Problems with 2010 MP wireless cards

psychometry said:

I have a problem where anything I'm downloading stalls and the only way to start transferring anything again is to turn Airport off and then back on. This happens about once a day on my brand new MP.

I swapped out the wireless router to no effect. Anyone else seen this problem?

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downloading any large file via wireless is always a shot in the dark. are you near an airport a military base etc?
I gave up on wireless years ago I am too close to USN airbase LakeHurst and USAF airbase Fort McQuire. Where I live wireless is not much of an option. Maybe Itunes but since the whole house is cat 6 why bother.

Try to get an access point that supports the 5GHz ISM band. This band tends to be less crowded than the 2.4GHz ISM band that most wireless networks use.

The Airport Extreme is actually a good choice since it has dual radios so it can provide service on both bands. That may help you out quite a bit depending on where you are.

psychometry said:

I just find it unusual since the problem happens so consistently. Never had a problem with my MacBook in the same location.

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Do a search on the MP WIFI card and you'll see some comments to the effect that it's a POS.

cheers
JohnG

Mine works just as well as any other I've used. I can pick up a zillion access points along my street.

Also, comparing your MacBook is probably not the best idea b/c the location of the antenna. Maybe try moving your MP.

I had the exact same problem. My Mac Pro is upstairs far from the router, and both my Mac Pro and my Dell before it had low wi-fi bandwidth. Big downloads would stall and I had to stop and restart the wi-fi adapter (Airport for the Mac Pro) to get it to continue. I bought a Hawking HWUN1 300-N USB adapter (very small with two vertical antennas for N networks), which uses Ralink wi-fi hardware. It moved my Dell's wireless from 1 bar to 4 (out of 5 on Windows 7) and everything worked great. So for laughs I checked the Ralink website, and they had a Mac driver from Sep 2010 (Hawking's Mac driver was ancient) which worked beautifully. I now have over 90% connectivity and downloads fly and web pages snap onto the screen. Works for Windows 7 in Parallels, too.

All is not roses of course - you have to have the driver load at startup, and u have to reload it after the Mac wakes from sleep (so you have to keep it in the dock). But it's worth it to solve this annoying problem.

Unfortunately the Hawking HWUN1 is no longer made, but I'm sure there are other USB adapters you could use. Hawking makes one that looks like a dish antenna that you aim towards your router (also very small like my HWUN1) which also uses the Ralink driver.