

New MacBook Airs may suffer from Wi-Fi connectivity issues - zokier
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/06/new-macbook-airs-may-suffer-from-wi-fi-connectivity-issues/

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brianwillis
I use an iPhone 4 and Macbook Air as my main devices.

One of the first comments on the Ars Technica page is "you're holding it
wrong". It's a predictable joke, but I'll begrudgingly admit that I laughed.

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singular
I have had an issue both with my previous mac, a second gen air and a first
gen pro retina with sustaining a connection (I am immediately next to the wifi
router and get wifi drop outs yet my colleague, a distance away using a PC,
has no dropouts whatsoever.)

I also have a curious problem that has affected both of them - if I rest the
laptop on my naked chest, the wifi connection degrades to the point that
connectivity is significantly affected, and if the signal is not strong enough
completely drops out. Seems to me to be related to the aluminium case. Quite
frustrating as this is (an arguably not very healthy) common use case for me
:)

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marquis
I ended up running a script on launch that pings 127.0.0.1 every 5 seconds -
my Wifi was disconnecting every few minutes and this has fixed the problem for
the last 6 months for me.

edit: actually pinging the router, 192.168.1.1 etc. Script is:

#! /bin/sh

ping 192.168.1.1 > /dev/null 2>&1

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mianosm
That makes no sense what so ever.

Pinging your loopback address just shows that your localhost is still there.

If you were to write a script that instead pulled the local IPv4 address you
are getting - that might be a little more sensical?

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gcr
On Linux, that packet wouldn't leave the device either. You have to ping
another host on your subnet or the kernel won't queue the packet for
transmission on a hardware network interface.

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acdha
Or, more likely, it's a few people who got dud hardware or are misdiagnosing
marginal WiFi coverage and some tech “reporters” acting as an echo chamber to
amplify it. This is a couple of forum posts run through Gizmodo and
(disappointingly) ArsTechnica – i.e. the plural of anecdote.

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smackfu
OTOH, Apple is renowned for keeping hardware problems on the down-low and
quietly swapping things out with no questions when people come in to complain.
The only way this kind of thing gets out is through forum complaints and such.

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acdha
> OTOH, Apple is renowned for keeping hardware problems on the down-low

Renowned on forums. I've received recalls for widespread problems (batteries,
a video problem in the PowerBook G4 era, etc.) but many of the forum / mac
blog fodder seem more like selection bias – people who don't have a particular
hardware problem don't tend to search for threads so they can say “Nope, works
fine here”.

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regal
My MacBook Air fell into the camp smackfu is talking about. Big thread on the
Apple website about the problem, no public acknowledgement of it from Apple.
However, when I brought my out-of-warranty laptop in, they replaced the faulty
parts free of charge. I ended up pleasantly surprised, and will buy Apple
again in the future.

Most businesses do everything they can to get out of warranties. Apple seems
more like a high value add business to me now, and less a seller of
commodities like many of the other computer manufacturers.

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acdha
Yeah, a relative had that with an iPhone 5 charger cable: walked into the
store and the tech simply reached onto the shelf and gave him a new one. No
waiting, filling out a 3 page form, 6 forms of ID, etc. Completely changed the
mood from griping to “Wow, I'll buy from Apple again” – quite a contrast to
the rest of the computer industry which is generally chasing Walmart down the
short-term cost minimization rabbit hole.

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andyhmltn
You may fault Apple all you want for various decisions, but they are very good
when it comes to product replacement. My iPhone 5 had a faulty screen (it just
conked out one day.) Within 3 days I had a brand new one on my table having
not walked into an Apple store and opting for pickup instead.

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OrsenPike
I have owned several Macbook[Pros|Airs] over the years and consistently the
biggest issue has been poor wifi. Either dropping or just being generally
crappy performance wise compared to other systems right next to me on the same
next work. It is annoying that it is still an issue several years later.

~~~
janlukacs
Same here. When Lion came out it was the worst. (always used quality APs).

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jonheller
I love my MacBooks, but every one I have had (totally three so far) have had
wifi connectivity issues, usually which involve the connection dropping a few
minutes after I resume from sleep and me needing to disable wifi and
reconnect.

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seabee
I love my MacBooks too, and in OSX I had this problem with some APs but not
others. Hardware compatibility is hard, I think the only thing you can rely on
is that everyone tests on Windows...

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deweerdt
> Hardware compatibility is hard That's definitely it. I also think it's made
> worse by the lack of tools to troubleshoot the issue.

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acdha
Have you tried the built-in network diagnostics? There's even a shortcut:
Option-click on the wifi menu bar item.

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esamek
Been using the new 11" for days. No problems with WiFi, but I have noted a few
recurring themes about WiFi connectivity.

802.11 b still works pretty well for most people.

802.11 g has better _in-house or building_ range than 802.11 n

802.11 n _can_ be faster. but I haven't notice that being true...ever.

5 Ghz spectrum connections sucks at penetrating walls.

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windexh8er
You're confusing a few key points. 802.11n can operate on both 2.4 & 5Ghz
networks. So while you state speed and range metrics the real question is the
quality, capability and environmentals you're, likely, not taking into
consideration.

Quality: not all antenna or radios are at all equal. Just because you have an
N capable AP means nothing for client connectivity.

Capability: Is your AP MIMO? How many TX & RX? These things matter. Many of
Apple's designs for Airport look pretty but are effectively junk for RF
performance. This has always been a clear case of aesthetic over function.
Many people often buy all in one devices to handle 30�Mbps Internet
connections and also lump in 10� wireless and wired devices. These wireless
'enabled' devices are often horrible since they're often underpowered to
handle the increased connection speeds as local transfer and Internet speeds
increase.

Environmentals: Do you live in a shared living space with lots of neighbors
contending for use of channels? Do you live in a 4000+ sqft house and have
your AP in the basement? Etc...

TL;DR I look at this stuff in a lab on a daily basis. This generalization is
quite bad.

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coldtea
> _Many of Apple 's designs for Airport look pretty but are effectively junk
> for RF performance._

Interesting. You say "many". So which Airport models would you suggest?

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illdave
I'm using one of the new MacBook Airs and I've yet to experience this
(although of course, I'm just one data point).

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sjm
Ditto. For what it's worth I've only connected via 802.11n so far, so it could
be an issue with a/b/g.

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laveur
for that matter it could be an 802.11ac problem as that is brand new with the
Mac line in general.

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hboon
I have wifi problems with my MacBook Pro retina since I bought it. It's
probably a recurring software issue.

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securingsincity
I used to do a lot of audio and video editing and the releases of OSX always
seemed to have problems on launch day so much so that people in the industry
always suggested to wait for the .1 release. Over the same time you've seen
similar problems in apple's hardware. "It's mostly alright but some people are
getting yellow cinema displays" "wi-fi connectivity issues" "a few models were
XYZ" perhaps the same policy should be applied to hardware. Wait a month until
they get the kinks worked out and you'll be rocking and rolling.

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mikeash
The same policy should _definitely_ be applied to hardware. It's fairly common
knowledge in the Apple community not to buy the first version of any new
hardware unless you want to experience all the highs and lows of the bleeding
edge.

On the other hand, it's hard to say what constitutes a ".1" in the hardware.
The latest Air is a relatively small revision to the current Air line that's
been around for a few years now, so I wouldn't have treated it as something
brand new like I would have with, say, the original Air from 2008, or the
redesigned one from 2010.

But yes, if you're not in a big hurry and don't want to risk a fight with the
hardware, just wait a month or so after any given release.

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bdcravens
_The latest Air is a relatively small revision to the current Air line that 's
been around for a few years now_

True, but doesn't it have a couple of new parts? (Haswell CPU and WiFi chip
that adds AC support as I recall)

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MoOmer
My first gen retina has problems connecting to certain WiFi points. Netstat
shows an assigned ip that's out of range, while others continue to receive
regular IPs. Renders it useless for helping teach Rails development/googling
to find solutions to others' issues.

Waiting for a thin, light, no os laptop that works well with GNU/linux

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nknighthb
This is a recurring theme with new chipsets. I'm sure it'll get cleaned up in
firmware/driver updates as usual, but at some point, you'd think Apple would
figure out a better QA strategy for wifi.

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xmodem
There's only so much QA you can do - are they going to extensively test with
every wifi router and firmware configuration ever made? At some point you have
to ship and look at the logs you get back.

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nknighthb
Virtually every major update to Apple products results in this problem. This
is not true of other manufacturers. Given Apple's unusually large profit
margins, there is obvious room for them to improve in this area.

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coldtea
> _This is not true of other manufacturers._

This is wrong. They just have smaller runs. A MBP goes --with the same hw
configuration-- to 3-4 million people. PC runs are smaller and with tons of
different configurations with regards to motherboards/CPU combos for the same
vendor.

Also Apple tries newer designs/chips more often. PC manufactures keep at the
same older chips for the tons of the low end machines the sell.

So: lot's of different + older (and thus tested) chips in smaller runs == less
apparent problems.

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malandrew
I've seen the exact same problem on the newest iPads as well. It sucks for
development, because every time the wifi connection drops I lose (auto-closes)
the window for the remote web development console in Safari.

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omegote
Features, features everywhere.

