Airport signal problems on Powerbook

[yg17]

Sometimes while using my Powerbook in the house, the signal on my Airport connection will either drop completely or drop down to 1 bar which makes it extremely slow and barely usable. Normally, I'd blame the router, but the couple times this happened, I grabbed my brother's MacBook, set them side-by-side, and connected to the same access point, my PB had 1 bar or nothing at all, and his MB was at full strength and was working fine.

Eventually, the PowerBook will go back up to full strength and be usable again, but after awhile, it will go back down too. It's an intermittent thing. Anyone know what might be wrong? Thanks

 

[iW00t]

Sometimes while using my Powerbook in the house, the signal on my Airport connection will either drop completely or drop down to 1 bar which makes it extremely slow and barely usable. Normally, I'd blame the router, but the couple times this happened, I grabbed my brother's MacBook, set them side-by-side, and connected to the same access point, my PB had 1 bar or nothing at all, and his MB was at full strength and was working fine.

Eventually, the PowerBook will go back up to full strength and be usable again, but after awhile, it will go back down too. It's an intermittent thing. Anyone know what might be wrong? Thanks

Oh yeah... that has happened to me too. What I usually do is to go into Network preferences, switch the TCP configuration from DHCP to DHCP with manual IP (with a jibberish IP address), apply the settings, then force it to request another IP address from the router again.

Otherwise for some reason the Mac will seem to refuse to renew its IP lease. I do not know why.

 

[yg17]

It still has it's IP address. It's just the Airport signal suddenly drops to hardly anything and the connection speed is crap, if there's anything at all.

 

[WildCowboy]

Sounds about right for PB wireless performance...exactly what mine does. It just gets crappy reception because of the aluminum enclosure.

My PowerBook's wireless is nearly unusable in my bedroom, not much more than 20 feet from my AirPort Express that provides the signal. It occasionally pops up to full strength for a few fleeting seconds, but it's generally at one bar and I have to hold the machine in one specific position in order to get any data to transfer.

 

[yg17]

Sounds about right for PB wireless performance...exactly what mine does. It just gets crappy reception because of the aluminum enclosure.

My PowerBook's wireless is nearly unusable in my bedroom, not much more than 20 feet from my AirPort Express that provides the signal. It occasionally pops up to full strength for a few fleeting seconds, but it's generally at one bar and I have to hold the machine in one specific position in order to get any data to transfer.

Well, it never used to do this until recently, so that's why I was thinking something's wrong. I may take it by the certified Apple repair center here on campus and let my friend who works over there take a look at it. It's under AppleCare, so maybe he'll be able to figure out if something's wrong and replace whatever it is.