Bizarre Wifi Problem

Breezer

Yesterday evening, I suddenly started experiencing a really weird wifi problem on my MacBook. Everything was working perfectly, as it has for 3 years. I restarted to boot into Bootcamp, and Windows reported that there were no wireless networks in range. I reckoned this was a "Windows needs a restart" issue, and since I didn't really need internet there and then I ignored it.

When I booted back into OS X the problems really started. Now, Airport detects my network, but when I select it, it tells me that a WPA password is required to join (which is true, but it never asked me for it before once it was set). The password is already inputted by default (I've also tried retyping it), so I click Connect and then I get a "Connection timeout."

The funny thing is, this doesn't happen every time. Sometimes when I wake the MacBook from sleep, it connects just fine, with full signal, and the internet works grand. But within a minute or two it will start to lose signal and then drop the connection.

If I move my MacBook right beside the router, none of this happens, and everything works flawlessly. However, if I move it to another part of the house, the signal starts dropping and eventually the connection drops.

Now, the really weird thing: this isn't happening to my Mac Mini, located about 3 foot from where the problem first occurred with the MacBook. Nor is it happening with my wifi-enabled mobile phone (which actually reports 100% signal strength right beside the MacBook).

I haven't installed anything, updated anything, dropped the MacBook, moved the router, or in short done anything to cause this.

I'm stumped. Any ideas?

banquo

That is weird. Macbook for 5 years, nothing like that ever happened (something like it as happened twice on a Vista machine, FFS) so I was surprised to read this.

If you plan on upgrading to SL then that would probably fix the problem, unless it's a hardware issue. This is just why Ireland needs a Genius Bar.

Breezer

My copy of Snow Leopard is on its way, but I'm not holding out much hope that that'll fix it. It was working fine up until yesterday, then it seemed to go pear shaped for absolutely no reason.

OK, I've pretty much outruled that the router is at fault, since the exact same issue occurs when sharing my mobile's 3G connection over wifi using JoikuSpot. The MacBook can detect it when it's right beside the phone and it then works perfectly. Move a few metres away and no joy.

I might try opening it up and reconnecting the antenna cables to the airport card.

J-blk

Not really helpful to you, but oddly enough, my unibody Macbook's WiFi was going absolutely bananas yesterday evening as well: couldn't connect at all to my Windows server or any other shares, time outs on loading web pages, crawling to do anything on the network, etc. About 4 reboots later and fiddling with every setting I could think of, it just seemed to sort itself out?

whippet

I got the same problems about 12 months ago with my iMac. all of a sudden irratic wifi connection and then eventually none.

It would detect the home network, try to connect and i'd get a 'connection timeout' when it was looking to verify the password. My iphone and HP notebook worked fine.

I changed the Netgear router to a Linksys and the same problem was there.

If I disabled the security on the router there was no problem connecting.

I updated the software on everthing .. made no difference, reset everything no difference .....

went and bought an airport express base station (i wanted airtunes) and haven't had a problem since !!!

Breezer

Thanks whippet. There's absolutely no way I'm going to go spend my money on extra equipment when the products I have should work properly though.

I have it hooked up to the Mac Mini with an ethernet cable as a workaround for now anyway. I'll open it up and reattach the antennas when I'm less busy. Hopefully that'll sort it.

Sad Professor

It doesn't happen when you are running on battery by any chance, does it? 10.5.8 caused this issue on certain Macbooks.

Apple posted a fix here. Not sure if your Macbook is one of the affected though.

Greentree_uk

do you have other wireless networks in the area? cordless phones or other wireless devices. these could be causing your problem.

Breezer

Sad Professor wrote: »

It doesn't happen when you are running on battery by any chance, does it? 10.5.8 caused this issue on certain Macbooks.

Apple posted a fix here. Not sure if your Macbook is one of the affected though.

Nah, battery and AC power. And my MacBook is the original 1,1 model, so I can't install that apparently. Thanks though.

Greentree_uk wrote: »

do you have other wireless networks in the area? cordless phones or other wireless devices. these could be causing your problem.

Just other stuff hooked up to my router, and neighbours' routers. But there doesn't appear to have been any new networks added last night. I've tried changing the channel the router broadcasts on anyway, and it makes no difference.

Interestingly, if I set the wireless encryption to WEP rather than WPA, I can manage to pick up a very faint signal from my desk. Still though, I can't figure out why this has suddenly happened. It was picking up full signal last night, and all my other wireless devices are fine.

thund3rbird_

I had the same problem last night - both on battery & ac

macbook was connected to a couple of different wifi networks during the day (away from home)

when I got home it connected at first, then got really slow loading pages.
rebooted & only getting 169 IP the whole time

reboot router - same
airport on/off - same

have a spare router - tried that with a different SSID - still getting 169

then I thought about checking my iPhone
it was connecting no prob to both routers via wifi

downloaded the update above but no difference

ended up using a long rj45 across the floor for the night

when i got up today & turned on the macbook the wifi just worked again

Sad Professor

Could it be IP related? Like perhaps the Mac is connecting using DHCP.

Greentree_uk

try removing your any wireless network from your preferred network list in your system prefs. also try removing any keychain passwords stored for it.

Économiste Monétaire

I just had a new MacBook Pro delivered yesterday, and I've had this problem crop up twice; the sudden drop in connection happened after I had the thing in sleep and, again, when I was looking through an on-line database. When I tried to reconnect, it asked again for the password, but then it just said 'connection timeout'. Airport couldn't find any networks for a while.

I turned Airport off for a few minutes and everything was fine when I turned it back on. Bit weird, really . I chalked it up to being a PC guy, clueless of Macs, and something I pushed accidentally.

Breezer

Thanks for all the help guys. I replaced the airport card today and everything's hunky dory now