My MacBook drops connection regularly!

Have you tried adding your wireless network as a preferred network in the Network settings in System Prefs? Doing so should ensure that it only tries to connect to your network and not roam around. Having said that, once a connection is made it shouldn't really be dropping it.

Is it related to the distance you are from the router at all?

This issue has been with MBPro users as well. I had this issue (constant dropped airport signals, especially after waking from sleep) until I upgraded the firmware on my router (I have the same as you do). Once that happened, no more dropped signals.

Same issue here. I think it's an overzealous (and hidden?) power management "feature". This happens if I let the network connection go idle for any length of time.

I never see it on line power, and I'm doing some testing to see if a ping will keep it from happening.

Is there some hidden setting for "turn off AirPort after xx minutes of inactivity"?

Replying to my own message...

On AC Power: Connection never drops

On Battery: Connection drops if it's idle for a few minutes. Pinging the gateway keeps the connection alive indefinitely.

Both of the places I've tested are running DD-WRT on WRT54G routers. I'll fire one up with stock firmware and see if the problem persists.

MacBook 2.0GHz/White Mac OS X (10.4.6)

My macbook does the same thing. I was running two hacked wrt54g's that neither of our household powerbook or other wifi devices (ds, psp, pda) have a problem with. Both routers are using Sveasoft Alchemy v1.0, with WDS between the two of them. I have way more signal srength than I need with just the one, so I disabled the other.

The connection keeps dropping regularly. The macbook is the only wifi device that drops. Since I got the macbook only 'g' devices have been in the network and we use 900mhz cordless phones. If I have a large transfer happening, the connection won't drop either on or off battery. It will drop if I simply open an ssh connection and remotely tail apache's access.log for my site. I haven't noticed yet if it does it plugged in as well, because I only plug in to recharge and work off battery normally.
I will monitor that though.

Do you by any chance have your Router auto-update its system time via the Internet? If so, disable it and then see what happens. I had the same problem with my old PBG4 until I did that. Also, make sure you're using the latest firmware update for the Router as well.

- Dan Uff

I know that a special hacker attack is able to do so. But...?

Yep, it's definitely stable while plugged in. So now we need some type of update or applet that will allow us to control the power settings for the wifi radio.

This almost feels like some automagic power management setting in the Atheros chipset that the Apple drivers don't set/clear/control.

But maybe my QA instincts are a little over-active here. 🙂

This may be a way-out idea, but......

Unplug the Airport from the wall, wait at least 20 seconds, then plug it back in. Wait another 10-15 seconds then see what it does. I BET you won't have a drop off problem for quite a while then.

- Dan

Rebooting the router (it's not an airport, it's a Linksys) had zero effect.

And the timeout is short! A ping every 60s isn't enough...but 30s is.

The only time I have had my connection dropped was at school the other night. But I was able to get a signal in the firstplace unlike the guy using a powerbook that sits behind me.

I agree, though apple as VAR should have control over the chipsets' features, especially a biggie like this.

It's comforting to know it's a feature, not a bug. I thought I had a serious problem.