New Macbook Air - wifi connectivity problems

Same here, received my 13" MBA last night, connection fails on TKIP. Changed to AES and works perfectly. That's not really a fix, waiting on Apple to maybe update the firmware? If not I'm returning it.

New 2013 macbook air: wifi "silently" disconnects around 3 times per hour though signal strength shows max. Turning wifi off and on solves the problem. Extremely annoying. Apple: please INFORM and SOLVE.

Even though my new Air runs better at home now (changed to WPA2, changed channel, moved wifi ahead of bluetooth in service order) it still goes slower when other laptops in my family are connected to wifi and still drops occasionally. My concern is when I go to a friends or family members house where they have a router I can't adjust. I am on my 2nd Air since 6/11 and think I will return this one also.

Apple, I think you should extend the return period for the purchasers of the new Air products for an extra couple of weeks until you are able to confirm a fix is in the works...

Update 2: Got the new-new machine migrated from my 13" MBP and the wifi issue is not resolved with replacement. I really didn't think it would.

Obviously, a software/firmware issue.

While at the Apple Store in GCS, I checked the type of wifi they were running and it was 802.11a/n NOT a/c and the unit I took in to replace worked fine.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my office WAP's are 802.11a/g with plain WPA and the MBA exhibits the dropped connection issue.

I don't travel that much with my laptop, and I have a 802.11a/n router at home so I don't anticipate any issues. If I do, I'll just keep returning them. So, it's not a huge issue for me, but I can empathise with those who are majorly affected.

My guess is Apple will release a fix within the next week or so.

wifiguru wrote:

Maliath, look at my last post. I have the Asus RT 16 working w.o issues. What dd-wrt firmware version are you using ? Try the one I have. And use WPA2 Personal with AES. Folks here seem to have success with it.

I don't remember what exact build I had of DD-WRT before I flashed it to Tomato, but I may try DD-WRT. Although, I'm probably just going to return the Macbook Air when I get a chance. Thanks wifiguru.

Update. I was called by an Apple engineer, who did a great job of handholding me through the diagnostics and had me monitor the wi-fi connection. I forwared the files the diagnostics created, including one when the connection was dropped. He got the information about my router a Netgear Wireless N300, Model WNR2000v2. He had me change it from WPA to WPA2 and asked to continue to monitor the connection, which I did all day yesterday and I did not have another disconnect. So my use at home is solved, but I do have the concern that when I travel, which we do a lot, I will still have this problem when I am connecting to routers that I have no control over. The engineer has assured me that Apple will solve the problem, but when and even if Apple does come out with a solution he cannot tell me. I am saddened that Apple has not publicly acknowledged that there is an issue and provide us new owners of MBA's with the assurance that this problem will get solved. Thus while I can still return this new computer, I am going to do so as I do not wish to continue to have to deal with this problem. If anyone has any better information about what Apple is doing to solve this problem, please post it.

yes Im in the apple store as I write this .. There was another person who was in just before with a simliar problem. They were unable to reproduce the problem as I suspected because I bet they tested it on the typical apple store routers.

I am considering returning this MBA as I will be needing a working notebook for traveling abroad and unless there is some sort of annoucement that this is a problem and they are working on a fix I will probably return the macbook air.

Its a shame as I really liked the idea of a 12 hour run time

Maliath wrote:

I paid $1800 for a computer that can't even transfer a 1GB file over a network without crashing. I'm returning this piece of junk. It's quite clear that no one even bothered to test the computer before they shipped it worldwide.

Interesting, I think that you're the first person I've seen in this thread mentioning an outright crash...

I got my new Air last week and have had 1–5 hard crashes a day. When I say hard crash, I mean that the screen freezes completely, not a kernel panic. Thus, no KP logs have been generated.

Last time I had hard crash problems, two computers ago, it was caused by bad memory. However, I've run memtest on the new Air from single user mode, overnight, twice, and it has passed each time. So I doubt that it's the memory.

While most of the hard crashes seem random, the one way cause that I've been able to reproduce (sometimes) has been large file transfers by WiFi, like Maliath mentions. Thus, I'm wondering if my issue is related to the same WiFi problems experienced by others. Perhaps my system is bombing instead of merely losing the connection. I haven't had a mere connection loss.

I have an appointment at the Apple Store tonight, so I'll be curious to hear what they say. In the meantime, I'm wondering if anyone other than Maliath and me has experienced repeated hard crashes, and whether it correlates to any particular WiFi activity.

Mine has neither crashed nor do I still have WiFi issues at the moment. At work, once I cchnaged to AES on our route all had been working find and stable so far. At home all is stable too. Till now I had not a single"crash" or freeze. All is working as it should and hopefully stays this way too. I have the 13' i7 1.7 with 8Gig and 256 gig ssd.

I have not had this problem ( as of yet ) but do have a look at this link. It sound like your problem.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/06/24/apples-os-x-mountain-lion-reportedly-h indering-macbook-air-80211ac-speeds

Pierre

You should all check this out:

http://9to5mac.com/2013/06/24/apple-investigating-new-macbook-air-wifi-issues-so me-customers-receiving-replacements/

Same here

My 13" Air just got delivered today
connection seemed to work fine when configuring osx but when opening safari it fails, says it's connected but it cannot access the internet, after a full reboot or wifi reset it works for like 10-30 seconds tops and then fails again, haven't tied most of the fixes they mention here so I'll come back when I do.

I have two ipads , an iphone 5, and also two windows laptops all working fine whith the network so no doubt it's something in the mac

After I thought about it, my roommate did in fact upgrade our router firmware (Linkysys WRT54G router), but he also swtiched the security to WPA2 from WPA. I saw someone else mentioned they made this particular change as well, so I realized that might actually have been the fix for the issue.

I have a new 13" AIR, works fine at home under newly purchased Airport Extreme connection (also worked fine under older 5th gen Airport extreme too before replacing it last week),

BUT since the Air is meant to be a portable unit that you can and should pack anywhere at mom and pop stores wifi , starbucks etc etc wifi...Ive traveled around town ALL DAY today trying to get my AIR to fail

namely doing large file transfers and 1080P vid watching (as many report errors with).

So far Ive been connected to 12 wifi networks,... , what i call "low grade" wifi networks, and mall networks, JCpenny, 2 diff starbucks, and lexington tea and coffee shop, AE outfitters wifi..... etc etc.

Ive yet to (and trying to max it out by video and downloading PDFs) be able to cause ANY disconnect.

So, as to this being a "universal problem" with the new AIR, that doesnt seem to be the case at all, since im forcing it to fail at diff. wifi spots, but cannot.

Since im nearing my 14 day return period, i wanted to make sure my AIR would communicate at "junk" wifi hotspots around town.

PV !

No one has said that this is an "universal problem." You are one of a vast majority who doesn't have the problem. But still is was a good idea to give it a good trial.

That would be a joke if you would go back to the store and tell them ---" it does not fail, give me one with the problem please!"

Enjoy your new AIR! It is a fabulous machine.