New Macbook Air - wifi connectivity problems

Weird, worked for me - no drops and I'm on this thing most of the day for work.

diliang,

At certain times when I ping the router, I get very unstable results. When that happens, I apply your fix, and it seems to work fine. Thanks ! The odd thing is that at other times, pinging the router is just fine. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the issue....

khanamok wrote:

diliang,

At certain times when I ping the router, I get very unstable results. When that happens, I apply your fix, and it seems to work fine. Thanks ! The odd thing is that at other times, pinging the router is just fine. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the issue....

It's most likely power-management issues on the Broadcom chip, I bet if you freshly rebooted and left the computer idle for 2 minutes with nothing running and then try to ping your router - you will get very unstable results. This is the "power saving" ability of the chip. So while my fix may result in a tiny bit more battery usage, it at least prevents this and the random disconnections I was seeing. I usually leave my MacBook plugged in anyways, so it's not a huge concern for me.

That seems very plausible. Any insight, from anyone, into what governs the behaviour of the "power saving" ability ?

Big thanks to Headcase, your "How To" above fixed my flaky wifi.

I have a brand new fall-2013 Macbook Air that worked perfectly when I got it.

After the most recent update (November 2013) the wifi got really flaky. The computer wouldn't see my home network, and would often disconnect.

My iPhone and my wife's computer worked fine, so I knew it was a problem with the computer.

Rolling back the driver did the trick.

Note: it took several tries to download your zip (about 10) before I could get the whole file. Each time there would be a download error after a few tries. If anyone else needs the driver send an email to camrias at free dot fr and I'll email it to you.

I'm not sure if this will help you folks out or not, but I have another post here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5535320?start=30&tstart=0

at the bottom of the page that may provide a bit of insight into the issue for you. It's a bit on the long side, but that's what happened to me and I wanted to share it all.

Mid2013 Air - downgrading the driver didnt do it for me in the beginning. I tried fiddling with the router setting:

- Disabling 5GHz

- Setting channel and width fixed

- Trying only ac or n

What finally did the trick for me was to name the 5GHz ssid differently than the 2.4GHz and setting its auth to WPA2 Personal instead of WPA2 mixed.

My router is linksys EA6800

Don't let this topic die !

Every 5 dollars wifi usb dongle can solve what apple can't..blahhh

I'm 100% sure is due to the wifi encryption implementation in some routers that are not able to stay connected with apple software.

Apple you really suck.

Maybe coincidence but Apple just pushed a firmware upgrade for older 'n' class airport extreme and airport express WiFi routers. I chose not to do the upgrade for now. 🙂 It makes no sense for people with new a/c laptops to be using legacy 'n' routers at home, but for what it's worth.

Because of this thread & others, waiting to upgrade an almost 6 year old 2008 MB awhile now. A good friend holding a 2013 'friends & family' discount slot open all year... I feel bad delaying. My 2008 MB is truly on life-support. I'm not 100% sure if I'm better off with MBA or MBPr a/c WifI model. At this point I'd prioritize best probability of working out of the box a/c WiFi. Will also purchase new a/c Time Capsule router and AppleCare to cover both items.

Unfortunately still no Airport Express a/c router. Don't think TC can cover a vertical duplex layout; if not I'll need to use legacy 'n' AE with new 'a/c' TC.

check my forum stats I'm a conscientous community member. I don't want to give my friend drama if I have to return a defective unit. I thought for sure this would be resolved by now.... sigh. i'm a customer 25 years and never felt such hesitation.

During the wait, I'm also the guy amusing myself with a cheap Chromebook. If you're not interested in this part, no need for haters, just skip it. For those of you who've asked me, brief recap. ChromeOS is still a work in progress. Scant, non-user friendly support documentation. 'All in the cloud / everything happens in the browser' still uncomfortable for me, but better than I was at at first. No local storage = significant change in how you work/ limitations. Overall - a chromebook is a fast, light productivity tool. With HDMI out, good google 'ninja' tech support (HDMI mirroring to flat screen t.v. took 2 call backs) + 2 years of 100 GB cloud storage included for < $200? More new free 'apps' for ChromeOS coming out every week? I'm enjoying the stimulation of a new ecosystem. Is a Chromebook appropriate for full-on work tasks? Not yet.

@ DougsPlace: It makes perfect sense for people to use n routers with ac laptops if you have no NAS and the n router is working flawlessly. You don't have to upgrade to the latest & greatest (and the most expensive) piece of tech just because it's the latest, especially if what you have already meets your needs.

I did some testing on our 2 Macbook Airs and found some interesting.

One of them runs Bootcamp with OSX Maverick and Windows 8. Under OSX Maverick it has terrible ping times (between 2 and 80 ms), but under Windows 8 there are no latancy - all pings were 1 ms or 2 ms at the most.

And another interesting thing. The black screen issue is also only a issue under OSX - not when it runs Windows 8. I could do the "poweroff test" (push power off and quickly press another button or touchpad) and the Mac didn't hang. And i did the "almost close display test", and quickly opened it again when screen goes black closing it. And again the Mac came to live running Windows 8 (after 5-8 secs) but not running OSX.

Tells me it's not at hardware issue but a software issue - probably due to exessive powersaving function in OSX to gain the impressive battery time.

I have been using the MBA since 2011. I absolutely had no issues with Wifi so far. I recently applied one of the OS updates apple published and ever since have been facing Wifi issues. My MBA does not recognize my home Wifi most of the times.

I have a 2 month old macbook air 13".

For the last week or so I've been having serious wifi connection problems.

It's not the router because I have the following on the same router with no problems...

1. dell windows 7 laptop

2. android tablet

3. iphone 5

4. galaxy nexus s 4g

5. netbook

6. google chromecast connected to tv

7. sprint box that routes cel phone calls through the cable modem

8. macbook air (purchased new 2 months ago)

at any given time, at least 3-5 of the above devices are on the LAN using bandwidth.

the macbook air will simply not stay connected to the router. if i click on the wifi icon and monitor the drop-down list of connections, i can see the first line of text alternate from "Wi-FI: On" to "Wi-FI: Looking for Networks..." approximately every 6 (not a typo) seconds.

i am a lifelong windows user and come from an IT background. i'm now in the legal world and i purchased this macbook air for the specific reason of studying for the upcoming CA bar exam in Feb '14. i must say that while the build quality of the physical laptop is fantastic, the software has left me severely unimpressed. i got a $200 netbook that has no problems with wifi at all.

apple has one chance to make this right for me. i'll be making a trip to the apple store and if they are unable to provide an immediate solution, i'm returning the defective machine. i have no time for this. i have a 2 year old dell vostro running windows 7 that performs flawlessly. why did i pay <$1000 for a pretty computer that can't use the internet?

Sometimes my wifi problem is solved by disabling bluetooth.

Sometimes the problem goes away for weeks.

Sometimes.