Late 2013 Macbook Pro Retina 13'' Wifi Issues

Since my exchange rMBP 15" has the same issues (of course), I had a longer telephone call with Apples technical support in Germany. We tried several things to solve the problem, but they all did not work (of course).

At the end, she told me that they are aware of these issues, but Apples engineers/technicians haven't yet developed a solution. So I have to wait until a firmware update is released. Otherwise I could return the Macbook or get a new exchange, what again wouldn't solve anything (of course). In the meantime, she recommended to buy an adapter and use an ethernet cable.

Let me rephrase - the latency is not a defect nor a bug. It's a powersaving feature.
The problem is that "ping" as such cannot deliver enough 'weight' for it to stay awake.

I created this little screenrecording to show you the actual impact.

If I just ping, it looks like the latency is very high - as soon as I start the stream (from my Synology > Macbook) you see that the ping imediately drops until I hit Pause on the player.

http://d.cloudz.be/9qBR

Geniusses .. tssk 😉

If the latency would be the only problem.

At the moment I'm only getting acceptable speed when sitting next to the router. When I move the rMBP 15" (Late 2013) a room further, to all the other devices that work properly, I'm loosing wifi connection with the rMBP or at least it gets unusable slow.

The new MB seems to be much more happy with a 5Ghz signal than a 2.4Ghz.

What happens if you turn off your wifi in the next room and turn it back on on your rMBP?

If you hold your ALT-key while clicking on the Wifi symbol, what do you see? RSSI / Transmit Rate / MCS Index?

Turning wifi off and on in the new room: Connection remains slow.

"Good room":

PHY mode: 802.11g

Channel: 11 (2,4Ghz)

RSSI: -41

Transmit Rate: 24

MCS Index not shown

"Bad room":

PHY mode: 802.11g

Channel: 11 (2,4Ghz)

RSSI: -63

Transmit Rate: 18

MCS Index not shown

Your RSSI is quite OK. The Transmit rate is awful.

Are you sure there isn't anything interfering? Something on the same channel (neighbour's Wifi, alarm system detectors, ...)

Close to your router the negotiated Transmit rate should be at least 54 > 150 depending on the type of accesspoint. If you have a 5Ghz with 40Mhz channels it could go up to 300. (1300 on AC/80Mhz).

So, either something is interfering or you have damaged antenna's / network card.

I don't think it's a hardware issue, as I had this problems with the first rMBP 15" as well.

My girlfriends Macbook (Late 2009) gets a Transmit rate of 54 in "bad room" and 48 in "good room" (next to the router). The router is a Linksys WRT54GL.

Have you tried it with a different router?

That one is pretty old one - it probably doesn't know about the new chipset in the MBPro.

No idea if there is new firmware for it available?

I know it sounds pretty weird - but the AP has to be compatible with the new chipset too.
I'd try it somewhere different with another type of AP.

Hello all,

I hope this helps someone else, but I was having endless issues with my wifi, and after some digging and talking with apple support it turned out it was caused by a bug in the new migration assistant if you used it this may be your problem too.

To rectify the problem if you used the migration assistant:

- turn off your computer

- Press end hold "command-R" and press your power button until you boot into recovery

- click next on english as your language

- next click the utilities menu at the top and selet console

- now type "passwordreset" and press enter

- then select your HDD, and username

- click the button at the very buttom that mentions permissions fixing

- close the window when the button is grayed out and says "done"

- type "reboot" and press enter

This fixed all the problems I was having.

Well, that was one of those advices I got from Apple support, too – but it didn't change anything.

Did you try adding google DNS servers? Mine is still a little flaky, but no more then typical for any other computer on our network, but adding Google DNS servers make a difference for me, I have always used them on every computer I own and it makes a difference on unstable/slow connections.

From Google Developers site:

The Google Public DNS IP addresses (IPv4) are as follows:

• 8.8.8.8
• 8.8.4.4

The Google Public DNS IPv6 addresses are as follows:

• 2001:4860:4860::8888
• 2001:4860:4860::8844

vZwo, did you try my prior advice on enabling WMM mode under the Linksys router's QoS settings? This made my rMBP fast but everything else slow. Or try disabling it if it's on.

Dot K wrote:

Let me rephrase - the latency is not a defect nor a bug. It's a powersaving feature.
The problem is that "ping" as such cannot deliver enough 'weight' for it to stay awake.

I created this little screenrecording to show you the actual impact.

If I just ping, it looks like the latency is very high - as soon as I start the stream (from my Synology > Macbook) you see that the ping imediately drops until I hit Pause on the player.

http://d.cloudz.be/9qBR

Geniusses .. tssk 😉

Not true

Or at least not in every case.

I observe the same you describe when I transfer file, backup time machine over wifi, share screen with other mac, etc

Unfortunately latency seriously impacts other areas. For example Internet radio streaming.

My wife used to listen to one particular radio channel via Internet. Did it for years on previus macs without problem, now cannot do this with new MBP - too many stream interruptions. I did a test and lauched this radio on new MBP and old MBA at the same time. MBA - perfect streaming, MBP - interruptions 😟

I tested ping while streaming youtube - ping problem and package lost are there as well. Buffering is well done on youtube so you don't have interruptions, but problem exists.

I agree it may be the feature - but not well implemented if is impacting network experience

Do you experience this in Safari? The streaming issues?

Did you try it in Chrome?

yes - Safari

but I used Safari on both MBP and old MBA. Same condition, same browser - different result and difference in ping on both machines (I fact I did this test on 4 macs at home - two old MBA and two new MBP)

I found a resolution/workaround for this radio channel - I use fstream to listen to it instead of flash via webpage. Fstream buffers well so problem is not noticable.

But still - the problem exists