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Help: My wireless seems broke on early MBP 2012

M

mortenjensen

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 19, 2012
241
21
Hi all,

I am experiencing a serious annoying problem on my early MBP 2012 - the speed on the wireless has dropped/become unstable. The TX-frequency (alt-click wireless) runs at 1, 2, 5 Mbps. On the other MBP in the house, it is stable at 300 Mbps (connected to airport extreme). At times it drops the connection altogether.

What can this be?
- can something in the hardware break so it becomes unstable - or would it not then die completely?
- is it software-released?

I upgraded to 10.11.4 - and became aware of the TX-measurement only afterards - but did experience bad connection before as well.

Is there a way to check what is wrong?

Morten
 
I'm going to assume you have indeed determined the issue is with your machine and not due to things such as placement relative to the router, and that you have the same problem on other networks.

I'd start with a reset of both SMC and NVRAM as that's the easiest you can do to start with.

Failing that, do a reinstall of OS X from Recovery Mode (Cmd + R on boot) on top of your existing installation. No personal data or configurations are touched during it.

If still no luck, you may have a hardware fault, but for right now I'd say that's pretty unlikely.
 
Unfortunately, that did not help. Still connected far below standard.

Any other suggestions?
 
Folks,
I think, I have nailed what the exact problem is. It has something to do with range of the internal antenna. When I move very close to the router, aprox 1 meter or so, the signal goes up to 73 Mbps - when I move some 10 m away, it drops to 1-10.

Where does the antenna sit in the late 2011 MBP? In the screen?

Some time ago, I taped the sats-cable for the harddrive as explained here on the site in order to avoid glitches and spinning wheels. That is the only change, I have mad, so I don't know if that can have something to do with it.

Or, more likely, that the antenna is broke meaning that the wifi-card is still working, it is just working painfully slow.

Can this be fixed, anyone knows?

Morten
 
mortenjensen said:
Folks,
I think, I have nailed what the exact problem is. It has something to do with range of the internal antenna. When I move very close to the router, aprox 1 meter or so, the signal goes up to 73 Mbps - when I move some 10 m away, it drops to 1-10.

Where does the antenna sit in the late 2011 MBP? In the screen?

Some time ago, I taped the sats-cable for the harddrive as explained here on the site in order to avoid glitches and spinning wheels. That is the only change, I have mad, so I don't know if that can have something to do with it.

Or, more likely, that the antenna is broke meaning that the wifi-card is still working, it is just working painfully slow.

Can this be fixed, anyone knows?

Morten
Click to expand...
The antenna for the late 2011 13-15 inch MacBook Pro is located inside the clutch cover ( black plastic under screen), you would need to remove your screen and take off the Clutch cover to get to it .

The clutch cover slides down and then pops off don't just try and pull it off you will break the clips , inspect the antenna leads where they connect to the antenna . I've seen some that were or damaged causing really poor wifi signal .
 
Macbookclinicleadtech said:
The antenna for the late 2011 13-15 inch MacBook Pro is located inside the clutch cover ( black plastic under screen), you would need to remove your screen and take off the Clutch cover to get to it .

The clutch cover slides down and then pops off don't just try and pull it off you will break the clips , inspect the antenna leads where they connect to the antenna . I've seen some that were or damaged causing really poor wifi signal .
Click to expand...

Thx, in other words, it has nothing to do with the sata cable. Can something be wrong with the connection to the logic board? Is there a visible connection that I could check?
 
mortenjensen said:
Thx, in other words, it has nothing to do with the sata cable. Can something be wrong with the connection to the logic board? Is there a visible connection that I could check?
Click to expand...

Nothing to do with your HD cable but there is a possible cable /cables you should check . If you take bottom cover off , your wifi card is on the backside of the optical drive , you will see little connections for all the antennas and then a cable that runs from it too your logic board .

Often the backside of that cable is loose press down on it and also check the connection of the board , unplug the battery before doing any of this then recheck your wifi
 
Macbookclinicleadtech said:
Nothing to do with your HD cable but there is a possible cable /cables you should check . If you take bottom cover off , your wifi card is on the backside of the optical drive , you will see little connections for all the antennas and then a cable that runs from it too your logic board .

Often the backside of that cable is loose press down on it and also check the connection of the board , unplug the battery before doing any of this then recheck your wifi
Click to expand...

Is the AirPort cable the wifi cable? https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBoo...2011+AirPort-Bluetooth+Cable+Replacement/5887
 
mortenjensen said:
Thx, in other words, it has nothing to do with the sata cable. Can something be wrong with the connection to the logic board? Is there a visible connection that I could check?
Click to expand...
Here is a iFixit instructions on how to replace the Airport/Bluetooth board. Step 7 to shows the antenna connectors to the Airport card. Make sure you have the correct tools.
 

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