Wireless connection

Dear fellow Mac users,

I hope that this message finds you all well.

This is my first post on here.

I have a Imac PowerPC G5 (1.8 Ghz) with 2GB ram, running OS X 10.5.8

I have had my Mac for a couple of years now (It purchased it from a friend). I have had Windows based PC's for years but thought I would give a Mac a try. I am very glad I did as can't imagine I would ever go back now ;D.

When I purchased my Mac it was not fitted with an airport card. I therefore quickly ordered an airport extreme card from apple and installed it myself. I found this easy and have had no problems until now.

For the last few months I have had an intermittant problem of losing connection between the Imac and my wireless router. I tried completeley re-setting the router which made no difference. I even replaced the router for a completely new one but this still happens. Basically I turn the Mac on and the wireless signal shoots up to 4 bars. This then drops back to 2 and makes the conection unusably slow. I have tried connecting to another local network but the same thing happens. If I then try to reconnect to my own network I get a timeout failure time and time again. Eventually it will re-connect to my network but still only 2 bars signal strength and sooooo slow! I have tried power cycling the router and turning the Mac off but it makes no difference. It will usually work perfectly the next morning and then maybe fine for 2-3 weeks before doing it all over again.

I am not sure if this is possible sofrware of hardware related. I just wondered if anyone had experienced anything similar?

Any help would be really appreciated as is gets frustrating .

Thanks very much.


Gary (UK)

Welcome to Mac Forums
Even though you are on 10.5.8, give this 10.5.8 combo update a go, and see if maybe it fixes the issue.
Mac OS X 10.5.8 Combo Update

6string said:

Welcome to Mac Forums
Even though you are on 10.5.8, give this 10.5.8 combo update a go, and see if maybe it fixes the issue.
Mac OS X 10.5.8 Combo Update

Click to expand...

Thanks very much 6string,

I will give that a go now!

Gary

Hi again,

Just a quick update report.

Installed the combo update which went fine. Turned my Mac on tonight and exact same problem. It was running perfectly this morning though!! I am very confused!

Strange it seems to have happened on two consecutive evenings!

I has taken nearly 30 minutes to just get into this forum and submit this post. I really am at a loss to the fault. Maybe I should purchase another new Airport Extreme card? Having the web running this slow is very frustrating.

If there any other suggestions they would be most welcome.

Thanks

Gary

Is there any way you can test the card in another Mac?

6string said:

Is there any way you can test the card in another Mac?

Click to expand...

Thanks again for your reply 6string, much appreciated.

Unfortunately I don't know anyone else with a Mac so not really able to test the card .

It's working perfectly again this morning. The fact that it's so intermittant leads me to think it is possibly hardware related.

Thanks again for your help.

Gary

I don't think it's hardware related, but anyway, perhaps try running the Apple hardware test and see if anything shows up.

Have a look in Sys Prefs > Network > Advanced > Airport and make sure your preferred Network is at top of the list and perhaps delete any that are no longer needed;


Click for full size

Secondly have your tried using Onyx to do a bit of housekeeping and cleaning out caches?

I've kinda had this problem with my old Powerbook G4. Is the airport card and extreme or regular airport card?

Mine would lose a connection or not find a host intermittenly. maybe try downgrading your OS software to what originally came with the machine (could install it on an external HD or burn a DVD and boot from that) and see if that resolves it.

I have a hunch it's something in the updated OS that doesn't play nice with the old airport cards... but I could be wrong.

Hi again and thanks for the suggestions,

I have tried running Onyx which didn't detect any problems. Cleared the caches and gave it some tlc. I could not find a hardware test (sorry mac newbie/dummy here).

The problem has occured once since (for about 20 minutes one evening) so it would seem to remain an issue.

With regards to the card it is about 18 months old and is definately an Airport Extreme card rather than an Airport card. I have been running the same version of OSX for about 8 months with no problems until recently.

I could try downgrading but the old software that I received with the Imac was very out-of-date and I was not able to run quite a few programs.

Maybe I'l just have to put up with it until I can save some money for a brand new Imac.

Thanks again for the help and advise.

Gary