Wifi issues MacBook Pro

hoodwinked

Hi all

I have been having wifi issues since last week with my MacBook pro and I cannot resolve them.


I have boot camp on my mac (with stuff in in the windows partition I really don't want to lose if possible)

But in my mac partition the wifi will not work, it just one day last week lost my home connection when I got home from college and turned it on.

Since then
Sometimes I get no ip address
Sometimes I get DNs errors
sometimes I have to enter the wpa2 password 3 times before it connects
Sometimes I have to run diagnostics twice to get it to connect
When it does connect sometimes it takes pages forever to load and I can jump between timeouts and getting the page I want.


This happens At two seperate locations, 1 with wpa2 personal, 1 with wpa2 enterprise and a guest (open) network, it connected to the guest network without issues.

Also every other device on the wpa2 network works perfectly fine.

I tried upgrading to lion to see if that would fix it after googling and going through apple support forums, I rang AppleCare but they were more then Useless telling me to do things I already tried such as repairing the disk in the recovery partition, this also tells me there are no issues with the partition. But AppleCare tell me it's definitely a software issue.


Does anybody here have some ideas?

stevie_b

Did you update anything last week when the issue started? There are wifi issues with Lion (have a look on google). My connection cuts out all the time, and i have to turn wifi off and then on again - very annoying.

hoodwinked

No, I never installed any updates I literally came home from college as usual opened my MacBook like I always do and suddenly had these issues!

I only upgraded to lion days later in an attempt to fix it!

Sad Professor

Did you try deleting the network connection and re-creating it in System Preferences > Network?

What kind of router are you using?

Is there any leftover settings from your college network that might be causing problems? Like proxy settings, etc?

hoodwinked

Sad Professor wrote: »

Did you try deleting the network connection and re-creating it in System Preferences > Network?

Yes I saw that fix somewhere and tried it no luck.

Sad Professor wrote: »

What kind of router are you using?

Eircoms silver Netopia but no settings were changed since I last used it successfully.

Sad Professor wrote: »

Is there any leftover settings from your college network that might be causing problems? Like proxy settings, etc?

I thought that too so I cleared everything out and just entered my home one!


I am at a loss I'm currently restoring to a time machine back up created before the problem existed,

Sad Professor

Good idea. Let us know how you get on.

hoodwinked

Didn't work I'm now trying to reinstall osx on the mac partition if that fails I don't know what else to do!

dubred

stevie_b wrote: »

Did you update anything last week when the issue started? There are wifi issues with Lion (have a look on google). My connection cuts out all the time, and i have to turn wifi off and then on again - very annoying.

Not sure if this is the same issue the OP is having, but a fix was released for your issue on Friday evening. I had the same problem, and my iMac has not dropped wifi at all since applying the update. (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1501)

hoodwinked

dubred wrote: »

Not sure if this is the same issue the OP is having, but a fix was released for your issue on Friday evening. I had the same problem, and my iMac has not dropped wifi at all since applying the update. (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1501)

That's all well and good but I have a MacBook pro. Unfortuntly I tried searching for an update again last night and there were none!

muggyog

Can the MBP connect to your college network?


just reviewed your post
Is it still connecting to the guest network without issues and if so what kind of guest authentication?

hoodwinked

it could only connect to the guest network which is open with no security!

i really dont know if it just happened to work that time but it worked without the slow loading or internet issues, where on the WPA2 enterprise network it kept asking for login passwords and slowly loading pages the same as at home.


i have re-installed snow leopard lost everything and bookmarks...etc

im in the process of installing updates at the moment so far so good it seems to have fixed it, i loaded this page almost seconds after clicking it, much better then the two minutes it took this morning to load half a page.

muggyog

If the wireless works somewhere then it is an authentication problem.

If you do a clean install I suspect your problem will go away.


sorry, you've done that!

barrymcloughlin

I've had issues with my MBP on WPA networks too. (Mid 2009 model with Snow Leopard.) No idea what the problem was and never got to investigate further as I use WEP at home, which never causes an issue. Interested to see if you find a solution that lasts.

hoodwinked

Spoke too soon problems back!

unnamed

What generation Macbook pro do you have?

I had similar problems with a first gen macbook pro, the problem only happened with certain routers, and didn't happen in bootcamp.

For me it turned out that the router in question said that it could deal with large MTUs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_transmission_unit) but it couldn't, so when the Mac sent large MTU's everything failed.

I took the easy option and bought an apple extreme and the problem went away.

You could also try this : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2532 start at around 1500 and see if it helps.

unnamed

You could also check if your router allows you to set the MTU.

hoodwinked

unnamed wrote: »

What generation Macbook pro do you have?

I had similar problems with a first gen macbook pro, the problem only happened with certain routers, and didn't happen in bootcamp.

For me it turned out that the router in question said that it could deal with large MTUs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_transmission_unit) but it couldn't, so when the Mac sent large MTU's everything failed.

I took the easy option and bought an apple extreme and the problem went away.

You could also try this : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2532 start at around 1500 and see if it helps.

hi all,

thank you for your posts i tried them all and its still not working,(well its working intermittently) im now debating if i should resort to buying airport extreme to see if that will fix this,

its beyond annoying to spend this much money on something thats meant to last only to have it break just after the 1 year warrenty is up!

Janedoe10

There has been an updated article posted on apples site

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4628

Good luck

unnamed

Have to tried to change the channel the router operates on? It could be another wireless devices (cordless phone, video sender etc) that's causing the problem. If you are in an apartment it might be one of your neighbours.

Maybe KisMAC might reveal something ... http://trac.kismac-ng.org/

If your Mac and Wifi Router support 5GHz, try that.

Lastly (but very unlikey) make sure your Microwave isn't leaking, microwaves work on similar wavelenghts to Wifi. To check, put your mobile phone in the microwave and close the door, the signal strength should go to zero (it might take a minute) ... to be sure try to call the phone. If this is the problem, don't use the Microwave again.

muggyog

DONT TURN ON THE MICROWAVE!!

unnamed

muggyog wrote: »

DONT TURN ON THE MICROWAVE!!

Opps, I probably should have me mentioned that.

But I did laugh when I saw the post.

hoodwinked

unnamed wrote: »

Opps, I probably should have me mentioned that.

But I did laugh when I saw the post.

I laughed too,

I ruled out interference/leaky microwaves by the fact it happens on campas also!

I went through apples 'support' page but they still don't tell you want to do if it's not working they only seem to tell you what it should be doing which is fairly useless!

muggyog

Still think this an authentication problem. Have you tried creating a new test user account and trying to connect with that?

unnamed

muggyog wrote: »

Still think this an authentication problem. Have you tried creating a new test user account and trying to connect with that?

Is the problem happening on an open network, without security? I thought it was from your original post. If not, muggyog is probably right.

Also, it could be a hardware problem, I remember reading this when I had my problems:
http://www.syzdekistan.com/2008/10/06/macbook-pro-wireless-problems-solved-update-2/

hoodwinked

muggyog wrote: »

Still think this an authentication problem. Have you tried creating a new test user account and trying to connect with that?

unnamed wrote: »

Is the problem happening on an open network, without security? I thought it was from your original post. If not, muggyog is probably right.

Also, it could be a hardware problem, I remember reading this when I had my problems:
http://www.syzdekistan.com/2008/10/06/macbook-pro-wireless-problems-solved-update-2/

I have reached the conclusion it's a hardware fault but apple are refusing to fix it as it is over 1 year old!

Thanks everybody.

Sad Professor

Just to confirm because it's not really clear, but is this problem happening on other networks? If so, what ones have you tried it on?

Also, when you did a clean install, did you restore from a backup afterwards?

I doubt this is a hardware problem btw.

hoodwinked

Sad Professor wrote: »

Just to confirm because it's not really clear, but is this problem happening on other networks? If so, what ones have you tried it on?

Also, when you did a clean install, did you restore from a backup afterwards?

I doubt this is a hardware problem btw.

Yes this problem is happening on other networks,

It happens at home,
Using personal hotspot on my iPhone,
Using both wpa2 enterprise protected and on guest (open)networks, in college.

When I did the clean install before I restored any data I tried going online and got the same issues, after again trying all the quick fixes I then restored from a back up no luck with either.

Can't remember if I mentioned but I get the same problem in my windows partition, it tells me to restart the router but that doesn't fix it. The other message i got was 'troubleshooter cannot fix this problem.'

Janedoe10

I don't know why u came on about this since u have already decided its HW .

By the sounds of it it works in windows so then it's a sw configuration setting in OSX only .
There was a sw/firmware update brought for iMacs in lion so it may be that u have a similar sw issue with wireless .. Then again it could be the sw/ firmware conflict between your router and lion ..

U have a iphone so u could test the airport card by plugging router direct to the mac.. Create ad hoc or computer network . See if iphone stays connected .

hoodwinked

Janedoe10 wrote: »

I don't know why u came on about this since u have already decided its HW .

By the sounds of it it works in windows so then it's a sw configuration setting in OSX only .
There was a sw/firmware update brought for iMacs in lion so it may be that u have a similar sw issue with wireless .. Then again it could be the sw/ firmware conflict between your router and lion ..

U have a iphone so u could test the airport card by plugging router direct to the mac.. Create ad hoc or computer network . See if iphone stays connected .

It didn't work in windows some of the time either, when I plugged in the router direct to the mac the Internet worked fine,

Anyway for those who may look at this with similar issues I brought it into compu b in Cork and they tested it. They found a fault with the airport card and have ordered a replacement and I should have it fixed by Friday!