the name, 'airport' is cute and all, but...

does it ever 'just work'? because mine certainly doesn't...i have a G router in my office (linksys) and several times a day it will drop my connection claiming that the connection has been 'compromised' when in fact it hasn't. i was having the same problem with my home G router so i went out and bought a new N router to pair with the fancy new N card in the MBP only to find out that 'airport' doesn't play well with draft-n networks (even though the card is N!!??)

i had to lock my shiny new N router (netgear) to wireless-G just to be able to make and sustain a connection. well, sort of...it still tells me its been compromised and turns itself off on occasion.

linksys and netgear are arguably the two most popular brands of home-class networking gear. so i'd rather not hear the apple apologist schpeal about how apple can't test all routers on the market for compatibility...

so, does your airport 'just work'? and if so, what does the configuration look like?

aside from this nagging problem, i love the mac and the os. but this is getting a little aggravating after dropping close to 4 grand on the new MBP...

I have no problem keeping a wireless G connection on a powerbook easily 80 feet away and up a floor. My guess would be the internet service provider if both routers didn't work. Can you maintain a connection on other computers/devices?

yeah, my linux machine (opensuse) and xp machine (former - replaced w/the mac) never have/had any problems. my isp at work is time warner T1. at home it's a local cable provider (i like to bet on the little guy when i can). but i've had the problem in both locations....

I have had no issues at all with my iBook G4, 2 Mac Minis (One Intel and one PPC), iMac and older G4 Tower, all using Airport to 2 different Linksys routers, a Netgear used as a Wireless Access Point and my neighbors Dlink. Never one drop, faultless and fast 24 hours a day. I can walk with the iBook 3 doors down to my neighbors and still get to the one Linksys and it's dead stable. Don't know what to say.

Are you using Encryption? If so what, WEP? WPA? WPA2?

Make sure SSID broadcast is turned on and that you're using WPA/WPA2 - once you've done that, you should be good to go.

In my experience, Macs work fine with third-party routers, but they do seem to have a "preference" for a certain configuration.

Personally, I use a Linksys WRT54GL. Had some issues when I first got my MBP, but once I switched over to SSID broadcast enabled, life was good. WPA2 also seemed to increase performance by a fair margin. Don't forget to check your firmware revision and see if there are any updates.

Nobody thinks the common denominator here is the MBP? I once had this issue with my iBook back in the day. It didn't come with a built in wireless card so I had to buy one. I could hardly ever get a signal anywhere. It would just come and go. Come to find out I hadn't connected the antennae very well. Anyway the moral to the story is you might have a bum Airport card I'd get it checked out if I were you.

IronMac said:

Nobody thinks the common denominator here is the MBP? .

Click to expand...

I would if it wasn't working at all - intermittent drops are likely a function of interference or configuration issues. As I said before, in my experience, Macs are very picky about the way a connection is configured.

I also have connection problems with my MacBook. I'm working off a Netgear G router. Its not mine so I don't have physical access to it, but the default password was used for the configuration and setup so I have fooled with the internal settings with no luck. Again my windows computer run flawlessly off of it with good signal.

I also had an issue at home with using two APs. Both were named the same on the same network. Windows would switch between the two without a problem but the mac would lock onto one and get poor signal. I just turned the one off and got better overall signal strength.