Asus which has a lot more advanced control). Even though the spectrum was clear with little to no interference when looking at this over the analyzer and a couple of apps still had the same issue irregardless or transmission setting, channel, security, extended channel usage, bandwidth (20/40) etc.

At this stage I replaced the new iPad with a 2nd unit (Apple were great about this) and attempted to complete the same tests again. I can confirm that the connection was more stable on the 2nd (did not disconnect completely as much) but the speed issues and signal problems were the same. At this point I tried other routers but still the same issues persisted.

Its worth noting that I saw the same issues but not as pronounced on 2.4Ghz channels, 5Ghz N is certainly the more problematic in my testing with this new iPad.

This finally brought me to my 3rd iPad in the space of 30 days. I wish I could post success on that one but I just returned this for a refund. 3 iPads with the same issue in 1 month was too much for me.

Now, I will say that being in this industry a long time I have no doubt that Apple will isolate and fix any issue they find. I did flag my 3 units in a hope that these can be pulled apart for root cause. Apple themselves did a great job in helping me with these replacements and I cannot fault the experience at all.

Does this mean I am satisfied having to walk away from a product I love, absolutely not. I already miss the iPad as part of my workflow and unfortunately the original (although still great) certainly does show its processing speed difference. The new iPad truly is an amazing upgrade and very versatile but its a shame that the units I had seemed to have the issues with connectivity.

For me I'll be waiting for the fix before purchasing again and can only hope like all of you that it comes quickly so I can get back into my iPad

For those wondering what to do with their units (if you also have the same problem) you will have to weigh up that personal decision yourselves. I will say that whatever you decide Apple definitely stands behind their products, my experience was second to none and again I have zero doubt this will be fixed.

Take care all, let me know with any questions and I will try and help where I can.

Apologies for the long post but wanted to try and capture as much info as I could for others experiencing similar issues.

You are so **** right, suddenly the planet has got flooded with bad routers and apple ignores the problems people from ther countries have. A friend of mine was to london and they accept returns immediately to eliminate the scandal. Accept it guys APPLE IS FULL OF IRRESPONSIBLE CHEAP WORKING HANDS AND IPADSMARE NOTMWORKING PROPERLY. I am fed up listening crapppp about routers how the **** will I change the routers firmware in every hotel I visit? They will say I am out of my mind.

Did you consider asking hotel personnel to grant you access to the hotel router so that you can tweak the settings? I know that the folk in the rural areas are very kind and think they will understand.

If you are dissatisfied with your current iPad you can contact Apple support and arrange for a replacement.

See: http://support.apple.com/kb/HE57

I’ll give Apple support a call tomorrow.  I talked to them a few weeks ago trying to fix my iPad but we didn't get anywhere.  We changed all kinds of settings in my second router and got nowhere.  So, I guess the only thing left is to exchange it.  I've had it for 45 days so I hope there is no problem with an exchange.  Bummer, that's a four-hour drive for me.

OF course my hand, that's what I am goona do. When I visit a 5star hotel I will ask from the people working there just to grant me access to their router so that I will change their setting so that my big useless device will be working for five minutes! What you say is ridiculous