Mountain Lion wifi issues - First time Mac owner, serious regrets

woppers

I bought a 15" MacBook Pro 2012. I got the model with the 2.3 Ghz i7. (Not Retina display model)

After paying out A LOT of money for this product I honestly feel like I made a terrible decision.

Since the laptop arrived in my house I have experienced very frustrating wireless connectivity problems. The Macbook Pro keeps dropping connection but any other device in the house still has access. I once lost the connection 15 times in 5 minutes. Even if I restart the router the Mac still cannot connect. I eventually have to restart the Mac in order to reconnect to the wireless internet. Even when I try to restart the Mac, it crashes and gets stuck in a shut-down sequence with a grey screen. Then I have to power it off by holding the power button down.

Everything else in the house works fine. There are 2 iPhone 4, I custom built Windows 7 based pc and a Samsung laptop also running Windows 7. These never drop connection.

The router I have is a Huawei HG556a and my ISP is Vodafone Ireland. I have spent many hours on the phone to Vodafone technical support team and they cannot detect a problem. The conclusion I have came to is it has to be a problem with the Mac or Mountain Lion.

Can anyone shed any light on this problem or suggest a solution to the problem?

I found this "Fix" online and while the connection seems a bit better, its still not a fix.

http://osxdaily.com/2012/08/02/fix-os-x-mountain-lion-wireless-connection-problems/

I reset the smc and the pram but no joy.

I am currently studying and I rely on internet access for most of my course material. Very frustrating

Hootanany

Ring Apple you have 90 days technical support.

woppers

Cheers mate but I only discovered for sure that the Mac was the problem when my 90 day technical support coverage expired

I had spent a lot of time with Vodafone going back and forth, try this try that.

alexlyons

ye get on to apple and just claim statutory rights. They're not to bad if there is an actual issue with the machine, there actually quite good. Just as long as you're not being stupid about it.

Hassle them and they'll help but you don't always need to do that. They're very helpful so long as its not something like

my machine wont turn on, you sold me a heap of junk.
-eh is it plugged in
sorry is it what? it needs power?

you get the picture...

woppers

Thanks Alex,

I hope they are open on Saturday. I'll give them a call and see if they can help me out. I'll report back after I get in touch with Apple.

Thanks for the help guys!

alexlyons

they're open now, up until 8 or 9 I think, and definitely open saturday

mathepac

I had these problems on a 2011 Mac mini and an update from 10.7.3 to 10.7.5 improved the situation vastly. For me going to 10.8.2 appears to have been a retrograde step.

For you there is a supplemental update for 10.8.2 suggested for all 2012 Macs. Run "Software Update... " from under the Apple Menu and see if it helps. The techs will probably suggest it anyway and they are very helpful ...

woppers

alexlyons wrote: »

they're open now, up until 8 or 9 I think, and definitely open saturday

Thanks again but I was driving home from college between 8 and 9 so I didn't have time to ring them. Hopefully I'll get a chance to give them a buzz tomorrow or Saturday

woppers

mathepac wrote: »

I had these problems on a 2011 Mac mini and an update from 10.7.3 to 10.7.5 improved the situation vastly. For me going to 10.8.2 appears to have been a retrograde step.

For you there is a supplemental update for 10.8.2 suggested for all 2012 Macs. Run "Software Update... " from under the Apple Menu and see if it helps. The techs will probably suggest it anyway and they are very helpful ...

Cheers mathepac, I appreciate you sharing your previous experience. I don't understand all the hype with these Macs if they can't get a fairly standard 10 year old feature right on a 4 month old laptop!

I'm up to 10.8.2 at the moment but I still haven't seen an improvement. Hopefully Apple can fix the problem for me!

120_Minutes

Hootanany wrote: »

Ring Apple you have 90 days technical support.

thats for utter "how come i cant right click on this?" simpletons, the problem the op describes would def fall under their 1 applecare year warranty.

mathepac

Apple Ireland's warranty & support info

danger mouse

I don't know whether my issue is related to this. But I have a MacBook Pro retina which I purchased in June that was doing the same thing as yours op. It along with a 27 inch iMac and 3 iPhones where running seamlessly off the one wifi router, until my brother brought a Sony vaio running windows 7 onto the network. Anytime he was using the Sony laptop it would booth the apple osx devices off the network.

I ended up having to change my modem and it was an instant fix.

Liameter

danger mouse wrote: »

I ended up having to change my modem and it was an instant fix.

Good point. "Woppers", do you have this problem with any other router?

whiterebel

danger mouse wrote: »

I don't know whether my issue is related to this. But I have a MacBook Pro retina which I purchased in June that was doing the same thing as yours op. It along with a 27 inch iMac and 3 iPhone where running seamlessly off the one wifi router, until my brother brought a Sony vaio running windows 7 onto the network. Anytime he was using the Sony laptop it would booth the apple osx devices off the network.

I ended up having to change my modem and it was an instant fix.

My wife's Toshiba used to do exactly the same. Everything used to tick along nicely until the Tosh went on the network and kicked the router off. Apparently it as a well known problem with the Toshiba wireless chip and the router chipset. Exiled the Tosh.......:D

BrianDug

I have a new model Air and it drops connection regularly as well!

swingking

change the channel on your wireless router.

Worked for me

mathepac

Resolving Stubborn Wi-Fi Connection Problems in Mac OS X

Posted: 30 Nov 2012 12:23 PM PST

A fair amount of Mac users have encountered long lasting Wi-Fi connection issues, whether it’s a dropping connection, a refusal to reconnect after waking from sleep, or any other number of oddities pertaining to wireless networking. Often these connection problems can be resolved with renewing a DHCP lease and changing the MTU size, but sometimes things are more stubborn and a wireless connection will continue to drop or throw unusual connection errors when waking from sleep. If you find yourself struggling with persistent wifi problems, try deleting all preference plist files associated with wireless settings in OS X:

Fix Stubborn Wi-Fi Problems by Deleting Preference Files

Before beginning, be sure to have the wi-fi password of your primary network handy. You will need it to rejoin the network.

Pull down the Wi-Fi menu and turn Wi-FI OFF

From any Finder window, hit Command+Shift+G to bring up Go To Folder, and enter the following path:
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

Locate the following files, copy them to the desktop for a backup, then delete them from the /SystemConfiguration/ folder:
com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
com.apple.network.identification.plist
NetworkInterfaces.plist
preferences.plist

Empty the Trash and reboot the Mac

Turn Wi-Fi back ON from the Wi-Fi menu, join your preferred network as usual
This process forces OS X to create all new preference files for wireless networking, which can be an effective troubleshooting strategy if the wi-fi problems began after upgrading versions of Mac OS X and even installing incremental system updates.

The wi-fi connection should now work as expected unless there’s a deeper problem, whether it’s a compatibility issue with the router (often resolved by this DHCP and MTU fix), a problem the router itself, or something as simple as network interference (here’s how to check connection strength and interference issues), which can often be resolved by reconfiguring a routers physical arrangement or changing it’s broadcast channel.

Let us know if this worked for you, or if you have any other helpful wifi troubleshooting tips.

woppers

Hi guys!

Thanks for all of the suggestions and sorry for the delay in responding to you all. (I've been flat out in college.) And this is a pretty long post but there is a lot of info in it.

danger mouse wrote: »

I don't know whether my issue is related to this. But I have a MacBook Pro retina which I purchased in June that was doing the same thing as yours op. It along with a 27 inch iMac and 3 iPhones where running seamlessly off the one wifi router, until my brother brought a Sony vaio running windows 7 onto the network. Anytime he was using the Sony laptop it would booth the apple osx devices off the network.

I ended up having to change my modem and it was an instant fix.

Hi danger mouse!(cool handle!)

May I ask what make and model of a router you changed to? I may end up having to change to a new router and if so I would like to change to a router that is tried and tested.

Liameter wrote: »

Good point. "Woppers", do you have this problem with any other router?

Thanks Liameter!

I should have mentioned in my original post, my router is the "Vodafone Home Gateway HG556a". This is the router that I am having all of the connection problems with.

I borrowed my mates "Eircom ZyXEL P-660HW-T1-v3", correctly configured it with the correct vodafone settings and within 5 minutes my connection kept dropping.

This is what made me think that the laptop was the problem.

swingking wrote: »

change the channel on your wireless router.

Worked for me

Thanks swingking but I have tried every channel on the modem and still get the errors.

mathepac wrote: »

Resolving Stubborn Wi-Fi Connection Problems in Mac OS X

Posted: 30 Nov 2012 12:23 PM PST

A fair amount of Mac users have encountered long lasting Wi-Fi connection issues, whether it’s a dropping connection, a refusal to reconnect after waking from sleep, or any other number of oddities pertaining to wireless networking. Often these connection problems can be resolved with renewing a DHCP lease and changing the MTU size, but sometimes things are more stubborn and a wireless connection will continue to drop or throw unusual connection errors when waking from sleep. If you find yourself struggling with persistent wifi problems, try deleting all preference plist files associated with wireless settings in OS X:

Fix Stubborn Wi-Fi Problems by Deleting Preference Files

Before beginning, be sure to have the wi-fi password of your primary network handy. You will need it to rejoin the network.

Pull down the Wi-Fi menu and turn Wi-FI OFF

From any Finder window, hit Command+Shift+G to bring up Go To Folder, and enter the following path:
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

Locate the following files, copy them to the desktop for a backup, then delete them from the /SystemConfiguration/ folder:
com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
com.apple.network.identification.plist
NetworkInterfaces.plist
preferences.plist

Empty the Trash and reboot the Mac

Turn Wi-Fi back ON from the Wi-Fi menu, join your preferred network as usual
This process forces OS X to create all new preference files for wireless networking, which can be an effective troubleshooting strategy if the wi-fi problems began after upgrading versions of Mac OS X and even installing incremental system updates.

The wi-fi connection should now work as expected unless there’s a deeper problem, whether it’s a compatibility issue with the router (often resolved by this DHCP and MTU fix), a problem the router itself, or something as simple as network interference (here’s how to check connection strength and interference issues), which can often be resolved by reconfiguring a routers physical arrangement or changing it’s broadcast channel.

Let us know if this worked for you, or if you have any other helpful wifi troubleshooting tips.

Thanks again mathepac!

I tried something similar to this but I cant remember the exact steps I took. If you read my post below you will see what stage I am at now. If the problem reoccurs I will definitely give this a try.

I just found this post on a forum. Havent tried it but it might help someone else. All credits go to UNIX from this topic: http://osxdaily.com/2012/08/02/fix-os-x-mountain-lion-wireless-connection-problems/

Unix says:
August 10, 2012 at 9:54 am
0. Forget everything above.
1. Start terminal
2. cd Library/LaunchAgents
3. mkdir Back
4. mv *.plist Back
5. cd /Library/LaunchAgents
6. sudo mkdir Back
7. sudo mv *.plist Back
8. cd ../LaunchDaemons
9. sudo mkdir Back
10. sudo mv *.plist Back
11. Restart Computer (TopLeft Corner Apple than Restart)

WiFi should work normaly.

Reply
Paul says:
August 10, 2012 at 9:58 am
Any explanation as to why that may work? You could be moving other necessary LaunchAgents around which could have unintended consequences, it’d be preferable to narrow down the specific plist if possible.

Reply
Unix says:
August 10, 2012 at 10:07 am
Don’t wory, just doit!

Reply
Unix says:
August 10, 2012 at 10:12 am
Just one thing.
NOTHING is REMOVED just MOVED.

OS X will recreate bunch of agents and daemons and put in mentioned folders for you.

As I said: Don’t wory.

Reply
pauli says:
August 22, 2012 at 5:49 am
your mentioned fix also worked for me ! (iMac late 2007).
thanks man !

Reply
George says:
August 11, 2012 at 1:04 pm
UNIX ….. You the man! I have tried all of the other fixes that have been suggested to no avail. This fixed both my MacBook Pro and iMac. 1 Mb download speed before the fix. 22 Mb after the fix. Yes ! Many thanks. Gotta love that Unix OS!

###Latest Update###

I rang Apple customer care and told them my issues with the laptop. And just as I expected, the guy told me that my 90 day phone support had expired and that I could purchase Apple care for €349. I laughed and told him that I wasnt spending another cent on the laptop.

Now, all of this conversation was plesant. I did not get thick with the guy trying to help me.

He then said that if I was not willing to pay €349 I could pay a one time help service for €49. I said, I dont think you understand me. I have paid €1700 for a laptop that doesnt work and i am entitled to have the problem fixed. I am a student, I spent all my money on the laptop and I'm broke and christmas is coming so I cant afford Apple care.

Then he offered it to me for €244!!! I said no, and that I wanted to speak to someone who could help me without me having to buy Apple care. He then said that it is against company policy to offer support outside of the 90 day phone support BUT if I was inside the 90 day support he would suggest a,b,c,d, ect.

Which was decent of him but everythig he suggested I had already tried myself. (thank god I didnt pay €349 for that information)

Anyhow, the macbook ended up having to go into the shop for repairs. The guys in the shop could not replicate the problem I was having so they replaced the Airport card.

I have had it back for only 2 days now and the connection has only dropped once. Thats not bad so far because previously I would lose connection 6-10 times an hour.

I will report back at a later date to let everyone know how things are going. Maybe my experience will help someone else out sometime.

Thanks for all the help guys!

Sad Professor

The difficulty you had with Apple support was due to the fact that they were treating your problem as a technical support issue. In cases like this you would need to be very clear that you've done all the troubleshooting and your machine has a faulty wifi card and you want it repaired under warranty. Otherwise they'll just assume (correctly in a lot of instances) that you are inexperienced with computers and need help troubleshooting what might just be an issue with your wifi settings, which of course they won't do outside of the 90 days telephone support.

woppers

Sad Professor wrote: »

The difficulty you had with Apple support was due to the fact that they were treating your problem as a technical support issue. In cases like this you would need to be very clear that you've done all the troubleshooting and your machine has a faulty wifi card and you want it repaired under warranty. Otherwise they'll just assume (correctly in a lot of instances) that you are inexperienced with computers and need help troubleshooting what might just be an issue with your wifi settings, which of course they won't do outside of the 90 days telephone support.

Thanks for the heads up on that mate! I didn't realise that!

whiterebel

It used to be the case that they would refund the Tech support charge if it was found to be a hardware issue under warranty.

woppers

whiterebel wrote: »

It used to be the case that they would refund the Tech support charge if it was found to be a hardware issue under warranty.

Maybe when I have some money after christmas I might buy the Apple care for €244. Do you think that it is worth the money for an extra 2 years hardware warranty?

whiterebel

woppers wrote: »

Maybe when I have some money after christmas I might buy the Apple care for €244. Do you think that it is worth the money for an extra 2 years hardware warranty?

I used to get APP to minimize delays if it needed fixing, but I have an iPad as back up now, so I would bring them to the SCC if I needed to.

woppers

Well, I have had the macbook back now for 10 days and my heart is broke. Theres a new wireless card in it and the dropped connection issue keeps on happing. Can anyone recommend a good modem router because that is the next step I will have to take.

kippy

woppers wrote: »

Well, I have had the macbook back now for 10 days and my heart is broke. Theres a new wireless card in it and the dropped connection issue keeps on happing. Can anyone recommend a good modem router because that is the next step I will have to take.

You already swapped the router, didn't you?

1. You could check if there is a firmware update available for your existing router?
2. Switch off ALL security on your wireless router (or set up a second "open" network.) see if the laptop stays connected to this (this would rule out an issue with encryption types. I have seen cases where certain devices didn't "like" a certain type of encryption.
3.Have you tried connecting the laptop via a wire to your router? What happens?
4. Is your laptop able to connect to other wireless networks (have you issues in college etc etc)

woppers

kippy wrote: »

You already swapped the router, didn't you?

1. You could check if there is a firmware update available for your existing router?
2. Switch off ALL security on your wireless router (or set up a second "open" network.) see if the laptop stays connected to this (this would rule out an issue with encryption types. I have seen cases where certain devices didn't "like" a certain type of encryption.
3.Have you tried connecting the laptop via a wire to your router? What happens?
4. Is your laptop able to connect to other wireless networks (have you issues in college etc etc)

Hi kippy!,

Yes, I have tried a different router.

1. I have updated both the router firmware and the macbook to the latest update.
2. I have tried it without any encryption and it still drops connection.
3. When I connect to the router via an ethernet cable the internet connection works flawlessly!
4. When I am in college I lose connection sometimes but it is nowhere near as frequent as when I am at home. In college I might lose it once a day at most but there are days when I never lose connection. At home I loose connection at least times an hour but it could be as high as 20-30 times an hour. Or those 20-30 times could be within seconds of each other.

Its driving me mad really!

My latest attempt at a fix is, I logged into the router and I reserved an IP address for the Macbook based on the MAC address of the wifi card.

If that fails I am going to have to look into buying a new modem router. Yhanks for the suggestions kippy! I'll post back the results of reserving the IP address at the end of the day because I should know within the day how it is going to go.

K.O.Kiki

1. How far from the router are you?
2. How many walls (approx)?
3. What are the walls made of?

Sounds like you just have a crappy wifi router.
I had a similar issue with dropped connections, which I solved by buying an Airport Extreme & placing it as close to the center of the house as I could.

woppers

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

1. How far from the router are you?
2. How many walls (approx)?
3. What are the walls made of?

Sounds like you just have a crappy wifi router.
I had a similar issue with dropped connections, which I solved by buying an Airport Extreme & placing it as close to the center of the house as I could.

Hi K.O.Kiki,

1. I would vary in distance from 6ft to 15ft.
2. 1 wall in either direction.
3. Old stone walls in old part of house and blocks in new part.

The signal on the laptop would be registering as full so I dont think distance is an issue.

I think you've hit the nail on the head with the "crappy wifi router". Thats the conclusion that I have came to as well. I am using the standard vodafone router. The funny thing is, I got the exact same problem with an Eircom router! Strange!

Would you recommend the Airport Extreme? I have been reading that the configuration options are lacking? How do you find it? Also, am I right in saying that I need to keep my existing router to supply the internet connection?

Can anyone else suggest a quality modem router to replace my vodafone router? I dont mind spending a few euro on it if it means fixing the connection issues.

airuser

Woppers

Not sure where you are living. Dublin,Cork and Limerick have a Compu B stores and the folks are excellent. They may be able to help.

woppers

airuser wrote: »

Woppers

Not sure where you are living. Dublin,Cork and Limerick have a Compu B stores and the folks are excellent. They may be able to help.

Thanks mate,

I already had it in Compu B. They changed the wireless card in it but its still giving the same problems. I was talking to them and they told me to do a complete reinstall.

I will do it on the wknd but I know its not going to fix the problem.

airuser

woppers wrote: »

Thanks mate,

I already had it in Compu B. They changed the wireless card in it but its still giving the same problems. I was talking to them and they told me to do a complete reinstall.

I will do it on the wknd but I know its not going to fix the problem.

Wish you luck. If the problem still exists and it is the mac is at fault. There you have rights under Law. It is with the company you bought the Mac from and not Apple.