Apple Covering Up Wifi Issues in New Machines?
I recently purchased the NEW MacBook Pro from Apple. It was my first attempt to become an Apple Fanboy due to using PC / Windows my entire life. I was influenced by friends, family, and the majority of developers on my Twitter account.
When I got it home I obviously immediately unpacked it and hooked it to Wifi. I noticed a day later that my internet connectivity would drop out intermittently but very annoying. It wouldn’t say I was low on signal, it would just not go out to the internet. All other devices on my network using this exact same router had no problems. This includes Nintendo Wii, and 2 PC Notebooks (Dell XPS M1530, Sony Vaio).
This is a D-Link WBR-1310 (I need to check, I’m writing this away from home office) and it goes up to 802.11g. It’s not an N router.
I immediately called Apple support. They had me “reconfigure” the airport connection to my router and held on the line for 5 minutes and the connection never disconnected. 5 minutes after getting off the phone it does it again. I call back to get a different tech person on the line and they say “Well, the only thing I can tell you is that the AirPort hardware in your MacBook must not be compatible with your D-Link router.” I found this kind of odd considering the fact that IEEE standards I THOUGHT meant that it should inevitably be compatible.
So I decide to call D-Link because the Apple person told me I should try them. I speak to a strong accented gentleman from D-Link and I hear “We probably shouldn’t touch your settings considering so many other devices in your household are working perfectly fine.” He repeats this, mumbles a lot, and tells me I should try to call Apple again and tell them that all other devices on the network are working other than the Apple. Which made since because that’s what I already did. I told the D-Link person this and they repeated it all again so I just hung up.
I finally decided to hook up an older Linksys 802.11b router that was stowed away in a cabinet some where and got it all configured. My MacBook now has it’s own Wifi router it has to use in my house. I have 2 routers and my BRAND NEW MacBook Pro has to connect to a 5.5 year old router to work stable.
I spent weeks on blogs, forums, etc. trying to find a solution but everyone having the problem doesn’t seem to get answers from Apple either. Apple’s answer is to purchase an AirPort wireless access point which I find is ridiculous considering I’m going to be using my MacBook on 100’s of wireless access points.
I’m not necessarily coming to the conclusion that it’s just Apple’s fault. However, I’ve NEVER had these types of troubles at the University and I’ve fixed / managed tons of PC notebooks of all different brands, shapes, and sizes and they are all rock solid on every wireless access point possible.
My colleague Justin Slamka sent me a link to Apple Insider with this article:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/11/06/new_macbook_pros_recent_imacs_grappling_with_flaky_wireless.html
I really wish Apple would do something. I love my MacBook but this really is a problem for me.
I hope enough people blog about this to make it well known to Apple how much of a widespread problem this is.
Thanks for reading my vents!
JFR
Russ Johnson on November 10, 2008
Thats odd. I bought a new MBP about 3 weeks ago and I havent had a single issue with my wifi. Granted at home I do use an Apple Airport Extreme router, but I have connected to no less that 5 or 6 other wifi spots in that time that used various routers with no connection drops at all.
I wonder if you just got a faulty Airport card in yours, stranger things have happened.