AirPort Update 2005-001

[cepler]

THIS FIXED THE PowerBook WIRELESS LAG UNDER LOAD PROB!

I finally got home to test my wireless with ALL of my major apps loaded (250 meg free out of 2 gig) and kept a ping running while I launched. Wireless kept responding very nicely with no dropped pings and respectable 20-30ms ping times which is appropriate for the server I was pinging. Prior to doing this update I would get 300-500ms pings and a lot of dropped pings.

W00T! Glad to see this fixed and only 1 day after I learn about it 😉

 

[budugu]

I love the fact that Apple makes those harder decisions sometimes to move the technology ahead and make changes/improvements to the OS that will possibly break some 3rd-party software, or even some of their own for a short period. It just makes things better in the end. They even take this approach to the kernel programming. They have the KPI which basicallly provides a versioned, abstracted view of the kernel api's over the last several revisions with each revision being rolled towards being not supported. So once the KPI rolls thru several revisions and you haven't taken the last several chances to get your software udpated, then its the 3rd-party's fault, not Apple's. That was just an example, but the same principal applies to higher-level stuff too. Unlike Windows, which tries to maintain backwards compat for everything under the sun for its entire existence, OS X does not become so bloated with so much stuff to manage and deal with and risk causing problems.

It is because you use nothing more than your web browser and mail. It is extremely painful if you are in any other environment. I understand the point of not bloating your systems with junk that you are not going to use but let me tell you that backward compatibility is what runs the enterprise, education and any large scale sector. And Mac installs/updates are far more heavier than windows. Third party stuff fails because apple changes stuff whenever they want.

 

[rwclark]

The bluetooth icon on my menubar disappeared on Monday when I installed the 10.4.3. update-- haven't seen it since, even when I adjusted system prefs. I dont use bluetooth now, do I guess its no big deal.😕

I also had the bluetooth icon disappear after installing the 10.4.3 update. Toggling it on and off in the system preference pane made it come back though.

 

[WeBleed4Real]

While we're on the subject of airports... if you're using one, be sure to use WPA.

WEP can be broken in THREE MINUTES. Not kidding. WPA, on the other hand, is secure.

I have an old 802.11b Airport card. There are two WPA settings. There's a WPA1 and WPA2. I've never been able to connect to a WPA2 encryption, so I've heard to stick with WPA1.

 

[RHMMMM]

I finally got home to test my wireless with ALL of my major apps loaded (250 meg free out of 2 gig) and kept a ping running while I launched. Wireless kept responding very nicely with no dropped pings and respectable 20-30ms ping times which is appropriate for the server I was pinging. Prior to doing this update I would get 300-500ms pings and a lot of dropped pings.

W00T! Glad to see this fixed and only 1 day after I learn about it 😉

THANK GOD

 

[Eidorian]

I had to fight a little to get my Bluetooth icon back. I don't know how my Airport reception was altered though.

 

[artifex]

Okay, I know this is only tangentially related, but are there any 802.11b or g dongles supported by OSX? I don't want to pay Apple for a special card to stick in my Rev A mini. I have already learned that Apple doesn't fully support third party dongles for BT, other than one overpriced D-Link... any hope?

 

[mongoos150]

After all of these problems...I think I'll hold off on updating 🙂

 

[aswitcher]

After all of these problems...I think I'll hold off on updating 🙂

Yeah, everything works so I am not loading this "fix" for at least a week to allow Apple to tweak it.

 

[syntrophy]

10.4.3 was sooo buggy, internet connection via WiFi on my campus is so ridiculously slow. this patched made it much better, but the restart did take an incredulous amount of time!

 

[rosalindavenue]

There was a problem w/ the mid 2005 ibooks (and then later on the late 2005 powerbooks) where if someone were using more than 1 gb of ram under heavy network usage the card will fail. This update fixes it, so that's probably the primary reason for releasing the update. It may fix other things tho.

Do you have a source for this info? I'm thinking about upgrading the RAM on my 2005 ibook and was just going to get 512 to avoid this problem-- thanks.

 

[sirron]

Wacom

I should add to to my last rant. Luckily I had SuperDuper installed and had backed up on the 29th. This update damaged a driver in the OS which made my Wacom tablet useless and it changed the settings on Mighty Mouse. It took two hours to erase my Mac HD and clone from my firewire back to my Mac. Phhew!!
Thanks to SuperDuper.🙂 🙂

 

[devman]

I should add to to my last rant. Luckily I had SuperDuper installed and had backed up on the 29th. This update damaged a driver in the OS which made my Wacom tablet useless and it changed the settings on Mighty Mouse. It took two hours to erase my Mac HD and clone from my firewire back to my Mac. Phhew!!
Thanks to SuperDuper.🙂 🙂

Can you provide any more details please? I have a wacom tablet and I'm holding off on this airport update till I know more.

 

[Trekkie]

Not sure why people think these long reboot times are odd, it's obvious that the OS will need to update files that are otherwise in use during a normal restart and thus do this prior to loading the UI components.

While I understand that, what scared me for a bit was my iMac G5 Rev A fans turning into a jet engine with just the apple logo on a screen, but it recovered and went on after about 15 seconds.

Never did that before.

 

[wdlove]

So far updates have improved my wife's wireless connection with her PowerBook. Hopefully this will also.

 

[Verto]

While I understand that, what scared me for a bit was my iMac G5 Rev A fans turning into a jet engine with just the apple logo on a screen, but it recovered and went on after about 15 seconds.

Never did that before.

For what it's worth, that is a safety precaution: the fans turn on to full speed and remain that way, because the system is not able to monitor the temperature to ensure the machine is not overheating. It is just a safety feature, so don't be alarmed.

 

[Verto]

First of all, I downloaded this update and have had no problems with it. I also think it fixed a minor annoyance, but I'm not sure yet.

Previously, the majority of time when I brought my computer out of sleep mode, and sometimes just when I turned it on, I would have a problem with AirPort and my wireless network( via a D-Link router). I would have to unplug my router, wait a sec, plug it back in, and then AirPort would connect to the network with no problem.

So far, I haven't noticed this problem anymore, but it's only been a short time. Anyone else had this experience?

 

[Noiseboy]

I've noticed that since 10.4.3 when I've had to restart after updating various apps that the restart time is noticeably slower and that Airport doesn't automatically log on to my network any more. It's right there under the airport icon and works perfectly well when I do log on. I was going to put off updating this but I'll do it now and see what happens. Fingers crossed😱

 

[mklos]

What I don't understand is why do people install these updates if they don't need it? I mean, if you don't have AirPort, or wireless, then why install it? Just because there's an update, doesn't mean you need to install it.

 

[My Yute]

Do you have a source for this info? I'm thinking about upgrading the RAM on my 2005 ibook and was just going to get 512 to avoid this problem-- thanks.

Here's a long old thread about it. . .

discussions.info.apple.com/webx?128@712.l58KaWAI568.7@.68b7c1b7

This update does fix that problem so you should be able to get ur new RAM with no fear.

 

[amacgenius]

My friend said that this update totally ****ed him on Airport, so mine is working fine with my D-Link router so I'm not going to update 😉.

 

[Noiseboy]

I've noticed that since 10.4.3 when I've had to restart after updating various apps that the restart time is noticeably slower and that Airport doesn't automatically log on to my network any more. It's right there under the airport icon and works perfectly well when I do log on. I was going to put off updating this but I'll do it now and see what happens. Fingers crossed😱

Excellent, no problems at all and my Airport logs on to my network automatically again. Hoorah😀

 

[karellen]

Already done a restart and reset the PMU thing.
It says: "No Airport Hardware found"

Well it's gone from bad to sheer HELL.

My PB will not boot up at all. All that happens now is the apple logo on the startup screen turns into a prohibited sign after about 5 minutes.

I have started it up in the single user mode and can see a constant "still waiting for root device" error.

So far I have reset the PMU, the NVRAM, the PRAM.
Ran the apple hardware diagnostics - everything passed
Ran the disc utility on the Tiger DVD - repaired disk and permissions

Phoned Apple and the nice Indian Call Centre operator wouldn't deviate from his on-screen script unless I pay him 47 euros.

(I am currently logged in here from my sister's old Vaio laptop running Windows ME over dialup as it doesn't have a ethernet port)

Some serious expert help needed before I totally wipe the drive.

 

[yg17]

After the 10.4.3 update, I had my Powerbook right next to the base station and got 3 of 4 bars. In a certain spot on campus where I always get 3-4 bars, I was fluctuating between 1 and 2. After installing this update, my signal strength has improved again. No problems here

 

[Heath]

Possible to remove?

I installed this update on my mini.
Good news, wireless signal strength improved markedly.

Bad news, wired connection drops every 30 minutes or so for 5 minutes.
I want to confirm that it was this update causing the problem with the wired connection. Is there any way to remove this update?

Thanks