Airport card dies under load

[Brazilian Joe]

I have a macBook Pro and started having problems with my airport card recently.

When the card is under load, it dies. it simply shuts off with no way of turning the radio back on, except for a reboot.

If I reboot the wireless connection comes on happily. Until I start putting some load on it.

It does not seem to be excessive load in terms of throughput, it seems more like the number of simultaneous connections which cause the problem.

It usually happens when I leave Apple Mail running with all my mail accounts online. My GMail account seems to be the baddest of the bunch, as i have several folders and many GB of data.

If I leave it disconnected, sometimes I stay for days without problems, but that's not a guarantee. Even with Apple Mail not running I sometimes have 'dog days' where I lose the wireless every few minutes.

I have already tried removing the battery, resetting the PRAM and reinstalling the OS, but the problem persists.

I am thinking about purchasing a new airport card now, but I would like to ask the community if others have experienced similar problems?

 

[EstrlM3]

interesting problem, havent heard of that happening before.

 

[FRiC]

Does the wifi icon actually disappear and shows the card as powered down? Or can you simply not access the Internet? I've been having a strange problem where the wifi actually works, but I can't resolve any addresses until I reboot.

 

[Brazilian Joe]

The airport icons keeps showing as if it was turned on, but if I open the network preferences I see the radio is turned off.

Network preferences also reads the card status at the time it is open, so it tells me the airport is off.

Trying to turn it on has no effect. Only then the airport icon at the top switches to 'airport off' icon.

 

[fliptomato]

Similar problem

Greetings -- I have a 2006 Macbook (OS X 10.5.8) and have recently (this week) started having very similar problems. My Macbook's AirPort connection will suddenly turn off and there is no way for me to turn it back on, except rebooting.

Clicking the AirPort icon on the top bar gives the option to "turn AirPort on", but doing so doesn't do anything.

This has only started happening recently. This seems to happen when I'm trying to use my macbook on my lap or when I'm moving it.

Previously (e.g. 2 weeks ago) I was having odd problems where the computer would go to sleep if I moved it too suddenly. This problem seems to have stopped right when the AirPort problem showed up.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!