New Macbook Air - wifi connectivity problems

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Could you also check if the wifi works when the bluetooth is disabled?

Thanks. I was about to order one and this really holds me off.

I am not sure what to make of this...

I found that my Linksys E2000 running DD-WRT is having issues.

My old ASUS WL-520GU running Tomato, appeared to have an issue once, but since then it seems relatively fine. Well, fine being that it disconnects and reconnects before I notice (only the logs notice).

Connected to my MacBook Pro, with Internet Sharing on, it doesn't seem to have any issues. Like with the above ASUS, it seems to disconnect and reconnect before I notice.

Got my new MBA yesterday, and Internet has been spotty, to say the least. Lose connection atleast every 2 minutes, but usually in 45 seconds. Very annoying!! Turn on hotspot in iphone, guess what?? No dropped Internet. Get on mifi air card, no issues. Get back on my home network, Bamm, dropped Internet. All of the other 6 devices in the house still work, except for the new MBA. I'm convinced the new computers have a problem communicating with non apple routers, with the exception of my mifi router. This is my first Mac purchase, converting over from PC, and so far it hasn't been a very comforting experience. I'm not willing to upgrade my home router just because apple won't play nice with it, even though all my other iDevices work without an issue on my home network.

Chatran: Yes, I have bluetooth disabled.

So if it is hardware issue, there will be no official Apple announce about bug?

I don't think that an Apple router would help you solve the problem. I have an Airport Express and the same problem with my new MBA 11 inch. My iPod, iPad, and Macbook (late 2008) worked just fine right out of the box.

Fred,

Is your AirPort Express runing the latest firmware ? Are you seeing the issue in 2.4 or 5 Ghz ? If you launch Wireless Diagnostics and hit Command +2, it opens up a Utility Window. What are the RSSI/Noise/Quality values in the Performance tab here when you see the issue ?

Same problems with my new MBA 13 inch. Mine works fine at home where I have a year old Timecapsule but it drops out periodically at work.

Hello Guru

Guess what .... I have no idea even where to look for that and I am not planning to find out. I switched to Mac some four years ago to get away from all this. Have other things to do. I am on my way to see a Genius in a few hours and in all probability will just ask for an exchange. May be get a Pro instead. Thanks again.

Just as an update.

I brought it to my office today where I have a newer N router. MBA has been online all morning without dropping once as far as I can tell (I just keep turning to it every now and again and clicking a fresh news article and they all load.

Obviously, with this router (pic below) it has a solid N connection which must be partly the key to this. This router is also Netgear, but it is the WNR 2000

I will test others today.

Update:

So after several hours with the airport extreme and having no issues (and going back to my original network and having same issues) I decided to head out and try the MBA on other networks. Each network I tried (Starbucks, Target, couple in the local mall, another coffee place accross town and a marriott guest wifi) worked fine. I had no instances of hanging like I did with my original setup... like GMC said, it could come later and I didn't stay in each location longer than 15 min or so.. But in my case, the hangup was 10-60 seconds every time. I'm going out of town this afternoon and will keep trying b/c I have to decide whether to keep or return the MBA. But I'm pretty convinced that it's a software/network glitch/interference and b/c the MBA is brand new, there is an update needed... again, it doesn't mean it's acceptable, but I can't see how it can be a hardware issue and have it working so well on so many other networks.

One thing I've noticed in my house is that my maine wireless network when I do a scan shows two instances of the network (WAP and WAP2 security)... it doestn' show up in the taskbar network selection, but it shows in wireless diagnostics utility scan... I can't find anywhere on the router to eliminate one of the two and with those two running and having a wireless router and two access points, I can see where the MBA could have issues even though none of my other devices have an issue... just a thought. Still working on that.

I guess this is why people wait till a new product has been out for a while before buying... i'm sure even though they appear silent, Apple is working on a fix.... maybe.

oh..and, I wasn't sure how to figure out what devices I was connected to at those locations, but we have a netgear setup here at my office and a guest account that I've been on for a while now with no probs..

Obviously, the issue we are trying to resolve is the dropping/not reconnecting/appearing connected issue.

I have dropped several times from my old ASUS wl-520GU that is running Tomato, but it reconnects on it's own, without issue.

The same is true when I share my MBP's wireless, I dropped a few times, but it reconnected without me knowing.

But when connected to my E2000 running DD-wrt, it drops and appears to be connected still.

To see when drops are happening, run wireless diagnostics and choose to let it monitor your connection. It will sit there and monitor the connection, and tell you when you lose a connection. If you are lucky, it will have reconnected on it's own.

I've also noticed that when I have my MBA on a table, it tends to lose connectivity more often (1-10 min) whereas when I have it on my lap, it only does so every so often (30-60 min).

Not sure if my legs are being used as antennas or what but this could be an interesting test for anyone else.

mine sits on a table all day (and is now stable), but the table is near the router...

Same problem here. My Haswell Macbook Air is having connectivity problems out of the box. It will be fine for a few minutes, but pages will slow and stop loading all of a sudden. Restart router, good for a few minutes, then stops again. The whole time, the wifi icon is at full bars.

Router is 11g, 2.4ghz Westell 7500.

The only "fix" I found so far is running Wifi Diagnostic in the background, same as Hijej above. That seems to keep internet on fine. Strange, but it works. Not a permanent solution though.