WiFi woes on Macbook

theMusicMan · #1 April 25th, 2007, 07:31 AM

Hi All

I am experiencing regular (every 15 mins) drop outs from my Linksys wireless broadband router (WRT54G) which has become very, very frustrating. I cannot establish why this is occurring at all. It does sometimes seem to happen when other PC's in my house 'join' the network (we have 5 PC's wifi and 1 Ethernet), but this also happens regularly at other times too when nothing else is happening. My wife and I will be on our laptops and find ourselves both asking each other... "do you have a connection" at the same time

Sometimes it comes back, but most often I have to reset the router by switching it off and then on again.

I am considering purchasing an alternative router and am wondering which one experts here could perhaps recommend I purchase as a replacement.

I am happy to go for a wireless 'g' router, and I'd also like it to be able to take ethernet cabling (the WRT54G has WiFi as well as 4 wired ports).

So can anyone suggest what model I should go for?

Also - I would love to know if anyone has ideas as to why my wifi network keeps dropping out? (apologies if I ought to have put that in another thread) This has only started happening over the last 2 to 3 months, the router is approx 1 year old though I don't have the receipt. I really want a stable internet connection for my home network as it does get used a lot. I have also noticed a slowing down of our apparent 10MB Broadband internet connection (NTL now Virgin Media). My wife tried to watch a TV show online last night - and gave up as the stream was so slow.

When I run iStumbler, I get a constant 9% figure in the noise column, regardless which wifi network I see in there. Is this right? The signal strength in my Linksys router when reading it from iStumbler from my Mac only 6 feet away is 75%. Is that right too?

Any advice or ideas? thanks.

supanatral · #2 April 25th, 2007, 07:45 AM

Well, in my experiance with wireless routers I would say that if you're looking for stable internet then use wired. It shouldn't be as bad as your suggesting though.

I have had a lot of success with Linsys routers and I like the interface that is included with it. D-link also works pretty well, however it has a very ugly interface.

theMusicMan · #3 April 25th, 2007, 08:11 AM

For example: this page on my Dell PC took less tan a second to load, whereas on the Macbook it took 10-12 seconds to load. Surely this isn't correct and there's something wrong yeah?

Both machines are cited only 6 feet away from the LinkSys router and are connected via WiFi.

Is there not a Mac service I can use to see if my Macbook is ill!!??

supanatral · #4 April 25th, 2007, 08:14 AM

I'm not aware of one off hand. Does it also happen to your wifes computer? And if you go to a friends house, does it drop there as well?

Kees Buijs · #5 April 25th, 2007, 08:15 AM

How old is the wrt54g router. There has been a bad serie some year ago, usual giving problems after a couple of days of working fine. The solution was to replace them. All with that problem have bee replaced by LINKSYS without any problem.

If signal strenght is high, the network should work stable.

Try contacting your supplier or LINKSYS itself, as far as I know LINKSYS is very gentle in replacement of suspected routers.

Good luck, Kees

theMusicMan · #6 April 25th, 2007, 08:31 AM

@supanatural: yes, my wifes PC loses connection also - but when connected isn't anywhere near as slow as my Macbook. I have only tried my mac on a hotel wifi and though the signal didn't drop out, the speeds were again very slow.

@kees: the Linksys router is approx 1yr old - which may explain things. Unfortunately I don't have the receipt for it though as I had already looked for this. Signal strength is hovering around the 75% mark all the time, and the noise is always at 9% for every wifi network I see - is that right?

Thanks both.

John

Kees Buijs · #7 April 25th, 2007, 09:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by theMusicMan

@supanatural: yes, my wifes PC loses connection also - but when connected isn't anywhere near as slow as my Macbook. I have only tried my mac on a hotel wifi and though the signal didn't drop out, the speeds were again very slow.

@kees: the Linksys router is approx 1yr old - which may explain things. Unfortunately I don't have the receipt for it though as I had already looked for this. Signal strength is hovering around the 75% mark all the time, and the noise is always at 9% for every wifi network I see - is that right?

Thanks both.

John

I never look at the noise settings, but the signal strenght is good enough. Contact - if you can - linksys directly, at least in the netherlands you do not need to contact your dealer, but can you go to linksys directly. It is always worth the try. The age is about right i guess as far as i can recall.

Good luck, kees

fpayne · #8 December 10th, 2007, 07:37 AM

Sorry to bring this thread up again, but I have exactly the same problem. It existed with my old Airport base station and so I swapped it for a D Link DIR-635. I have 2 Intel MacBook Pros on a wireless network. One is always dropping the internet connection but not the other. The problem is worse when both Macbooks are switched on. If it is a router fault then both routers have exactly the same fault. Both MacBooks have exactly the same network settings, unless there are some hidden ones I do not know about.

The ISP tells me it is not their signal, which is borne out by the fact one computer is still connected to the internet.

Any suggestions here would be greatly appreciated as at times the internet is unusable and a Macbook may well leave the building via an upper window.

Thanks

Frank