Q: Late 2013 Macbook Pro Retina 13'' Wifi Issues

bkang97 wrote:

 

My average ping speed is like 80 ms. Not good at all. Such speeds are just unacceptable from a $1000+ laptop. When my connection drops, most of the packets get dropped. This is definitely a hardware issue that Apple should accept and help with. I'm taking my MBP to the apple store soon to get it replaced, but really, will it help at all?

No, its not the hardware. I got mine replaced and the second one was exactly the same. Save your time. If it was the hardware, you would be getting the same bad ping in windows.

Try to ping your router in windows and see the difference:

If you look at my last post, you see that the MBPr has an excellent wifi adapter. It can easily do up to 45 MB/s with a proper driver.

The updated driver has sorted out all the issues i had with ping, latency and poor wifi performance overall.

was averaging around 70-200ms, now no more then 2ms .. and browsing is very responsive.

thanks

Last login: Tue Feb 18 21:01:19 on console

bens-mbp:~ ben$ ping 192.168.1.254

PING 192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254): 56 data bytes

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=86.971 ms

... (abbreviated for your benefit)

^C

--- 192.168.1.254 ping statistics ---

1897 packets transmitted, 1843 packets received, 2.8% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 1.127/159.851/49551.500/2473.151 ms

bens-mbp:~ ben$

Still not very good speeds pinging my router...

Every thirty mintues or so when I click on a webpage, my connection drops and I have to restart to reenable my internet connection. It's getting very frustrating and annoying having to do so because I use it for work.

Hmm I'm confused. We are updating the driver, not the firmware right? The Howto says to check the "Firmware Version" to see if it's updated, but mine says (after the script, didn't check before, oops):

     Firmware Version:          Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.106.98.100.22)

But above that there is "IO80211 Family: 6.3 (630.35)". The driver files themselves are named IO80211Family.ktext so I'm thinking this is the value that should be checked? Can someone clarify?

But also, why is my firmware so old?

EDIT: Oops, I guess I have an early 2013 model, but I've been having the exact same issues as in this thread. Hopefully the updated driver fixes it.

I belive that this issue is not only related to driver, but also to other system elements. Sucessfull driver update didn't resolve the problem in my case. I'm loking forward for system update (not only driver) and hope that this will fix the problem permamently. As mentioned above, this is not hardware issuse as problem is not replicated on Windows 8.

It has been a while since I looked at this forum, but for my case, this was definately a hardware issue (or software out of the box?) I got my 13" rMBP replaced and did not see anymore network/ping/dropout issues. Just for backgroun info, I bought the rMBP on day of release and found there was pings ranging from 1ms to 500ms to my local gateway, and replicated it in the apple store. They replaced it (took a week to order) and I have not have a single network issue since.

I experienced serious wifi problems only with certain routers (g, n and ac). Nevertheless, even when it "works" and you do not experience horrific problems like disconnects and webpages not loading, the performance is still terrible.

With the windows driver transmission rates are more than double and, even more important, the connection is perfectly stable. No drops as i constantly see them in Mac OS.

I have to say i am disappointed with the way apple handles this. Its the same story for the 4k@60Hz Support of the Intel Iris Graphics. Late 2013 MBP owners are left in the dark whether there will ever be such a (crucial) fix, while it is already working with the windows driver.

But hey, its still a cool looking machine.

Hello everyone.

I am using 15"MBP w/haswell and NVIDIA, so it's running Mavericks.

1Dlink router birdged to an airport express.

My iPad, my blackberry and my apple TV stay connected without problems. My macbook will drop. I am using beamer app (for example), streaming movies without a problem, and all of the sudden it stops. Check the wifi icon, it shows connected... seconds after it will disconnect, and not show any connections at all. Then it takes a while to connect. Using torrents its the same.

I just did the update of the firmware for the wifi to the beta driver, no improvements.

I want to clarify that my other devices have no problems at all. It is just the laptop not displaying any networks. If my wifi was the problem, my laptop would change from my current wifi to the main (dlink) wifi. But it doesn't, it just gets disconnected.

Trying to figure out if this is a hardware or software. This is only recent, last week. I haven't had this problem at all before. Taking the laptop to a service center is not really a viable ooption as it would be a retailer and not an apple store (I don't live in a country with apple stores)

Ok this worked for me. I had the same exact problem. GO into system preferences, then click network.

After that click "Advanced"

Then there should be sort of a toolbar of options. CLick the last name named "Hardware"

Click the button that says "automatically" and switch it to manually.     (Configure)

Then click the button below it and change Standard to Custom (MTU)

Then the little number scale that says 1280-1500. Manually change the number to "1453"

and BOOM!   It works perfect

Source: Applepro https://discussions.apple.com/message/20082517#20082517

+1 for Denis's patch. Really appreciate it pal. Resolved my issue.

-1 Apple for not acknowledging such an obvious bug for so long. Pretty inexcusable.

Dumping a couple of extra notes and refreshing pointers:

Download the patch found here from Denis:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/24719569#24719569

1. Unzip to desktop and open a terminal window (command line)

2. cd ~/Desktop/ReplaceDriver

3. xattr -d -r com.apple.quarantine *     (If you dont see the terminal window popup/run when you double click due to quaranteen issues. You will see the syslogs w/info in the console)

4. click click BackupDriver.app (look for terminal to put in your sudo passwd)

5. click click ReplaceDriver.app (look for terminal to put in your sudo passwd)

Command line only:

1. Unzip to desktop and open a terminal window (command line)

2. cd ~/Desktop/ReplaceDriver

3. xattr -d -r com.apple.quarantine *

4. Paste the script or the relevant commands etc:

----------------------

sudo rsync -av --delete ~/Desktop/ReplaceDriver/IO80211Family.kext/ /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/; wait && echo 'done copying' && sudo chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext && sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext; wait && sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions/; wait && echo 'done changing rights and ownership' && echo 'trying to reboot...' && sudo reboot

brary/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext && sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext; wait && sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions/; wait && echo 'done c

----------------------

I noticed the how-to mentions a different version from what the result is in the patch. Just appears to be a typo:

Readme has:

Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (6.30.223.74.22)

Patch installs:

Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (6.30.223.154.63)

Post patch should look like something along these lines from my late model 2013 MBP:

Cheers,

-Brent

Your solution has removed erratic ping times normally    but I still have a problem where I am browsing online and just randomly my connection drops to extremely low speeds. The ping speeds go down to ~30,000ms for my router, and I am forced to restart.

Well, same issue here. I do not know if this is related to settings migrated from my old 2009 MPB. It is worse though when I use an external monitor and the laptop is closed. This seems to block the antenna. I did not have this problem with my old MBP (even when closed).

I figured I would post my experience and the reponse I recieved from Apple. I have a late 2013 Haswel 15" macbook pro with max configuration. I also was having the high ping latency issue as well as my laptop failing to connect to the internet after return from sleep while still remaining connect to my network. After several weeks of trouble shooting with the Apple senior technical advisor I ended up replacing my router. We tried reseting the wireless configuration, deleting the wifi configuration files, and eventually reinstalling the OS two times. I was at the point where Apple was sending me a box to have my laptop sent in for repair when the advisor and I discussed the laptop's behavior on other networks. I tried using my laptop on two additional wireless networks, at my work and the local library, and in both instances I had no connection problems but the ping latency still existed. Last week the advisor informed me that Apple knows there is an issue with compatibility on some routers. He didnt give me a definitive list of what routers mavericks isnt playing nice with but he mentioned some routers brands from several existing cases with the same issues I was having. My router was an Linksys EA3500 and the another router he mentiond specificly was a D-Link, but i think there was more. After asking me for a bunch of info about my router's configuration, he adiviced me that Apple engineers were working on the issue but he was not sure how long it would take them to find a fix. I asked him if there were any routers that were not having issues and as you would guess he had seen no reported issues with the Apple routers. So I went out and got an Airport Extreme and have not had any droped connection issues since. My ping reponse times still suck, anywhere from 4 to 150 ms, but I have never had any dropout issues. My suggestion is that if you are having issues with your connection I would try it on a few other networks and see if that resolves it. Then either wiat for a fix or bit the bullet and replace your router. 

Rollj83 wrote:

 

he had seen no reported issues with the Apple routers. So I went out and got an Airport Extreme and have not had any droped connection issues since. My ping reponse times still suck, anywhere from 4 to 150 ms, but I have never had any dropout issues.

i went down that road and found the airport extreme to be pretty disappointing. Connection lost every once in a while and the fastest transfers i saw at 15 MB/s.

I had almost given up on it, when i bought the Netgear R6300v2, but this one really works well. I have never had a disconnect or webpage not loading. Transfers are up to 20 MB/s. However, in Mac OS transfer speed will drop every couple of seconds, which got even worse with the beta driver that was posted here.

The issues that i still have are not dramatic, i can now at least use the notebook at home without an ethernet cable (yay!)

@Rollj83: thanks for the info. I can't quite imagine making any further charitable donations to Apple for the time being given the current debacle. A more economically rational alternative might be just to get a cheap USB wifi adapter, which would almost certainly work more effectively than the built-in one. It's unfortunate (not to mention frustrating) that the most expensive wifi-enabled device in my house is by far the worst (indeed, the worst I've ever owned).