Q: New Macbook Air - wifi connectivity problems

it means that its obviously not my speed or connection here. I have done the "patch" upload on all 3 machines. Had it back to the store 3 (replaced every time) times for the genius bar guys to check/fix....sent an apple engineer the diagnostic to never hear from him again...higher level support will not take or return my calls anymore......what would you think?

It means that Apple has known all abut this issue for months and is weaseling out of doing the right thing by giving the guy sitting in a cube in Bangalore his $50 bucks to fix this issue if its code, or if its hardware accepting responsibility and recalling/replacing these affected machines with functioning ones-then refurbing-reselling the problem ones later. Its not my/our job to try to be smarter than Apple and come up with a magical fix. Its Apple that sold the machines, and for a good profit, and they continued to sell them worldwide fully aware that there is a serious unresolved problem with a good amount of them. Why the heck am I wasting so much time chasing a fix on a premium priced piece of hardware?.

Remember, we're on the same side here.

No idea what your problem is(!), but it does seem slightly different to what some others are experiencing (including myself.  And from your ping results, it looks very good.

have a replacement coming later this week so will see how this performs.

sorry for the delay-it dropped the connection and took a minute to reconnect. Apple needs to "man" up and deal with this....they are accepting no responsibility as of now and just circle jerking everyone around.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f8loznakl45e4l6/Photo%2017-08-13%2017%2059%2023.jpg

Lame, huh?

Lame, but very elegantly done.  Excellent shot, shows it for exactly what it is.  What band,wireless you on?

I am getting similar ping results to my AirPort AC router.  5GHz WPA2, WiFi Patch.

PING 10.0.1.1 (10.0.1.1): 56 data bytes

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=268.255 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=186.681 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=108.435 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=26.887 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=255.128 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=255 time=2.507 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=255 time=94.997 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=7 ttl=255 time=17.299 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=8 ttl=255 time=245.451 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=9 ttl=255 time=165.445 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=10 ttl=255 time=84.783 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=11 ttl=255 time=1.695 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=12 ttl=255 time=232.443 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=13 ttl=255 time=154.347 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=14 ttl=255 time=73.330 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=15 ttl=255 time=301.098 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=16 ttl=255 time=1.883 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=17 ttl=255 time=142.840 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=18 ttl=255 time=62.752 ms

64 bytes from 10.0.1.1: icmp_seq=19 ttl=255 time=291.215 ms

However, a ping test run from my iPhone to the same router shows CONSISTENTLY 26ms return times.

Macbook Air on the left, Macbook Pro on the right.  Though you probably could have guessed....  Both pinging the Airport on 5ghz.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2131484/IMG_20130817_175312.jpg

2.4Ghz G Band. Old Lynksys WAG354G router. Testing everything from the furthest room away from the router, but still... Toshiba netbook does not give a **** about it...

[offtopic] How come the Macbook Air is taller than the Pro in your pic? LOL [/offtopic]

Tomorrow I'm getting a friend home with her 2012 Macbook Air, I'll check if Air has always sucked, or is it just this batch.

Funny fact: if you sit your MBA directly on your belly while lying, the wifi reception gets completely wasted too. It also happens when you sit it on your lap, depending on how you do it.

I have to say that I'm not getting wifi drops and stuff if I don't mess hard with it. I mean, my issues are basically 1) bluetooth and 2) some resting positions; ruining completely my wifi when its signal is not optimal. As soon as I start turning on/off bluetooth, or rising up my Air, **** breaks loose.

So my main concern is that Air's wireless connectivity is poor by design, which is nonsense since it is meant to be ultra-portable! However, ping tests show it is indeed very poor, isn't it?

Oh, and my 2010 iMac is performing fine, just like the Toshiba netbook, in terms of pinging the AP. Same room, same wifi.

The air sitting on top of a chromebook.  1/5 price, and more than 5x the network performance....

andyman2 wrote:

 

The air sitting on top of a chromebook.

Nice use

My 2011 Mac Mini shows 3ms pings consistently and it's MUCH FUTHER AWAY from the router than my MacBook Air which shows random ping times between 1 and 300 ms.  Bizarre and iritating.

Does all this excessive ping round trip time (RTT) happen on 2011/2012 Macbook Airs/Pros? Just curious.