Q: New Macbook Air - wifi connectivity problems

I wouldn't say my Chromebook is 5x the performance of my 2008 Macbook, but it's way lighter and runs cooler. And NO darn loud fan noise.   I've said before it's not a full laptop replacement (yet) but for $200 this is an interesting learning experience re: Samsung and Google support,  100% cloud computing ecosystem.  I had reason to reset the Chromebook.  FYI, there is no need to back-up before a reset.  Everything is in the cloud. Right, I remind myself.  So after reset, Chromebook automatically re-synced.   All my apps, all my settings.  A small glitch taken care of by updating firmware. What was refreshing was tech support acknowledging my issue,  that it was 'known.'  

The only thing not re-set correctly was clock time (wrong time zone)  and my login image (i took with built in cam but didn't manually upload to Google drive) but basically - I did a 'wipe' of the chromebook, reinstalled the OS, without a backup, and all my stuff was reinstalled.  This all took less than 10 minutes. As a 25 year Apple customer, backing up then wiping a macbook then reinstalling OS then reinstalling all my data would have taken hours

Hmmm.

Mr. Cook, are you listening?

Yes, the MBA 2012 is affected, too - yet, less frequently. Search for my posts in this thread. It took me more than half a year of permanent troubles just to find out my MBA is the problem. And Apple has nothing to offer me (doesn't even acknowledge there is a problem...). Now I will return my MBA asking for a full refund - which is extremely cheap for Apple because I have spent several weeks of full time work in this problem. Apple completely f***ed this up. The biggest problem for me is, though, that I don't know what to buy instead since I do not want to leave my 10-years+ accustomed ecosystem. I can't tell you how frustrated I am...

Howdy Rosember,

You do not need to leave the current ecosystem.

If mac_airbrick doesn't work as it must then you can take a look at alternative ways http://goo.gl/gpWqwr

APPLE won't fix this problem, they are too busy with buying back their shares.

I'm having the same issues as everyone else in this thread with my MBA 11" mid-2013. Poor wifi latency performance generally (I work over ssh a lot and typing at the terminal is uncomfortable to say the least, you type, nothing shows up, then a backlog of about 10 characters you typed suddenly all appear -- basically unusable). Wildly varying ping times, even after the 1.0 Software Update: anything between 20ms and 1500ms to a router that's standing right next to me. Luckily, I bought the Raspberry Pi kit not that long ago and it had a piece of gear in it that I previously had no use for: the Ralink 802.11 N tiny USB dongle. I found the MacOS X driver for it, and while the setup is kind of ugly (both the hardware and the software user interface), it does exactly what it's supposed to do. With the dongle, my ping times are now stable and are in line with all my other devices.

I`ve kind of had it with Apple also.There is still no official acceptance of the problem that affects many of them...they are still selling them with the issue...and no matter what anyone says about helping you fix it-they can`t, and then will avoid your calls.I was promised high level support and to call anytime only to have my calls not answered or returned. This stuff needs to get out there in the mainstream, since being nice and going through proper channels is not effective.I believe selling known defective goods without offering a viable fix is basically fraud.....

I agree. Apple clearly has an issue that they have tried to correct with a software update, apparently not completely successfully since people are still having a problem. We don't know if the problem (or problems) are software or hardware but I'm guessing it's at least partly hardware (or possibly a design flaw). It's very serious and I don't blame anyone for avoiding the model (or even Apple laptops for a while till either WiFi evolves so that the routers the MBA has issues with leave the market or they finally fix the problem). The mac sites don't seem to be pushing Apple, but Apple is incurring costs associated with all these exchanges so it's not like they're totally unmotivated. On the other hand since they're not admitting anything, it's hard to know when it's safe to buy.

I'm lucky in some ways that though I experienced this, I had a solution that worked for me, even though it was an expensive one (Buying a 802.11AC Apple router). Since I rarely connect to WiFi except at home, and since I use an AT&T cellular modem when I'm on the go, it no longer bothers me, but the problem is still there of course. I wonder if this isn't an indicator that Apple might no longer be the company it once was with Steve Jobs. Perhaps that Apple is a thing of the past.

I think Apple could explain this problem in detail by now, but they've chosen not to, either because it's too embarrassing to fix or because it's too expensive to fix, or both. But I see it as similar to the X-Box 360 Red ring of death problems. It will bleed money out of Apple (and trust) until either the 2013 MBA is a memory or until they explain what is happening and fix it permanently.

Unfortunately, the buying an 11ac apple router didnt fix the problem for me though its quick when it works, but the latency peaks still occur just as frequently.

Hi!

Just to compare, I'm in the UK (I use Google as a proxy rather than my ISP) and with a fully functional June 2013 MBA 13" in the UK using a NetGear 802.11 ac (5GHz, Chanel 'auto') 6 meters away through an old Victorian 1 ft thick stone wall to google.co.uk, this is the average 'Ping' that I'm getting as I type now:

• 0.0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 12.233/16.002/20.456/2.838 ms

Just for fun, same setup, but this time to google.com (wherever that is):

• 0.0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 13.531/59.979/167.037/49.186 ms

Again, as I type this, Speedtest.net is giving me on my notional 120Mb/4.5Mb Cable from VirginMedia is giving me the following (remember I'm ~ 30 ft from my router with a 12" solid rock wall in between):

Now, these bits of info show quite a number of things, but the main ones are:-

1. If your MBA isn't working, A P P L E   M U S T   F I X   IT   N O W !!!!!

2. I'm a lucky chap, 'cos when it works, this MBA is faster than anything else on the market (WiFi-wise)

3. Pings aren't everything - they are sever specific from any given location

4. The time of day and day of the week these tests are performed matters (it's 20:25 on a Sunday here in the UK)

5. Having a good cable speed makes a difference

6. Having a crappy WiFi speed is U N A C E P T A B L E  I N  T H I S  S U M M E R' S  M B A!!!

Just thought I'd chime in and say that on this second Macbook Air I've been sent I've got exactly the same high round trip ping values as the previous people, just when pinging the actual router

Four year old macbook is churning out about two ms

New Air is all over the place, between 3 and 80ms

And like the pictures posted previously, they're next to each other in the same room

I would post a picture but it looks just the same as the previous ones that people have posted up.

Balls.

what do you get if you ping your router for say 20 packets?  Can you post the result?  If you look at some of the pings, they're to the local wifi router, thereby removing ISP connectivity.  And happening at the same time as another device.  Awaiting my new replacement MBA though I imagine it'll be the same....

Just tried that. My Wi-Fi is called Wi-Fi and it just came up with a 'ping usage' table >

sudo ping -i 0.2 -s 0 -S `networksetup -getinfo "Wi-Fi" | grep "IP address" | awk '{print $3}'` `networksetup -getinfo "Wi-Fi" | grep Router | awk '{print $2}'` >/dev/null

usage: ping [-AaDdfnoQqRrv] [-b boundif] [-c count] [-G sweepmaxsize] [-g sweepminsize]

            [-h sweepincrsize] [-i wait] [-l preload] [-M mask | time] [-m ttl]

            [-p pattern] [-S src_addr] [-s packetsize] [-t timeout]

            [-W waittime] [-z tos] host

       ping [-AaDdfLnoQqRrv] [-c count] [-I iface] [-i wait] [-l preload]

            [-M mask | time] [-m ttl] [-p pattern] [-S src_addr]

            [-s packetsize] [-T ttl] [-t timeout] [-W waittime]

            [-z tos] mcast-group

What's your output of:

networksetup -getinfo "Wi-Fi"

When connected to your accesspoint it should look something like this:

DHCP Configuration
IP address: 192.168.2.10
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Router: 192.168.2.1
Client ID: 
IPv6: Off
Wi-Fi ID: 84:38:xx:xx:xx:xx

Yup it looks just like that.

Well, then I don't know why it doesn't work for you. It works for me!

But since you already know the IP of your router you may just as well use this simpler syntax:

sudo ping -i 0.2 -s 0 192.168.2.1 >/dev/null

(you should replace 192.168.2.1 by your router's IP)

Does that work for you?

Yup, it works!

Got the script running in one terminal window

Opened another terminal window and pinged the router....

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=3.104 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=3.772 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=2.817 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=2.695 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=3.800 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=2.729 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=4.074 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=2.976 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=3.743 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=3.459 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=10 ttl=64 time=2.629 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=11 ttl=64 time=2.755 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=12 ttl=64 time=3.947 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=13 ttl=64 time=3.723 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=14 ttl=64 time=2.666 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=15 ttl=64 time=2.812 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=16 ttl=64 time=3.084 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=17 ttl=64 time=3.912 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=18 ttl=64 time=2.689 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=19 ttl=64 time=2.628 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=20 ttl=64 time=2.770 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=21 ttl=64 time=2.568 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=22 ttl=64 time=2.790 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=23 ttl=64 time=2.685 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=24 ttl=64 time=2.535 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=25 ttl=64 time=5.268 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=26 ttl=64 time=2.549 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=27 ttl=64 time=2.899 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=28 ttl=64 time=4.504 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=29 ttl=64 time=4.286 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=30 ttl=64 time=2.286 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=31 ttl=64 time=3.552 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=32 ttl=64 time=2.686 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=33 ttl=64 time=3.241 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=34 ttl=64 time=2.506 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=35 ttl=64 time=2.906 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=36 ttl=64 time=2.406 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=37 ttl=64 time=2.761 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=38 ttl=64 time=3.290 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=39 ttl=64 time=2.594 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=40 ttl=64 time=5.635 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=41 ttl=64 time=2.995 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=42 ttl=64 time=3.353 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=43 ttl=64 time=2.543 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=44 ttl=64 time=4.125 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=45 ttl=64 time=2.357 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=46 ttl=64 time=2.571 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=47 ttl=64 time=3.355 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=48 ttl=64 time=2.540 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=49 ttl=64 time=2.885 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=50 ttl=64 time=2.603 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=51 ttl=64 time=3.181 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=52 ttl=64 time=2.676 ms

BEFORE I did this, it looked like this:

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=389 ttl=64 time=129.404 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=390 ttl=64 time=2.272 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=391 ttl=64 time=72.284 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=392 ttl=64 time=98.707 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=393 ttl=64 time=17.089 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=394 ttl=64 time=38.161 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=395 ttl=64 time=60.997 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=396 ttl=64 time=2.428 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=397 ttl=64 time=3.965 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=398 ttl=64 time=26.902 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=399 ttl=64 time=49.749 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=400 ttl=64 time=72.530 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=401 ttl=64 time=9.322 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=402 ttl=64 time=18.839 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=403 ttl=64 time=93.281 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=404 ttl=64 time=88.092 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=405 ttl=64 time=84.305 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=406 ttl=64 time=4.639 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=407 ttl=64 time=27.435 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=408 ttl=64 time=50.764 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=409 ttl=64 time=72.992 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=410 ttl=64 time=95.775 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=411 ttl=64 time=15.884 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=412 ttl=64 time=38.834 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=413 ttl=64 time=61.455 ms

Blimey.