unique wifi problem, help please!

[Josh P]

Hello
I have what I believe is a unique problem with the wifi on my MacBook Pro, but hopefully someone on here will have some experience with this or maybe have a solution, I couldn't find anything in the search.

The problem I have with my wifi is that it will completely drop connection for a few seconds and then reconnect and then drop again and this continues with my wifi going completely in and out every few seconds so that I am not able to load anything over the internet.

What makes the problem more complex is that it doesn't happen all the time; sometimes the connection will be fine, but other times I will have the above mentioned problem and be unable to use the internet.

I thought that it might be a router problem, but my roommate also has a macbook pro and he never has this problem with his wifi! I took my computer to the Apple Genius bar and they did a stress test on all of the hardware, but the problem continues. Has anyone had any experience with anything like this? If there is anymore information that I can provide I would be happy to. Thanks so much!
-Josh

 

[alphaod]

I used to have this problem at home. I found it was a problem with my wireless access point (AP), and not a computer issue. It's caused by issues with the chipsets in the router and the laptop, so it's possible for some devices to work fine, but others not. With my old AP, my iPhone could connect, but my laptops could not. Then I replaced the AP and now everything works fine.

Since you have a Genius bar, I would assume there is an Apple Store—Pick up a new Airport Extreme. Use that for a couple days. If that resolves your issue, go and warranty your old wireless AP. If that doesn't resolve your issue, check your home for interference. In any case, you can return the Airport Extreme back to the Apple Store within 14 days, no restocking fees involved.

 

[Xcallibur]

I know you said your roommate has no issues, but I had dropping problems not too long ago too, it turned out it was the router causing the issue.

 

[wpotere]

My guess is that you are running Lion. Wifi has known drop issues with Lion.

 

[varunkrish]

I have faced similar problem in the past.

If possible, change your router or else try changing the channel for the WiFi network or also try changing the authentication mode (from WPA to WPA-PSK)

Its mostly a chipset/router/OS issue

You can also try booting into Windows in case you have parallels or bootcamp and see if the WiFi drops to confirm if its a driver/OS issue

 

[Josh P]

thanks very much for the responses. yes I am running Lion. I will try to see if changing the router fixes the problem, if not I will have to upgrade the operating system.