Defective airport card? How to tell?

[Orngarth]

In the past month my 1 year old MacBook has become real flaky when surfing the Internet. Sometimes webpages open quickly, other times I get stalled while "Connecting to [the site]...", which usually leads to a network error screen.

It's not Safari because I get the same behavior from Firefox. I changed the DNS settings to open DNS servers, but that didn't help. The problem only seems to be when I connect wirelessly; it's flaky on both my home (airport express) and work (time capsule) wireless networks, but fine if I plug in via cable.

I did an experiment at home using my iMac and MacBook: After confirming that the network settings for each were identical (except for their IP addresses, of course), I tried to open the same webpage in each one simultaneously. The iMac opened it in about a second, the MacBook stalled and eventually gave the error page. Screen sharing and transferring files between them works, though it seems like file transfers might be slow (20 mins for 100 MB, is that slow?).

I took it to the 'genius' bar and the guy there told me to wipe the HD and reinstall Leopard and see if that fixes it. Should I take that advice (!), or does anyone here have an idea of what else I could try first?

 

[AppleNewton]

try using a new user to test to see if that might help.
make sure you have enough free memory. sicne they both seem to use it differently.

Also worth a try...my MBP2.2 mid-2007 airport was chopping in and out,slow and sometimes unresponsive.

Do a PRAM reset: COMMAND OPTION P R all at once right before the grey screen appears wait for the computer to restart and hear the chime

then

do a SMC reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1894

 

[tdevers]

Had horrible airport issues with my now year old MB. Ended up getting it replaced and all is well. Definitely take it into the Apple Store and be polite, but suggest it be replaced. They might not do it right away though. Took me 3 tries to the store to get it replaced.

 

[Orngarth]

try using a new user to test to see if that might help.
make sure you have enough free memory. sicne they both seem to use it differently.

Also worth a try...my MBP2.2 mid-2007 airport was chopping in and out,slow and sometimes unresponsive.

Do a PRAM reset: COMMAND OPTION P R all at once right before the grey screen appears wait for the computer to restart and hear the chime

then

do a SMC reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1894

The same symptoms occurred in a test user account. Resetting the PRAM and the SMC had no effect. I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled Leopard and it seems the problem may have gone away. I'm not positive because the problem was intermittent, but if it is indeed a software problem then I'm faced with the daunting task of trying to isolate it. Any suggestions on the best way to proceed?