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New Macbook Air - wifi connectivity problems

Hey guys,


Hope someone can help?


I have a brand new Macbook Air which is able to connect to the internet for just a minute or two before suddenly it drops out. This is even though the signal still shows at full strength and all my other devices are still able to surf the net as per normal.


This device is straight out of the box so no 3rd party applications have been installed. I heard that the wifi has been upgraded to 802.11n on this machine, could that be an issue?


Do i need to return the machine or is there is a software fix for this problem?


Thanks heaps!


Vicky

MacBook Air, iOS 6.1.4

Posted on Jun 13, 2013 5:55 AM

Reply
2,163 replies

Jun 17, 2014 9:17 PM in response to vhkim

I also have a macbook air 2013. I had the same internet problems where it would drop the signal and pick it up again, but it didn't happen everywhere only in my house -- which is no good. After installing 10.9.2 my wifi started working and I had no problem -- then I installed 10.9.3 and the wifi started dropping again. How do we get Apple's attention about this? Given everything that's going on in the market -- this is a bad time for apple to ignore problems with its merchandise, howver, I still wont go back to pc.

Jun 30, 2014 8:36 AM in response to vhkim

Dear all,


I bought a MacBook Air in February 2014 (build mid 2013) and since the beginning I am experencing WiFi problems: no connection, slow connection, on-off connection.


It is so frustrating as this basic feature is not working properly.


I called the Apple hotline and they tried two/three things without any success. Now I should test the WiFi "in Recovery mode" to see if it is a software or hardware problem. Horrible.


As so many users are having this problem, why can't Apple just exchange the hardware / update software for all affected users automatically?

Jul 11, 2014 8:32 AM in response to tonywong

I have three MacBooks at home.

  • MacBook Pro (2011) - No problems with WiFi connectivity.
  • MacBook Air (2012) - No problems with WiFi connectivity.
  • Macbook Air (2013 Haswell) - FREQUENT WIFI Connectivity Issues.


I saw an article that suggest it was a "Wifi sleep" issue (Haswell trying to save WiFi energy, forgets to wake up).

Most of the time, when I lose WiFi, I turn the wifi OFF and then back ON. (get's a bit annoying)

Another work-around (ugly at best) is to run PING continuously in a terminal window. This prevents Haswell from trying to power down the WiFi when it sees brief moments of no wifi activity (like when you ponder this post).

ping -i 0.2 10.0.1.1 #Note: address is my Router... yours may be different


If this in fact IS the problem, it would seem a simple thing to have Apple get a little bit less aggressive about sleeping the WiFi. Not sure if this would be a Firmware update, or a OS release.

Aug 4, 2014 8:42 AM in response to cwebber1

Is not a problem of power saving or wifi sleep, the connection drops also when you are activley streaming or downloading something. And ping never resolved my problem.


It's a problem regarding the wifi drivers. This explain why with 1 modem/router I had zero disconnections in 1 year. And instead with an other modem/router I have a disconnection every 15 minutes or so (while other devices have zero problems with both routers).


Apple needs to adjust it's wifi drivers to be more stable with different routers. It needs testing and good code writing. This is what apple is missing here.

Aug 4, 2014 8:54 AM in response to andQlimax

You changed the Router(wifi box), and that's when your problem started?

And from that, you conclude that it's a computer problem, rather than your new router or the router configuration?


While it is possible that the wifi drivers in your MacBook Air don't handle your new router correctly, there are many more reasons why a new router might not behave like the old one. (like the channel it uses, for one). Not saying your wrong. Just can't buy into a conclusion based on so little evidence.

Aug 4, 2014 9:00 AM in response to cwebber1

Hi,

I didn't change router, but i'm talking about to 2 different house.

All devices work fine with both routers (windows laptop, android phone, ipad), except the MBA which doesn't work with one router.

Since the MBA doesn't connect to a router, I have to change the router??

It's the router offered by my operator, probably is not perfect, I know, but only the MBA has problem with it. And read the discussion, lot of people have problem with it. It's a wifi driver problem. Sometimes it works fine for days, sometimes it drops every minute. I did all test, I can say i'm enough expert about those things, and didn't come to any other conclusion.

Aug 5, 2014 12:32 AM in response to vhkim

I have a brand new (1 month) Macbook air and the wifi connection drops, after reading that it may help to disable Bluetooth I tried it and it seam to help. But it is not at all satisfactory, really bad that a new computer work this bad.


I got more problems at the office than at home, same router (Asus RT-N66U) on both places, all other device works perfect with the routers. Is there a fix for this from Apple??


Nope disabling the Bluetooth did not work, just went down.

Aug 5, 2014 12:33 AM in response to webguide

The only thing that can "fix" the problem is to buy a 10 dollars usb wifi dongle that you have to carry around with you.

It's absurd that a 10 dollar piece of crap can have a fully stable wifi connection while a 1000 dollars mac can't.

If you search on web, every mac always had unresolvable wifi problems. A perfect OS unfortunately doesn't exist.

Aug 9, 2014 1:58 PM in response to andQlimax

I have also had these issues with my 2013 Mac Air. For a while I tried the "ping" solution (ping 8.8.8.8) which usually keeps it going. The last few days though, it has been posting "Request timeout for icmp_seq 1" (2,3,4 etc.) quite a bit more frequently. Could you tell me what the dongle pice is you are talking about and where to get the best one? I would surely appreciate it! Thanks!

New Macbook Air - wifi connectivity problems

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