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Fix for Wireless Connection Problems on MacBook Pro
Warning: This is a semi-technical posting for Mac-heads with network connection problems. If you aren’t experiencing this particular problem, you probably won’t find this post too interesting. On the other hand, if you have this problem, you may well regard this information as a God-send.
I thought I was losing my mind. About a week ago, my wireless network connection started flaking out. I would be connected for about two minutes. Then the connection would suddenly drop out. All the while the signal strength would appear to fluctuate wildly.
The most disconcerting thing was that all the other computers in my house were working fine. So, that pretty much ruled out a problem with the modem or the router (an Airport Base Station). Nevertheless, I tried changing a few settings on the router and managed to completely trash the system. Argh!
I finally got it to work for a few minutes and posted a request for help in Apple’s Internet, Networking the MacBook Pro Support Forum. I promptly headed for the gym to chill out.
After an hour’s hard run, I came back to the forum and found that a guy named Brody had posted a reply. He directed me to a FAQ he had put together specifically for MacBook Pro connection problems. I highly recommend it. I had already tried most of his suggestions, but #12 completely healed my system. I have been up and running with zero problems for the past two hours.
Here’s what I did:
In the drop-down Show field, I selected Network Port Configurations. I then clicked on the Airport entry and drug it to the top, so that it was the first entry in the list. It looked like this:
I then clicked on Apply Now and shut down my computer.
Next I re-started my computer and zapped the PRAM. This sounds more dangerous than it really is. You simply hold down the Command (⌘), Option, P, and R keys simultaneously immediately after re-starting the system. You must do this before the gray screen appears. Don’t let go of the keys until you hear the startup sound for the second time.
That’s all there is to it. Evidently, something got corrupted in my PRAM. Clearing it fixed the problem. Kind of like a reboot.
Don’t worry if you don’t understand what PRAM is. I still don’t. All I know is that my system is fixed, and I am happily surfing away.
Technorati Tags: connection problems, mac, macbook pro, wintel, wireless
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Colleen Coble says:
A Mac head! I always knew I liked you, Mike. I just got my first Mac last September, a MacBook, and I'm sooo in love with it. I'm never going back.
I'm going to bookmark this in case I ever have a problem with my, um, PRAM. LOL
Friday, April 27, 2007 at 09:49 PM
Sean Harling says:
Hi Michael,
I'm happy that I came across your article on the Macbook Pro. I've been having the same connection issues since the summer time and it is maddening!! I've had my airport card replaced and it is still doing it. If I restart the computer, when it comes back, it will lose the connection (including the icon) completely. I have to shut down the computer and then restart it to regain my connection. I've just tried your solution (and boy was I happy to find it). It seemed to work for a few seconds and now Safari will hang as it's trying to open a new page as the connection icon is fluctuating. I'm only 4 feet away from my Airport Extreme. I've spoken with Apple (prior to finding your article) and they state that their engineering dept is aware of it and they are trying to figure it out. Their suggestion is to hang tight until an update is created.
Have you had any other readers post comments with some tech support on this issue?
Other than that I love the laptop. But this is definitely a frustrating issue!!
Wednesday, October 24, 2007 at 10:51 PM
da.master says:
Hi, I have the same problem with Airport and I tried to replace the AirPort icon onto the first place and then I tried the think with PRAM and you know what. IT DOESNT WORK!!!! My high-end notebook wifi sucks. I dont know what to do.
Monday, December 24, 2007 at 07:32 PM
Jukka says:
This behaviour can be caused also by a corrupted entry in the keychain for the WEP or WPA passwords.
Delete keychain entry, reboot and re-enter can solve this also.
Monday, January 14, 2008 at 03:37 PM
Sandra Waechter says:
IM STILL HAVING THE ISSUE DAMNIT! It drops every 30 seconds or less. Im going f***ing NUTS!
Monday, February 11, 2008 at 12:30 AM
JP says:
Hi everyone, my Macbook pro that I also love so much, it is far superior to my "Windows systems"I am going off topic, anyhow I am a computer engineer and I also was getting frustrated and going out of my mind with my wifi dropping every 30 to 60 seconds, I reverted to what I learned in networking throughout my education, and I simply turned off IPV6 in my network settings, and VOILA, I have not dropped since, and I go from network to network.
To disable IPV6, go to you airport settings,Open Network settings,Advanced,TCP/IP, and there you can simply disable IPV6, this is a quick fix that allows you to stay connected without getting booted, without having to modify anything,and if an update does finally become available, you have nothing to try to figure out, just install it.
Lets keep in mind, the things that frustrate us, are most time the greatest pass times, a simple flaw in wireless is still better than the flaw Vista as been raised to become.
Saturday, April 12, 2008 at 09:35 PM
jdragon says:
arg! nothing seems to fix this same issue that I'm also experiencing!!! FIX IT APPLE!!!
Tuesday, May 06, 2008 at 12:45 AM
Steve B says:
Argh! This is really frustrating. I just made the switch from windows to MAC...for many reasons but so far I have been nothing but frustrated! The ability to connect consistently, wirelessly to the internet is extremely important. I hope Apple fixes this but so far I'm dissapointed. :(
Saturday, May 17, 2008 at 03:37 PM
Dave Donohue says:
I've struggled with a spotty WiFi connection on my MBP for almost two years now - and #12 on that list fixed things. Never knew what zapping PRAM was before.
Thanks so much!
Monday, May 19, 2008 at 05:57 AM
Chris says:
Is there a way to get the Airport to "settle in" on an access point?
I am in between two access points, both set to Channel 6, and I suspect this is causing a lot of my problems.
Thanks
Saturday, June 07, 2008 at 06:50 PM
Bo says:
Mike -- You are a total lifesaver. This has been driving us (my wife and I) INSANE for about three weeks and after googling around, this was the only answer floating around out there and it worked perfectly. Just wanted to say thanks so much for posting this. If you're ever in Kansas City and need a lunch date please shoot me an email... definitely on me. Thanks!!!
Monday, June 09, 2008 at 10:57 PM
Steve Korn says:
I have had same problem with MBP for some time...replaced wireless router without any change. Other MacBook and Dell in household have no problem maintaining wireless connection. Have unit into Apple now, and they called. Cannot replicate problem in store. Is the device cooler there? Will try these remedies from Mike. I am most disturbed that Apple isn't acknowledging problem...they tell me to call Belken...but that's not the problem
Monday, July 14, 2008 at 07:17 PM
Tyler Brown says:
FIXED!!
haha wow, well i searched for 'macbook pro wireless connectivity' on google. and i started reading, i had the same conntivity problems for the past few weeks, i've been ripping my hair out and dragging ethernet cables across my basement to my router.
you were correct in your introductiong "...or you'll find this as a god send" And wow yes it was. I did as you wrote and i reset the 'PRAM' and that fixed it, my wireless works.
Thanks to you I will now leave the living room and enjoy wireless by sitting out on the deck on this beautiful evening.
I cannot express my true thanks, i was about to send in my 17in macbook pro to apple to get it fixed before college in the fall.
Thank you beyond expression.
~Tyler
Friday, August 01, 2008 at 10:21 PM
Vlad says:
Guys,
I am now in the caribbean vacation, have brought my two macs- MacBook and Pro.
Having all the good connection to misterious NETGEAR router from MacBook, but MacBookPro sucks BIG TIME - in most of the cases it cannot pick up the signal. When it does, then it drops the connection within 5 mins.
Have 10.5.4 on it and all recent updates.
Tried this cheap trick with PROM - did not work at all.
The whole thing is just unstable, too sorry to buy that $3,000 piece of metal.
What kind of 'Pro' and 'Extreme' is that?
goddamit, have spent 3 hours playing with suggestions... kids stuff.
Just to let you know.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008 at 11:33 PM
Chris says:
Same problems but only at my apartment that im staying in for school...works perfectly at my parents house, absolutely terrible where i need it most...where im doing my schooling. everyone else with there dells and compaqs are uneffected but i get screwed while i use the internet more then anyone in the household, figures. It works fine untill like 2 days ago, cant imagine dealing with this much longer
Saturday, August 30, 2008 at 09:26 PM
PS says:
Wow. I think that worked for me. Zapping the PRAM? Unbelievable. Apple should acknowledge there is some issue with the wireless networking in the MBP.
Thursday, September 04, 2008 at 06:04 PM
Neil says:
HI Guys, Well same problem downunder in Australia. It is weired. The Only place I have trouble connecting to is at home where I have the state of the art apple wireless setup. ie. Latest Airport extreme and airport express. I have at least 8 other devices connecting both wirelessly and by ethernet to my apple network with absolutley no problem but my 2008 model 17" macbook pro suddenly began to have issues about 2 months ago. Sometimes it work and others not at all but most often it drops out so I turn airport off and back on again and sometimes this will connect me again but only for 30 to 60 sec. It also is having major problem both with sharing files and web surfing. However all this time the wifi menu show that I have full strength to my network. The other strange thing is This mac pro has no issues with any other wireless network that I use (and I use a few!!!!!!!). So where's the conflict, it has sure got me beat. I have tried the pram thing but I have not tried the first part ie, moving the aiport to the top of the network list. Please apple bring back my joy, I love my Mac.
Monday, September 08, 2008 at 07:46 AM
Giacecco says:
Michael, thank you for finding this, but unfortunately did not solve my issue. It is incredible that a machine at this price could have such a stupid issue that has not been solved for years now, and is propagating from update to update. I envy those lucky ones who have some kind of magic combination of wireless router + Macbook that does not ignite the issue. I am going to click on "Post" now: will my connection hold? :-(
Wednesday, September 17, 2008 at 04:10 PM
cesar says:
I FOUND A SOLUTION THAT WORKS!!!! First a little back story.
Got my Mac Blackbook and the wi-fi worked great from my Linksys wrt54g2 router. Moved to Germany and into an apartment and my connection issues started happening. My MB would connect once then loose connection quickly and would only recover connection if i either closed and re-opened my screen, or re-connected to my network... then it would drop again before my next page turn.
After multiple days of research I read about SOOOO many others having this issue and the fact the Apple pretty much refused to acknowledge the issue. It seemed that sometime near the OX 10.4.2 update the airport driver got fubar'd leaving all those with Intel based macs wi-fi connects messed up.
Some of the solutions i read about and tried had to do with changing my WEP connection to WPA. This did not work, but i left it as WPA as my research finds it a more secure connection. I also read about and tried setting my Wireless RTA Threshold in my router to 256 from the *2432 default. This as well did not work, though I have left it at this setting as it seems to be the best value for MAC's connecting over wi-fi. This is not true for PC's though so be careful.
More research, more research, o' my brain hurts and my patience is wearing..... then BINGO!!! I found a thread about connection issues that pertained to MB's not connecting to local-network printers. The poster mentioned that MAC's seem to have a hard time connecting to networks that had more than one wi-fi network present. This is my issue i thought. I have 8 in my available connections now. In my old home I had just mine. So i followed the directions suggested and it has now been 2 weeks of 100% perfect wi-fi connections.
Below is the excerpt from this page, http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/macbookpro/topic2005.html (Do a find for “Little Snitchâ€). The program the writer talks about is called Little Snitch found here, http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html. It's a $29 dollar program, but in my mind its well worth it to make my $1500 Blackbook work!
This may not be the Apple Fix we have been waiting for them, but its completely working for me.
[quote]
I have used Little Snitch software for several years, and it occurred to me that I might be able to use it to block any connections with the other network. Using the latest version (v.2), go to Preferences, or Little Snitch Configuration, choose Rules under the Window menu, and click the New button.
In the pop-up window that shows up, click on the gear icon and choose "Choose System Process." A file open box opens, and under the folder "libexec," choose "airportd." "airportd" is the system daemon that controls the Airport card in the MacBook Pro. In the box that comes up, set the main menu to "Allow Connections" and the Server menu to "Local Network."
[/quote]
Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at 05:45 PM
Rajesh Bhardwaj says:
Hi.
I have the Macbook Pro. I have tried to do your fix but I have one problem. When I go on 'Network' I cannot seem to find the 'Show' drop-down menu.
The main problem I have is that I am connected via Airport but my Internet connection is quite slow. The Airport just continues to scan. My ethernet connection is OK it is just my built in Airport.
Sunday, October 12, 2008 at 06:16 PM
Gurl says:
yeah i have the same problem as Rajesh (the guy above me) i cant find the show drop down menu!! where is it???
Monday, October 13, 2008 at 08:31 AM
Blue says:
So my Dad's MPB seems to continuously have this same problem with his wireless connection. At first, I thought this was because he had some sort of weird luck with it (this seems to be what happened with his older laptop and apple replaced it), but now it's a relief to know it's not his luck.
The laptop recently had the airport card replaced, which didn't help. I tried the PRAM reset just now, but that was a no go as well. The suggestion for turning the IPv6 seems to work out pretty well. Hopefully it'll hold up (otherwise I shall always have my dad calling me up for help).
Hurry up and fix this Apple!!!
Monday, October 13, 2008 at 08:41 PM
Ruediger Lueg says:
My MBP 17" does the same thing. It works well for 20 minutes or so and then it drops out.
Im so frustrated I will return it. The store and apple support can't help me.
l love my DELL
:-)
Friday, October 17, 2008 at 04:24 PM
GunMortimer says:
My MacBook Pro developed a dislike for my AP at home more than a year ago. Even installing Leopard didn't solve it. However,this procedure of clearing PRAM did. Still, disappointed with Apple for not recognising the problems with WiFi. For such an expensive piece of machinery, WiFi is absolute crap (I admit, the rest I'm very happy with). I still have to come across a Windows portable as old as or more recent than my Mac with such amazingly bad WiFi signal reception. Bought an external WiFi adapter in despair, hope that is going to help (shipping it from CCrane is taking forever). Thx for the hint, good luck to all Mac Wifi users, they need all the luck they can get ...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 at 05:49 AM
Dennis says:
I finally got across this site (I am glad I did because I thought I was the only one experiencing this problem). By the way, I had tried a few times before I read these comments to zapp the PRAM but it never helped.
In addition to the described issue which I experience only at home except for the room I have my Airport at), I am facing a very weird phenomenon. When I go to preferences and click on the Network icon, I get a message that my setting was changed by another application, but when I click OK, the message reappears and keeps reappearing until I have to Force Quit - it does not allow me to do anything else in the meantime. Anybody has come acrooss anything like this?
Friday, November 07, 2008 at 07:41 PM
Neil says:
Wow. After many many days of wrangling with my laptop - this together with disabling of ipV6 seems to have done the trick. Thank you!
Saturday, November 08, 2008 at 09:42 PM
Pajeon says:
Thnks a million! Little Snitch solved everything!!, People I really recommend this app it fixes everything and your frustrations will turn into joy!!
Sunday, November 09, 2008 at 05:37 PM
sean says:
Little Snitch doesn't work at all, the apple business is one big joke, they can't even provide a proper solution to this issue, the only thing apple does is cower and act like this never happened
Monday, November 10, 2008 at 05:03 AM