Why does my MacBook Air keep dropping Wifi?

We need to ask you a few questions if you don't mind to help us narrow down what the issue may be.

• Has this always occurred or just started happening to the MacBook Air (MBA)?
• If the latter, did you do any software or firmware upgrades on the MBA?
• Is the problem only with one particular Wi-Fi network or any network you connect the MBA to?
• Since it appears to be localized to the MBA, what have you done, so far, to try to resolve it?

That's certainly an odd one.

Let's take a bit of a look behind the scenes on what happens after you enter a URL (aka, www.somewhere.com) in a web browser and click on go:

• Your MBA needs to know the IP address of the web server that has that URL so it first makes a request to DNS server. Think of DNS as the Internet's version of the phone book which correlates URL with IP addresses and vice versa.
• Most likely, that DNS server is being provided by your ISP. If all goes well, your computer will get the IP address for the web site.
• With having that address, your MBA will attempt to create a TCP connection to the website.
• Once that is created successfully, your MBA will use the HTTP protocol to communicate with the web server on the other side of that connection.
• When your MBA is done with the website, it will issue a message to the web server and the web server will gracefully start a TCP connection disconnect. This type of disconnect normally does not disconnect your device from Internet access, just the connection used to communicate with the web server.
• When you click on a link on a web page, that process will most likely start all over again depending on where the next web page is located.

As you can see there are a number of areas that can possibly go wrong.

Since the issue is limited to your MBA, and that, you have already attempted to resolve it by working with the plist files as per the OSXDaily link, the other thing I would like for you to try is to create a new user account. Then log out of your current account, and log in with this new account. Does the issue go away?

So I set up a new user on MBA. Still got the internet dropping when navigating within sites.

Ok, thanks for giving that a try. This would be telling us that the issue was not user profile dependent, but is still something amiss with your MBA.

When you ran through the steps in the OSXDaily article they had you remove system level networking preferences files that would affect all users ... but I just wanted to be sure that there wasn't any gremlins in your user account by creating a new user.

RSSI: -52 dBm

Noise: -92 dBm

Tx Rate: 130 mpbs

PHY Mode: 802.11n

MCS Index: 15

These numbers represent the instantaneous network values that your MBA "sees" for the Wi-Fi connection to your Extreme. The first and second values, respectively, represent the strength of the signal and of the noise. The farther apart these two values the better the overall signal quality. This is called Signal-to-Noise Ratio or SNR. Plugging in your numbers: -52 - (-92) = 40 dB ... a pretty decent value. The other values would be pretty much what you would expect connecting to the 2.4 GHz band. However, I would have expected that your MBA would have connected to the 5 GHz band at that range. This may be a different matter all together and not directly correlated with your MBA losing Internet connectivity between web pages.

So, let's get back to that, shall we?

I want to make sure I understand what you mean by "dropping Wifi." Which of the following statements is true to the best of your knowledge:

1. When I click on a link on a web page or enter a new address in the web browser, I get an error message the the Internet connection is lost?
2. Doing either of the same, my MBA not only loses Internet connectivity, but it loses its connection to the Extreme's Wi-Fi network altogether.
3. I can regain connectivity to either by cycling the AirPort on/off from the menu bar.
4. Just cycling the AirPort is not sufficient, I also have to restart my MBA.

I don't have a MacBook Air here to test, but we'll know a whole lot more about the quality of your wireless connection with the wireless router.......if you can.....

Hold down the option key on your MacBook Air while you click on the WiFi menu at the top of the Mac's screen, and then post back with the exact values that you see for:

Channel

RSSI

Noise

Tx Rate

PHY Mode

MCS Index

Thanks. Unfortunately, the numbers indicate an OK connection, but not a really good connection.

Can you move the MacBook Air to a point where it is 10-12 feet (3-4 meters) from the wireless router and it also has line-of-sight with the wireless router and then run the exact same checks again?

No, sorry that I wasn't clear about that. I am asking you to create a new user account on your MBA. There should not be a need to make any changes to the base station.

My goal is to see if this issue is directly related to your current user account profile ... and this would be a simple test to find out. If the issue remains, when logged on with this new account, then the user account is NOT the issue and you can safely delete this new account ... or keep it for troubleshooting purposes later.

However, if the issue disappears with the new account, there may be something amiss your your current account's network settings or something else.

Hmmm....doesn't look like to much a difference, does it?

You are kidding, correct?

The numbers that you just posted are far worse than the original numbers that you posted. Are you sure that the Mac was really connected to the downstairs AirPort router?......and not still connected to the upstairs AirPort?

For now......in order to avoid confusion.....please follow the instructions from Tesserax.

If the MacBook Air was "upstairs" and you moved it "downstairs", near another Apple router.......then you would need to temporarily turn off the WiFi once the Mac was downstairs, then turn the WiFi back on again.

Assuming that the WiFi is working on the MacBook Air, it will then connect to the router with the strongest signal.....which would be the downstairs AirPort router.

Then, when you move the MacBook Air upstairs again, and you want it to connect to the upstairs AirPort, you would need to do the same thing......temporarily turn off the WiFi on the Mac, wait a few seconds, then turn the WiFi back on so the Mac will look for the strongest signal.

Even if you create a new user account.....as Tesserax suggests.....you will still likely need to temporarily turn off the WiFi when you move the Mac from one area to another.....to insure that it will pick up the signal from the closest AirPort.

I think you meant to respond to Tesserax regarding the new user account. Please wait for his response.

Nothing wrong at all with the wireless signal now from the AirPort router, since the Mac is picking up the signal from the closest AirPort.