macbook air loses wifi connection intermittently

Question

macbook air loses wifi connection intermittently

macbook air loses wifi connection at home all of a sudden. It goes on and off...

All other computers work fine....I've tried several recommendations I found online, but nothing works..please help!

Says looking for networks and I click and it works for 4 seconds....

I tried what I pasted below, but it didn't work either....

Thanks for any help...

Below did not work for me....

In Settings>Network>

Click on Gear Wheel beside +- at bottom of list of network services, select "Set Service Order" and check that WiFi is at the top of the list.

Click on Advanced and select DNS tab. Click on + at bottom of DNS Servers List and enter 8.8.8.8

In WiFi tab check that your preferred network is at the top of the list.

Apply any changes that have been made and switch off.

Reset SMC and NVRAM/PRAM

Check that there are no channel conflicts with other wifi networks.

See the answer in context

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Mar 3, 2015 5:52 PM

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Answer 1

J Soren

Level 1

120 points

Mar 3, 2015 8:22 PM in response to jameshasaquestion

Have you tested to see if it will maintain a connection to another Wifi access point, like at friend's house? The poster in that thread you cited said that the problem went away when they opened up network diagnostics. That's not a fix, but I'd be interested to see if that makes a difference.

Do you have a dual band router, by chance (2.4 and 5 GHz?) If so, make sure your MBA is connecting to the 2.4 GHz channel. Issues seem to be more common with 5 GHz connections, for what ever reason.

I wouldn't use Google's DNS server (8.8.8.8) unless you have some major issue with the one your ISP provides. Since all your other devices hold the wireless connection without problems, I'd be surprised if DNS was the cause.

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Answer 2

Mar 4, 2015 2:40 AM in response to J Soren

Thanks for your reply. We have an old AirPort Extreme. I have some info. below.

I'll see if I can get my wife to try other wifi connections, but I'm pretty sure the problem still exists.

The strange thing is that it was working perfectly up until a couple of weeks ago.

The airport extreme utility we each have on our computers doesn't work with this router, which doesn't please me..

Perhaps we should upgrade?

When I run disk utility it has wrong permissions that never fix themselves, which I've never seen before, but I guess that's another issue.

We'll check to see if we can connect to something else today.

AirPort Extreme (0x168C, 0x9A

Firmware: Atheros 9380: 4.0.74.0-P2P

PHY Mode: 802.11g

WPA2 Personal

Channel: 1

Transmit Rate: 54

Network Type: Infrastructure

Card Type: AirPort Ext

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Answer 3

J Soren

Level 1

120 points

Mar 4, 2015 11:29 PM in response to jameshasaquestion

You want to test your MBA with another wireless AP to try and determine whether the problem has to do with the machine or the AP. If you have a Wifi tether on your phone, you could use this to check. Since all your other devices work fine, the issue probably isn't with the router. You could reset your airport extreme Resetting an AirPort base station FAQ - Apple Support just in case some weird setting is cached.

This thread has a lot of useful suggestions. The issue with your disk permissions might have something to do with the problem. Cocktail is a good free app that can reset/clean up permissions, among other things.

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