Wifi drops intermittently on Macbook Air

Hello,

The wifi on my macbook air keeps dropping intermittently but works perfectly fine on my windows laptop and android phones at the same time. I have been having this issue for over 4 months now. Note: The wifi bars at the top right corner remain the same but the internet stops working.

Here are the details of my macbook and router:
1. 2011 Macbook Air with OS X El Capitan v 10.11.6
2. Router: Dlink model DIR 600M


I have tried the below options but nothing worked:
a. Formatting the system
b. Upgrading from Yosemite to El Capitan
c. Changing the wifi router from Linksys to Dlink
d. Deleting the folder /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration and restarting the computer
e. Adding 8.8.4.4 to the DNS tab of the Advanced settings in Network Preferences
f. Gave the macbook to the authorized Apple service center in India. They monitored the connectivity on their wifi network for 48 hours and found no issues
g. Contacted my local wifi network provider but they have no idea either. They only configure the router.

The only thing that works is this:
a. Click on the wifi bar icon(at top right corner)
b. Click on 'Turn Wi-Fi Off'
c. Click on the same wifi bar icon
d. Click on 'Turn Wi-Fi On'

Can somebody please help?

Thanks,
Jatin

Hello,
That's a lot of fundamental fixes! It sounds like unstable connectivity due to environmental issues.

You can try

Going to Sys Prefs/Network/Wi-Fi and drag your network up to the top of the list of preferred networks.

Press the alt key whilst left-clicking the wi-fi icon which will bring your wi-fi stats up and put a diagnostics tool at your disposal. After you've run this there is a link to some wi-fi best practices.

Forcing your mac onto a different frequency (5gHz) as long as your wi-fi router is dual band.

Removing any source of interference..metal, cordless phones on the 2.4gHz band, fix your router up high

Cheers
Liam

It seems like the Macbook gets a DHCP assigned address that probably has a short expiration and Mac does not renew the assigned IP address.

I am not certain, if you have access to it, but...

Can you assign a static IP for the Macbook? Alternatively, you could try reserving IP for the Mac in DHCP reservation in the router configuration based on the Mac's MAC address.

All the above advice is excellent and I suggest you give it all a try. Setting a static ip address in the mac would be one of my first tries just to see if that made a difference. The only downside to that is you will have to change it back if you use your MB Air on other networks. Which brings me to a question - have you tried the MB Air on any other wireless networks to see how it acts? If so does it have the same issue of dropping connection?

One other thought would be to check what wireless security your router is using. I use wpa2 personal on my Time Capsule. Some routers also ask for encryption selection of either TKIP or AES. AES is the most secure and should be selected. Most common settings are WPA2 and AES.

Lisa

Sorry to say, but the issue is most likely "old technology" from your router.

I had similar issues with a couple of different Apple devices in my house. Connectivity would randomly drop off and you couldn't get things to work without disconnecting and reconnecting from the WiFi network. Like you, I was using 802.11b/g routers and they were simply not up to the task of supporting my devices properly. I replaced the router with an ASUS AC3100 and have not had an issue since.

It could be "old technology". But another thought - have you thought about looking to see if the router has a firmware update available?

Lisa