2 Laptops side by side. AIRPORT. 1 connects great, 1 barely at all. Any thoughts?

[coffeeicepapers]

We have two Mac Laptops, 1 is the little white Macbook, the other MBP. We have DSL coming in and then thru a 2wire modem then thru the Airport. The 2 wire modem is connected to a PC. All of this sits about 40 feet from the bar where we use the laptops and is a straight shot.

My problem is that the the newer MBP is stuck in the mud when it comes to connecting, and then holding any type of signal strength with the wireless signal.

The older little white MB works great, every bar on the wireless icon is black, on the other (as I type this they are both on and side by side..) only has one.

When pressing Alt/Option and clicking on the wireless icon the good computer shows a transmit rate of somewhere between 20 and 26 when I have checked it several times this morning, the bad one has never been above one.

It seems for the price I paid for the Airport Ex. BOTH of these units should be getting full strength signals.

Ever had this problem? No of any possible solutions?

The fact that the slow one is my wife's machine doesn't make life any easier

I figure before I make an Apple reservation I could do a little research myself.

best,

Coffeeicepapers

 

[geoffreak]

I figure before I make an Apple reservation I could do a little research myself.

Don't bother. Just go. Take both laptops and the Airport Extreme/Express.

 

[rkdiddy]

One thing you might want to consider if making sure they're not trying to connect on the same channel as another device.

Now, I'm not 100% sure this is an issue with apples, but I know this was happening with my AEBS and my PCs.

It might be worth trying to turn all of the computers off and hard resetting your router.

 

[coffeeicepapers]

UPDATE-

If you care:

Problem solved. I took the suspect MBP to an Apple store and of course it ran fine on their network. In my heart of hearts I didn't believe it was an issue with the wireless card, but wanted to make sure.

I put an Airport Express about 3 feet from where I work and now both machines are getting consistent transmit rates from 270 to 300.

What is funny is that when I asked the "Genius" if they had anything I could plug in to extend the function of my Airport Extreme he said, "nah, we don't really have anything like that here"....uh, okay.

The only sort of weird thing was that when I plugged in the Express, the Airport Utility didn't see it (which is installed on a PC with a 2wire modem linked to an Airport Extreme for the wireless). When I went to my mac laptop I only had to configure it on one of them. The second one just logged on to the network with no problem.

So, problem solved.