Comments on: Question of the Day: Leopard Causing Wi-Fi Dropouts?

By: David Stone

David Stone — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:35:27 +0000

It’s a real issue, and only effects leopard machines using wifi security. On the same network my windows machines and ubuntu machine running wifi have no issues, EVERY. But ever since switching to leopard my macbook is HORRIBLE, dropping out all the time, and not connecting on wake / startup, and airport scans constantly. It’s a real mess, and apple refuses to admit the problem exits. It’s an old issue.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 02:30:56 +0000

I have five items in my house running off my wireless network — a Tivo Series 2, a Tivo HD, a G4 Mac Mini (Tiger), a G4 PowerBook (Tiger), and a NEW MacBook Pro (Leopard). I *do* have interference issues in various locations in my 60 yr old house, BUT I can put my MB next to the Tivo HD, the Mini, and the PB and get terrible to non-existent transmit rates (11 or less) while ALL of the other items get flawless connections to the router. After owning the machine for two weeks I took it to the Houston Apple Store where a “genius” was shocked that I could not pick up their network. He thought I must have a corrupted pref file, so he rebooted the machine in single user mode and deleted the hidden network preferences file (he said that bad airport cards are as likely as winning the lottery). Upon restart, the machine picked up Apple’s network and about five more in the Galleria. Great! Solved! Right? Nope. Within days the problem started up again. Obviously this is an OS problem, and the problem is “simply” fixed by deleting the hidden pref file. Apple obviously knows they have a problem. They obviously know how to treat the symptoms, but they OBVIOUSLY do not know how to cure it. I have seen posts on this problem since November of 2007. It’s now 10 months later. Apple, get with the program!!!

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:56:02 +0000

Being the proud owner of a brand new Mac Book Pro, I'd highly recommend buying the same, unless you need to connect to the internet or burn discs.

Other than that, the computer is great.

By: storydame

storydame — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 04:51:06 +0000

I just switched to macbook with leopard from PC and have had wi fi dropouts ever two to three minutes nonstop on several different systems. I’m astonished you mac users take this so matter of factly when it is a fatal flaw in this program that renders the computer barely useable. Can it really be true there is no fix for this? I’m just floored and astonished. (And cannot take this computer back.) Grateful for anyone who has a better answer than that it cannot be fixed, which is simply unacceptable.

By: Astroboy

Astroboy — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 03:16:14 +0000

I also experienced this problem. After using wifi on my macbook, which is running leopard a while, I lost the connection. My download stopped, safari and firefox couldn’t load the web pages although my wifi connection bar still have full signal. It only works again when I restart the machine. This issue really ANNOYS me, any idea ?

By: John

John — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 04:38:16 +0000

I have 3 Mac Systems...a Macbook pro with tiger, an iMac with leopard, and a macbook air with leopard. Both leopard systems have exhibited this problem non-stop, while my macbook pro does not. It definitely seems to be a leopard problem.

Another clue is that I didn't see this until I updated to 10.5.2...

I'm hoping for a fix soon! It drives me nuts. :)

By: John

John — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 04:37:27 +0000

Another clue is that I didn't see this until I updated to 10.5.2...

I'm hoping for a fix soon! It drives me nuts. :)

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 05:30:52 +0000

I had full bars on 10.3.9 forever. I upgraded to 10.5 and it won’t go past 2 bars. Definitely a bug. I’m on a mirror door. It seems to be a G4 problem. Add it to the list of bugs. ;-)

By: dazza

dazza — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:36:23 +0000

I think we've had this. At first I thought it was the wireless extender I own - so switched it off. Then kept on seeing it and tried rebooting the linksys wireless ADSL router. Still same issue.

Other PCs (wired & wireless) do not suffer the same problem.

Have changed wireless channel to 11 in case its interference from a neighbour.

By: GreyPants

GreyPants — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:24:36 +0000

This is a major problem for me when running Leopard on my Powerbook G4. I managed to sort of fix it by using OpenDNS but it’s still not perfect.