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Fix for Wireless Connection Problems on MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and MacBook Airs

Warning: This is a semi-technical posting for Mac-heads with network connection problems. If you aren’t experiencing this particular problem, you probably won’t find this post too interesting. On the other hand, if you have this problem, you may well regard this information as a God-send.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/imbarney22, Image #704547

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/imbarney22

I thought I was losing my mind. About a week ago, my wireless network connection started flaking out. I would be connected for about two minutes. Then the connection would suddenly drop out. All the while the signal strength would appear to fluctuate wildly.

The most disconcerting thing was that all the other computers in my house were working fine. So, that pretty much ruled out a problem with the modem or the router (an Airport Base Station). Nevertheless, I tried changing a few settings on the router and managed to completely trash the system. Argh!

I finally got it to work for a few minutes and posted a request for help in Apple’s Internet, Networking the MacBook Pro Support Forum. I promptly headed for the gym to chill out.

After an hour’s hard run, I came back to the forum and found that a guy named Brody had posted a reply. He directed me to a FAQ he had put together specifically for MacBook Pro connection problems. Though it’s a little old, I recommend reading it. I had already tried most of his suggestions, but #12 completely healed my system. It has been working ever since.

Here’s what I did:

  1. I clicked on the Apple Menu () on the upper left-hand corner of the screen. I selected System Preferences. I then clicked on the Network icon.
  2. In the dialog box, I clicked on the Advanced tab in the lower right-hand corner. I then clicked on my network entry and drug it to the top, so that it was the first entry in the list. (It may take a couple of tries to “grab” it.) It looked like this:

    System Preferences | Network | Advanced

  3. I then clicked on Apply Now and shut down my computer.
  4. Next I re-started my computer and zapped the PRAM. This sounds more dangerous than it really is. You simply hold down the Command (⌘), Option, P, and R keys simultaneously immediately after re-starting the system. You must do this before the gray screen appears. Don’t let go of the keys until you hear the startup sound for the second time.

That’s all there is to it. Evidently, something got corrupted in my PRAM. Clearing it fixed the problem. Kind of like a reboot.

Don’t worry if you don’t understand what PRAM is. I still don’t. All I know is that my system is fixed, and I am happily surfing away.

Question: Did this fix work for you? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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Posted on January 1, 2007

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  • Heyderhoder

    My airport utility icon shows  that the AirPort card within the computer is disabled. I click on the ico in my status bar and it gives me the option of “turn on AirPort on”, or “open network preferences”. Also in that little window is “AirPort: Off” but it wont let me click on that. so I click on “turn AIrPort On” and nothing happened. My airport has been working flawlessly for a year and just today, it’s not working. I havent’ been messing around with any preferences. Any thoughts? i tired what you tried but i dont have a dop down “show” field in my network. help?

  • Jakobburkhardt

    Didnt have to zap pram, but hitting apply on airport, and restarted, then hitting network diagnostics on safari worked after the restart ! Thanks

  • guest

    worked for me! had slow internet on my computer for a month. this took 2 minutes and its fixed! Thanks. 

  • AJHR

    Mike this worked like a charm you are a genius. Who would of thought shuffling the lineup, re-boot and the PRAM tram scram wham would have done it. Mac Book Pro works like a charm now!!!!!! Actually the internet connection speed is faster now.

    • http://michaelhyatt.com Michael Hyatt

      I’m so glad!

  • Uffe_17

    I have a MBP early 2008, where there has been no connection problems until I decided to buy an Iomega eGo BalckBelt firewire/usb disk. When I connect the external drive using the fw800 the WiFi conneciton starts to get unstable. Using the USB port doesn’t cause this instability. Anyone else that has made this connection between the firewire disk and Wifi problems?

  • Brenda

    Like everyone else, I’ve been fighting this issue for months! # 12 did it for me as well.

  • http://sportsblanketsandmore.com Tim

    I think the Network options have changed in the meantime because nothing looks the same, however, I “zapped the PRAM” as described and that seemed to fix it. Thanks a bunch.

  • Melissajfl

    Thank you!!!  I am not a MAC gal and it worked like a charm!  My children will be happy when they return home from school!

  • Elia

    Great! Thank you very much: this issue was driving me crazy, and your explanation helped! Thank you!

  • Jocobbett

    really helped me; i was going crazy thank you… i got a new battery and i thought something was defective; it worked, but the connection only came in with the old one, then not with either, and your answer was so easy!!  

  • Margaretmichel

    I want to thank you for the solution to my connection problems,  I tried talking to ATT, they were very unhelpful, MAC wanted $$$$$ to try to help, I was at a loss, I’m running a powerbook G4 and a G4, both considered old at this time, both connecting wirelessly, one on airport extreme and one on express and both are running a PC virtual machine Home edition for a stock trading program.  I was having the same problems you described and I thank you for the help afforded in your article.  Thankyou xoxoxo  Margaret Michel

  • http://www.facebook.com/dawie.beer Dawie De Beer

    After my upgrade to 10.7.2 I experienced “Connection timeout occurred”when attempting to connect to my wireless router.  I scouted the net for a solution and nothing on the net could solve the problem.  Last night I played around a bit and found a solution to my problem.  My network name had a space in it, i.e. “Router Name”.  I changed the network name on the router to “RouterName” and this solved all my timeout issues. Hope this helps some one else getting back on line…

  • Fred

    It worked ! It worked ! It worked !
    I didn’t know that now God sends messages through blog !

    I ♡ U

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  • Eskerbillion

    Just figured out why my Macbook wouldn’t stay connected.  The baby monitor was interfering!  Turned the baby monitor off, internet works perfectly again. 

  • Yunusmutlu

    thank you man. You are a genius. Greetings from Turkey.

  • Zucker

    we have a new (5 months old) mac book pro with similar problems.  the symptoms were a very long time to start up on the internet with much aggivation. Once we were on the net via wi-fi, the problem did not exist.  going to sleep mode and back on and the problem re-appeared.  The apple store service expert reset the internet parameters and did this PRAM reset procedure.  the problem went away.   He stated the PRAM was corrupted.  Long term, he suggested going to a complete computer shutdown turning periodically, rather than hibernate or sleep, and leaving the computer off for 30 minutes.  This activity resets the PRAM and prevents this internet accessibility problem.

    hope this helps  

  • AJ

    I have a wifi problem with my MBP Mac OS X vers 10.6.8.  It used to work perfectly, but toda it just does not connect to my home wifi. I tried PRAM and cleared keychain., but it says connection timeout. WEP password is correct – it works with another device.

  • Bballkid54

    just saved my night. thanks man

  • GAMAC

    YES!  Thank you so much.  Before doing the PRAM reset, I had tried everything and continued to get “Connection Failed…see Network Administrator” along with another pesky warning prior to that one with an icon that would pop up at the bottom called “mapconnector” which didn’t do anything.  Also, my connection would drop and had problems with it freezing up on me.  Now, it seems all is o.k. (Fingers crossed).  I really appreciate the recommendation. 

    • Andrew Pressfield

      You are welcome. I’m so glad it worked out for you.

  • Gio

    Having the same damn problems with my brand new macbook pro. Just bought it 2 weeks ago. 
    It is a shame that Apple isn’t able to fix these problems. Thought i bought something special but it seems i was wrong. Well … at least the price is special :)

  • Locatethis

    Nope!

  • An Irish Lass

    I’m so happy I could cry :)  I had the same prob – my printers were on the network, but my macbook pro couldn’t find them.  I changed the channel on my router from 1 to 10 and wha-la!  I feel stupid, but I’m so glad it was simple. Praise the Lord!!

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  • http://www.stopthetraffik.org/ Jocasta Carmichael

    “I then clicked on the Airport entry and drug it to the top…”

    Wow, not only a solution to my problem but also I learnt (or “learned” for all of you American folks) a brand new word! LOL!

    “Drug!” I think you mean, “dragged”

    :)

  • Ttrip4

    This did not fucking help. I dont have a “show” drop down menu

  • http://www.wmarkthompson.com W. Mark Thompson

    Great help here. Wish I could have fixed our problem like this. Sometimes ALL your gear goes out at once. Crazy. Had to replace modem AND router at same time. But learned something here for sure! Thx!

  • Jay

    It’s hard not to think about planned obsolescence here.

    My macbook pro (2006) is having always more problems with time : 

    First wifi crashing after a few hours (sometimes it’s just minutes)

    Then, when waking up :
    1) systematically going out of deep sleep instead of simple sleep (10 sec delay each and every time),
    2) every second time, after the grey screen from deep sleep is correctly backlit, backlight goes out -> need to restart my mac. Wait… did I buy a pc ?
    3) and now occasionnally, the keyboard inverting normal and “verr num” mode (annoying green light when typing text)…

    Man… I’m buying a computer to mainly go on the internet, read email and type text. If it worked 5 years ago and I didn’t break it, it should still be working now.

    If I put more than 2000 euro (yeah american friends, that’s about 2800 USD) into a computer to get one that works instead of crashing all the time, I don’t expect to have to buy another one every 5 years because it starts falling apart.

    That’s just an insult to customers and a criminal use of our natural resources.
     
    At least Apple should put a sign on the computer, “Mission Impossible” style : “this computer will self-destroy in 4-5 years”

    … or perhaps just replace the leaf of the Apple logo with a burning wick ?

    • http://michaelhyatt.com Michael Hyatt

      That is certainly not normal. Apple repeatedly gets the highest customer satisfaction scores. Something is not right with your machine. Can you take it into an Apple Store? I always buy AppleCare with my machines, and I rarely have problems. When I do, Apple fixes it immediately.

      • Jay

        Thanks Michael for your reply. Considering that my mac is 5 years old, do you think an AppleCare protection plan would have helped ? I’ll try to call them anyway and perhaps take it to the Paris applestore, 400km away from Nantes where I live. But I suspect they’ll ask for $ 1,000  to change the logic board, i.e. the price of a new macbook. My local apple premium reseller asks for $50 just to have a look…

        This was my first mac. I loved it until I had these annoying problems. I still works somehow and I found-out tricks to make it work more or less correctly, but this really sucks.

        On this french blog:
        http://www.coolriders.org/2009/04/21/duree-vie-mbp/
        another mbp user rants about his mbp that lasted 3 years and 2 months, and decided to switch back to a Thinkpad Lenovo X220i, as for him, all things considered, windows 7 with a 3 years on-site guarantee extensible to 5 years would be a lesser evil than a Mac with a 1 year not-on-site guarantee extensible to 3 years for a large amount of money…

  • http://www.rackmountsales.com/SUN_Keyboard_Drawers_s/91.htm Rackmount LCD Monitor

    Thanks for making me conscious about this latest expertise
    and find out the actual size of your knowledge about wireless connection. You
    are so inspirational and you talk sense in your posts.
     

  • Moirakel

    thanks this worked like charm.  RK

  • Eurydice13

    I have been unable to go online with my new macbook air. I’ve had it for 3 weeks. My first mac. And beginning to think that they’re crap. Have been on the phone to support 4 times, to the genius bar twice, with no results. This doesn’t work either. D’you think they’ll refund me the £1700 i’ve forked out on this paperweight and its paraphernalia? (written from my ipad)

    • http://michaelhyatt.com Michael Hyatt

      I believe Apple has a 30-day return policy. Personally, I would ask them to replace it with another machine. I’ve owned about a dozen Macs and have never had serious, permanent trouble. Maybe you just got a lemon.

  • DR. X

    Thanks you so much! you fixed it! i love you!!!!!

  • Anonymous

    I had the same problems with my MacBook Pro since I upgraded to OSX Lion. I tried everything including rebuilding my System Preferences for wireless, moving Wifi to the top, moving my Network to the top, resetting the PRAM, resetting the NVRAM. Some of the solutions would seem like they working for example they would last a day or two compared to the previous 1-2 hours that my Wifi connection would last. But eventually the misbehaving Wifi condition would return and I would have to reset my Wifi every 1-2 hours. I have fixed my problem, want to know how, I bought an Airport Express and connected it as secondary Wifi, with my router still supplying a Wifi connection as well. It has been rock solid for over 2 weeks now.

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  • Anonymous

    Worked like a charm!

  • Anonymous

    Worked like a charm!

  • csclmh

      JP- Thanks! Your fix seems to have taken care of it!

  • Frwacko

    This fix works like a charm!

  • Rowleyuk

    Turning off IPV6 worked for me

  • Seth

    Did not work for me. Then I tried re-setting the router. Duh.

  • Mrastita

    ahhhhh- it did not work

  • Mrastita

    don’t know what finally made it work- i zapped the PRAM- no change
    Then i went in and re entered the WEP password- now it works- persistence and perserverance pays off- thanks for all your comments

    • http://michaelhyatt.com Michael Hyatt

      Great. I’m glad it worked for you.

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  • Lwatts

    I thought it did until last night. Then I lost connectivity again. When this happens, my husband never loses his, nor our 2 I-phones. FRUSTRATING!!!!

  • Lionel

    Didn’t work . Going to smash computer !

  • Jackie

    I’ve been having this problem for a month with no solution! I’ve been through 3 routers, two networks, and numerous calls to AT&T. This worked–thank you!!

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  • 79ramon

    Works for me!  (Macbook pro early 2011) Thanks so much!

  • Developersleigh

    That fix is awesome!!!!!! Thank you very much for taking the time to do this. I am going to post the link to a Mac forum as the world needs to know this. Thanks again.

    Leigh

    • http://www.jmlalonde.com Joe Lalonde

      Thanks for sharing the link on the Mac forum. I’m sure they’ll appreciate the information!

  • http://www.mactonweb.com/ Web design London

    Thank you, I had wasted so much time trying to make the connection and getting no where – I couldn’t believe my MacBook going wrong it has been so brilliant up to this frustration. 

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