Wireless connection completely unreliable over Mac OS X

[TSE]

I have a MacBook Pro, and the wireless connection is completely unreliable. I have all the latest updates, etc. I basically either have the full 5 bars or none at all, and it drops out every 10 minutes, and I have to wait about 5 minutes for the connection to come back up. None of the other Apple computers in my house have a wireless connection issue. Any ideas?

 

[nikhsub1]

I have a MacBook Pro, and the wireless connection is completely unreliable. I have all the latest updates, etc. I basically either have the full 5 bars or none at all, and it drops out every 10 minutes, and I have to wait about 5 minutes for the connection to come back up. None of the other Apple computers in my house have a wireless connection issue. Any ideas?

Do you have windows installed on the same machine? If so does it do the same or only in OS X? If it only does it in OS X I would say it is software related, perhaps an os reinstall will fix the issue. If it is with 2 OSes, definitely hardware related.

 

[TSE]

It only gets two bars maximum under Windows, but never drops out. Under Mac OS X, it either gets full bars or no bars. So, I'm not sure.

 

[nikhsub1]

It only gets two bars maximum under Windows, but never drops out. Under Mac OS X, it either gets full bars or no bars. So, I'm not sure.

What wireless router do you have? I have found that some older models just don't work well at all with these machines. You say you have other macs that work just fine with it, are they older models? I would do 2 things, first I'd see if this is an issue with your particular wireless router. If you go to an Apple store for instance do you have the same thing happen? If you can determine it is not your router than it is time to go to the genius bar.

 

[TSE]

Okay, will do, I'll check it out sometime. Thank you!

 

[winninganthem]

A while back, I was using a Linksys wireless-G router and frequently experienced connection drops every 5 minutes or so. I'm not entirely sure if the same thing happened under Windows.

However, when I took the MBP to school, I never experienced connection drops using the university's wireless. I have since replaced that router with an Airport Extreme and I never experience connection drops anymore.

So, it seems my MBP and that old wireless-G router did not work well together. Changing your entire wireless network just for one computer seems pretty drastic, so only do this if you feel that you absolutely must.