iPhone 5 wifi issues

I'm curious if one of the reasons they went to a plastic body on the 5C is that the metal body was interfering with the antenna.

I did that restore, but had to get a exchange anyway. Much better with replacement, but still drops occasionally, and I have to shut off wifi and turn back on the iPhone 5 to get it to really be on WiFi. Good luck!

JennaPaige09 wrote:

im not really sure what happened with this version..But i tried everything on my router every setting i could i even tried unsecure and everything i called apple but they dont ever fix it they change some settings and say call back if you cant get it. i called about it today and he refreshed my network settings told me to unplug my router then wait two minutes plug it back in then reset the settings on the phone and then reconnect still nothing so i started looking through any of the threads and the only thing that worked was to restore my phone and connect to the wifi automatically through setting the phone up /

Not in the least. If anything, the metal body improved reception.

I've been having similar issues with a 32gb 5 that was purchased in Apr this year (direct from Apple).

I started having difficulty in accessing wifi about 3-4 weeks ago. I initially thought I’d changed some settings that had messed things up, then I came across this and numerous other threads with people with similar issues.

I tried everything as suggested in the threads - set up a guest network with no encryption, channel switching, reset network settings hard reset, restore from cloud, from pc, tried on various routers, home, work, elsewhere and simply could not get to the root of this problem.

One thing I did find in comparative testing, was that iPad mini, iPhone 4 and Macbook pro all work fine while the iPhone 5 has to be within a few metres of the router/access point to be able to use wifi.
Any further than that and the phone struggles to connect to the access point.

Using a speed tester while connected at close range I found that speeds drop off significantly (from 30mb download to 1-2mb) by just moving away from the access point by a few feet.

The post by ozsmacd https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4322714?start=4320&tstart=0

that mentions TCP retransmissions – could carry some weight in terms of slowing things down, but that wouldn’t explain the poor signal/inability to connect. Would it?

I don’t think my problems coincided with an IOS release - I’ve been on 6.1.4 for some time now and hadn’t noticed any issues until fairly recently. I have noticed battery performance has been very poor since these issues occured, I’ve had to bring my charger to work with me, otherwise it doesn’t last the day (and did previously).
’ve put this down to the phone working harder to get a wifi signal – but cannot be certain of this.

In the end I've contacted apple support and they've agreed to express replace, which I assume means a refurb device will be sent and I’ve to send back the defective one.

My wifi chip is an apple one according to the address in settings, but again not sure if that has any bearing on matters. Once the replacement arrives I’ll repost and let you know the outcome.

Hi Norbet,

I have the same issue as you 9 months ago. It is the wifi hardware issue. Go to Apple and demand for a replacement.

In my case, my iPhone5 worked slightly better than in 5GHz mode and with Time Capsule.

The existing iPhone might still work fine in Apple 's service center as it is operated in 5GHz for your iPhone5 (automatically). If you want to prove them wrong, bring along your router and power adapter, and test it on the spot.

CK

Thanks CKFROMSG, like I've mentioned I've got a replacement on the way, fingers crossed it'll do the trick. I'm not sure how this occurred, it wasn’t always like this. The phone hasn’t suffered any damage and works fine in every other way. I’d be interested to know if it’s hardware related, but slightly worried that it could recur on the replacement device.

Norbet,

If the iPhone can only connect to certain route and only within 2-3 meters without blocking, it is definitely a hardware issue. Exactly what kinds of hardware issues will depends. From my last experience, it could receive sensitivity issue, antenna mismatch issue, antenna placement issue, wifi device issue, etc..

My current iP5 (replaced) work well with most router except one old Netgear router. It connect to the router with strong signal but only able to Tx/RX for a while after I report the router. This is more like s/w compatibility issue.

My advice, I had to return the iPhone 5 because this WiFi issue, I got a new one and it's working perfect I haven't done anything on my router or in the settings of my iPhone, so the problem is the hardware in your iPhones not your router. get a replacement!

This may be why Apple dropped the iPhone 5 entirely this year and only offering the 5C which in my mind is a modified 5, and the 5S, a new model. I got the iPhone 5 a year ago and had issues and even had it exchanged but the original thing was it was eating cellular data. Verizon came out with a firmware install which seemed to take care of that but I still would get wifi drop outs where it looks connected to wifi but would lag or say not connected to the internet and the cure, turn wifi off, then on. Also, anytime waking the phone from sleep if you watch the upper left corner to quickly flashed from LTE to wifi.

One thing that appeared to fix the drop out problem for me was to set my router to 5 GHz instead of the 2.4 GHz. Most of my drop outs went away. Of course that only helped at home since not all wifi hot spots run at 5 GHz. Also, when I did this, my daughters laptop could not get the wifi as her laptop only saw the 2.4 GHz. I now have a dual band router 🙂

I am very hopeful the 5S has the wifi bugs resolved. If not, then I certainly hope for the millions of iPhone 5 users that IOS 7 will resolve it but I have always felt it was hardware since the beginning. Good luck everyone

So far I haven't had WiFi issues since upgrading to OS7. It may be too early to tell but I managed to stay connected longer than I have before. Maybe the update will fix this issue for good.

Hi, after updraging to ios 7 i've noticed that the connection does not drop as much. But compared to my other apple devices these drops still happen and 5 hours later after the upgrade I am still having annoying issues. I think this may be more hardware related than software. I was hoping this would be a conplete fix, but that is not the case. Looks like im gonna try to get a replacemt and upgrade to ios 7. Ill post back here and tell you how it goes (:. Good luck everyone!!

After installing iOS 7 I reset my router to factory defaults. I had had to change the value of the "signal-interval" parameter from its default of 100 msec to 10 msec in order for the iPhone 5 to work properly. iOS 7 seems to manage this correctly, as the value of the parameter is back to its default 100 msec again.

As promised in previous thread -an update now replacement has arrived, have done a restore from back up and I'm pleased to say wifi problems are all sorted. Still on 6.1.4 and as far as I can tell it's an Apple wifi chip (from wifi address in settings).

It appears as though it was a hardware issue with my previous handset, but I'm none the wiser as to what it could have been.

Fingers crossed IOS 7 doesn't present any further issues. I think I'll wait until this evening to update at home rather than attempt it on the wifi network at work.

IOS 7 did not fix my Wi-Fi problems

At this point I wouldn't load iOS 7 on your iPhone 5. I did mine yesterday and I am having extreme WiFi issues on my home closed network. Since the upgrade I have problems with YouTube, FB and just web browsing from Safari on the phone. Had 6 updates this morning and all 6 were slow or hung until I turned WiFi off and let the LTE take over. Downloads on the LTE were stupid fast compared to WiFi.

Something broke the WiFi in iOS 7.