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DSL Steve

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 12, 2005
142
39
One week old new 15" PowerBook w/1G RAM and 7200 RPM drive. For one week the Airport has been working fine on our home wireless network. With no changes to anything, the Airport signal has gone to nothing today after working fine for one week--i.e. it no-longer detects our home network. No bars on the signal strength indicator. Our Windows XP PC on the same wireless network is still working fine with maxed out signal strength. The laptop is two feet away from the PC and both are 12 feet away from the wireless router. I can hold the laptop one foot away from the ZyXEL B-2000 wireless router and nothing happens.

I have tried resetting the PMU, repairing permissions, deleting the Airport preferences file and re-entering the wireless network info with no luck.

All updates have been applied including the most recent Aiport update.

Any suggestions?
 
First, try and make sure that you can't manually type in the base station / pass in the aiport menu or utility.

Then, maybe try re seating the AirPort card and making sure the antenna is firmly plugged in.
 
All is well again

Well, after letting the PowerBook sit idle for about an hour the Airport signal strength went to max and it now detects my network. I brought it upstairs to my daughter’s bedroom and it still gets max signal strength. It’s been there all night and I just checked it---still getting max signal strength. It probably took awhile for the PMU reset and deleted prefs file to take effect. So I guess we have a happy ending.
 
Hopefully. Some of the newer PowerBooks have a strange problem when fitted with 1GB or more of RAM and connected to AirPort. Keep an eye on it and kick up a fuss to get it replaced if it happens too often. I just thought you should know. Hopefully it's not the case with your Mac (it's a pretty rare problem) though.

Merry Christmas. :)
 
Dreil said:
Then, maybe try re seating the AirPort card and making sure the antenna is firmly plugged in.

Just an FYI: The latest rev of PBs (Oct 2005) no longer have Aiport *cards*. Airport is now part of the main logic board.
 
mad jew said:
...Some of the newer PowerBooks have a strange problem when fitted with 1GB or more of RAM and connected to AirPort.

This problem has already been resolved with a software update. The problem only affected PBs with *more* than 1GB of RAM.
 
DSL Steve said:
Just an FYI: The latest rev of PBs (Oct 2005) no longer have Aiport *cards*. Airport is now part of the main logic board.
Yep, same with iBooks. :( So if one breaks and if your out of AppleCare, your screwed.
 
Counterfit said:
That's kinda... stupid.

Not really, from an engineering standpoint (that's what I do) they have eliminated an interconnect (from the card to the motherboard) which increases reliability.
 
DSL Steve said:
This problem has already been resolved with a software update. The problem only affected PBs with *more* than 1GB of RAM.


Excellent. I must have missed the memo. Oh, and I'm almost certain it affected some machines with only the 1GB of RAM too. I guess it's a moot point now. :)
 
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