wifi diagnostics

Hi All,

Recently subscribed to "Mackeeper" to help keep my '07 Macbook running efficiently. After downloading M'kpr and "safe uninstalling" a few unneeded or unwanted apps (board-games and some dashboard apps, and Angry Birds Rio) I've experienced trouble with my wifi connection.

It seems to load my Google homepage OK, and then a little more slowly loads my gmail. One or two more bookmark loads after that it locks up and says the server dropped the connection.

When I do network diagnostics Airport's OK, Airport Settings are OK, Network Settings are OK, but ISP is bad and Internet and Server are either bad or iffy (red or yellow colored).

I've powered down both the Linksys wifi server and the "Wide Open West" cable modem. That usually reboots everything finely, but now the aforementioned troubles repeat themselves.

I'm using our local public library's Wifi now, and everything's hunky-dory, so I suspect the trouble is in the Linksys, or the cable modem, probably the Linksys. It's an early WRG-???? (can't remember the suffix numbers).

My systems a July '07 Macbook 2.16 Core 2 Duo with 4GB 667 MHZ SDRAM running OS 10.6.8.

Any suggestions?

Thanks, in advance!

Any suggestions?

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Uninstall MacKeeper as soon as you can. Please use our forum search feature to learn about MacKeeper. In short, it's pure junk and will cause problems.

chscag said:

Uninstall MacKeeper as soon as you can. Please use our forum search feature to learn about MacKeeper. In short, it's pure junk and will cause problems.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I noticed all the bad comments about Mackeeper after posting the present thread. I'm kicking around your suggestion. The only thing I'm hoping is that the 2012 version may be an improvement over the earlier versions. When I became alarmed about yours and other bad comments I googled "Ratings and Reviews Mackeeper" and the 2012 version got nothing but glowing reports, so I'm in a quandary.

I'd rather not get caught up in the Mackeeper thing. My wife's Windows laptop was having wifi problems, too, come to think of it, so I may have thrown in a red herring mentioning Mackeeper.

It may be an issue with the router or even the cable modem, but it could also be a flaky DNS server. I would try changing the DNS servers first before swapping out hardware.

Find out how to access your router's internal menu and switch the DNS servers to the Google Public DNS servers which are quite reliable.

Here are the addresses:

Primary = 8.8.8.8, Secondary = 8.8.4.4

Let us know if this works out for you.

chscag said:

It may be an issue with the router or even the cable modem, but it could also be a flaky DNS server. I would try changing the DNS servers first before swapping out hardware.

Find out how to access your router's internal menu and switch the DNS servers to the Google Public DNS servers which are quite reliable.

Here are the addresses:

Primary = 8.8.8.8, Secondary = 8.8.4.4

Let us know if this works out for you.

Click to expand...

IT WORKED!!

Wasn't sure how to type in the google domain, so I just typed in "googlepublicdns".

Everything's fine, now.

Thanks much!!

So last night, after the problem cleared up I left the laptop online and it worked fine this morning. I turned it off to run errands later and, sure enough, the wifi went bad again.

It's really strange. I've had issues all the rest of the day, and just now, about 7:30 PM EDT, the problem cleared up! Nearly the same thing happened last night, but I attributed it changing my DNS as suggested by CHSCAG.

So something has screwed up the startup network settings which somehow correct themselves after several hours. Mackeeper? Or there's some sort of new interference in my local surroundings that's intermittent. I live in a 22 story apt. building.

I've fiddled endlessly with "Network Preferences" and the "Network Monitor" utility, but don't have a clue what the utility's information means.

I've tried viewing some of the files uninstalled by Mackeeper to see if they were network related, but I don't know how to read code.

I've learned that items in "Terminal" can do dramatic things, but I didn't see anything suspicious there.

So, I'm sentenced to leaving the laptop on 24/7, or buying a new wifi router, unless you folks have some more ideas. I'm still using the Google Open DNS as suggested by CHSCAG and both my Mac and my wife's HP Windows laptop are delightfully online....for now.

Thanks, in advance for any additional help.

So something has screwed up the startup network settings which somehow correct themselves after several hours. Mackeeper? Or there's some sort of new interference in my local surroundings that's intermittent. I live in a 22 story apt. building.

Click to expand...

(You didn't mention that before..... )

You can imagine how many other folks are using WiFi in that 22 story apartment building. You're probably the victim of channel interference from other WiFi users in the building that are close to you.

There's really not much you can do in that situation but here's something you can try, it may or may not help:

Go back into your router and change the channel that it's operating on. You may have to experiment with various channels so make sure you write down what the settings are before changing them. If you continue to have problems it might mean purchasing a better router - perhaps one that offers dual frequencies.

Sorry 'bout that, but I've been here for ten years with no issues! I've got those little paper/tinfoil "Windsurfer" parabolic reflectors on the two antennas. They've gotten kind of raggedy over the years.

Would creating sort of a tunnel by sitting the modem inside a foil-lined, open-ended cardboard enclosure shield it from interference? I guess even if that was, at all, effective, it would only shield signals coming in at right angles to the antennas.

I'll see if I can figure out the channel change.

Thanks!

I changed from Ch. 6 to Ch. 1, and then to Ch. 11, which offered the best, but disappointing results. Being on a Sunday afternoon everybody's home and surfing their brains out! Where my diagnostics used to detect 3 or 4 networks I now detect a dozen, OR MORE!

Thanks for your help CHSCAG!