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Flaky WiFi After Last Big OS X Update?

By Todd Ogasawara
March 11, 2008 | Comments: 4

The WiFi connection of both my Intel Macs (Macbook and iMac) each tested against two different WiFi Access Points (different brands) seems to have gotten very flaky after the last big OS X update a couple of weeks ago. The screen capture here illustrates the typical problem: Packets are being lost on a regular basis. Other non-Mac devices including my iPod touch and Windows Mobile Pocket PC connect just fine to the same two WiFi APs. I had hoped that today's Airport Base Station update might have some hidden fix for the Mac's WiFi too. But, that does not seem to be the case. Anyone else noticing lots of dropped backs or just flaky WiFi over the last two weeks or so.

4 Comments

Christina said:

I'm on a new iMac and the connection through my Airport Extreme keeps "scanning" or dropping so I can't even keep a connection. I also can't get my email to check anymore.

Has anyone figured out a fix for this?

June 10, 2008 2:11 PM

Matt said:

I'm having this problem as well with my Mac Pro. Every once in a while I'll notice a download has stopped or I'm suddenly disconnected from iChat and then see the wifi status indicator on the upper right greyed out. I click on it and the menu drops down and shows it "scanning" and it quickly finds the network again. (This is with an Airport Extreme Base Station) Everything had been fine right up until 10.5.2 and unfortunately there's no easy way to go back to 10.5.1.

People have said they've had success with switching from 802.11 (n only) @ 5GHz to 802.11n (n & a compatible) at 2.4GHz, but this hasn't worked for me.

Really *really* frustrating. I hope we get a fix soon :[

March 15, 2008 2:45 PM

Ryan said:

I'm having the same problem with both my imac and macbook pro, this has been on going and tech support can't seem to help. I've changed to WEP and still have the problem... also I've changed my router channel, I even bought a new router just in case. They suggested a clean install would fix the problem but still no!!!

very annoying and my macbook pro seems to be getting even more buggy by the day.

March 12, 2008 7:58 AM

Brendon said:

It's a widely known issue. Search Apple's forums with "leopard wifi" and you'll find thousands of people with the same problem. It does seem restricted to WPA connections so if you have control of the AP and you trust your neighbors, then you might want to try running open. And yes, it's appalling.

Brendon.

March 12, 2008 5:14 AM