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Is the airport card in the aluminum macbooks weak?

likemyorbs

likemyorbs

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 20, 2008
1,956
5
NJ
The other day i decided to take my macbook to english class for the first time for essay writing. i was trying to connect to the school's wifi but the signal was very low, i went into the lobby and it worked just fine. but the thing is, the kid who was sitting next to me had his hp laptop and it was connecting to the network at full strength. what would be the reason for that?
 
It's not the card, it's the case.

It's aluminum, so it blocks signal fairly well. That's pretty much the only thing keeping the AirPort family from going aluminum to match Apple's current design scheme: signal.
 
likemyorbs said:
The other day i decided to take my macbook to english class for the first time for essay writing. i was trying to connect to the school's wifi but the signal was very low, i went into the lobby and it worked just fine. but the thing is, the kid who was sitting next to me had his hp laptop and it was connecting to the network at full strength. what would be the reason for that?
Click to expand...

I've never had a problem with mine. I can say though, the Alu MB doens't pick up weak/far away networks as well as my gf's Centrino2 HP.

Probably due to the metal case.

Edit: Sometimes it seems I'm in a race with TallestSkil to get these answers out :p
 
I hate saying this because I dont have a link but some websited tested a whitebook and a aluminum macbook next to each other at different distances and the aluminum was consistently lower signal then the white presumably because of the metal case.

This issue isnt if the wireless works or not its if the signal is lower and I believe it is.
 
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