Hello,
For the past week or so, my MacBook 2.2 GHz (Santa Rosa), running 10.6.8, has been dropping its wireless connection to the router. I first experienced this problem in my home environment using a NETGEAR wgr614 v7 router. The signal was suddenly two bars compared to the usual four bars that I've been getting for the past three years. On top of that, the connection was constantly timing out. When I restarted the router, the computer, or both, the connection would be at four bars for a short while then drop down to two again before complete disconnecting from the router. I tried doing a hard restart of the router, updated the firmware, and toggled through various channels to find the "sweet spot". All of these provided temporary solutions. In addition, other devices have no problem hooking up to this router including my wife's laptop running windows 7, an android phone and a playstation 3 - they all run without a hitch.
When I went to work the next day and hooked up to my belkin 54g F5D7230 the signal was at 4 bars. However, the router at work (Belkin) is much closer in proximity than my router at home (Netgear) - 8 feet compared to approximately 30+ feet. The connection began dropping the other day on the Belkin so I went through the same ritual of updating firmware, changing the channels, and doing a hard restart. I even deleted all airport settings on my mac to try to start things over. I have even gone to the extent of repairing disk permissions to see if that would create any solution. I also connected through ethernet so it's not an ISP issue.
Long story short, I took my macbook to another part of the office that is approximately 30 feet away, and the symptoms are exactly the same as the set-up at home - the connection drops. Even while doing a live speed test to test the download speeds, starting from right next to the router, I get speeds up to 15 mbps. However, as I walk away from the router, the download speeds quickly drop and eventually come to a halt. The test cannot even be completed that is until I walk back to the router at a distance of approximately 5 feet. The test continues and I reach download speeds up to 15mbps.
Before the problem began I did not change any settings, or download any software updates. I have been using the Netgear router for almost 3 years and the belkin for 4+ years with the same MacBook. And I have been able to work away from the router at distances over 30+ feet. At this point, after doing my due dilligence and attempting a number of solutions, I'm getting the feeling that this is hardware related. I've gone through various threads on this discussion board on similar issues. But I haven't seen any related to the signal dropping by increasing distance from the the wireless signal.
My only other idea at this point is replace the internal wireless card. My concern obviously being that this might not solve the problem...at all! Can anybody shed some light on this issue? Let me know if you need more information about my set-up. Any feedback is greatly appreciated! Thanks again!
For the past week or so, my MacBook 2.2 GHz (Santa Rosa), running 10.6.8, has been dropping its wireless connection to the router. I first experienced this problem in my home environment using a NETGEAR wgr614 v7 router. The signal was suddenly two bars compared to the usual four bars that I've been getting for the past three years. On top of that, the connection was constantly timing out. When I restarted the router, the computer, or both, the connection would be at four bars for a short while then drop down to two again before complete disconnecting from the router. I tried doing a hard restart of the router, updated the firmware, and toggled through various channels to find the "sweet spot". All of these provided temporary solutions. In addition, other devices have no problem hooking up to this router including my wife's laptop running windows 7, an android phone and a playstation 3 - they all run without a hitch.
When I went to work the next day and hooked up to my belkin 54g F5D7230 the signal was at 4 bars. However, the router at work (Belkin) is much closer in proximity than my router at home (Netgear) - 8 feet compared to approximately 30+ feet. The connection began dropping the other day on the Belkin so I went through the same ritual of updating firmware, changing the channels, and doing a hard restart. I even deleted all airport settings on my mac to try to start things over. I have even gone to the extent of repairing disk permissions to see if that would create any solution. I also connected through ethernet so it's not an ISP issue.
Long story short, I took my macbook to another part of the office that is approximately 30 feet away, and the symptoms are exactly the same as the set-up at home - the connection drops. Even while doing a live speed test to test the download speeds, starting from right next to the router, I get speeds up to 15 mbps. However, as I walk away from the router, the download speeds quickly drop and eventually come to a halt. The test cannot even be completed that is until I walk back to the router at a distance of approximately 5 feet. The test continues and I reach download speeds up to 15mbps.
Before the problem began I did not change any settings, or download any software updates. I have been using the Netgear router for almost 3 years and the belkin for 4+ years with the same MacBook. And I have been able to work away from the router at distances over 30+ feet. At this point, after doing my due dilligence and attempting a number of solutions, I'm getting the feeling that this is hardware related. I've gone through various threads on this discussion board on similar issues. But I haven't seen any related to the signal dropping by increasing distance from the the wireless signal.
My only other idea at this point is replace the internal wireless card. My concern obviously being that this might not solve the problem...at all! Can anybody shed some light on this issue? Let me know if you need more information about my set-up. Any feedback is greatly appreciated! Thanks again!