Mac Mini wireless broken?

Scythe · 9 May 2009 at 16:36

Hi, over the last few days, I have noticed my signal for the router getting less and less. This is unusual as it always has full bars around the house, and my laptop (which I'm using now next to my mac) has full bars.

However, my mac can no longer see any wireless networks regularly, and when it does see my network, it refuses to connect with 'connection timeout'.

I had not put any patches on to cause this, it just happened randomly. System is running Leopard and is fully up to date.

Any ideas on how to fix this? Hope the wireless card itself hasnt died on me!

Edit: I have already repaired disk permissions also. Does anyone know where the wireless config plist files are? Perhaps deleting them and letting it recreate them will fix the problem.

Scythe · 10 May 2009 at 10:54

bump.

Anyone have any ideas?

geekyEd · 10 May 2009 at 11:18

if it is broken popping a new one in isn't difficult.

Fillado · 10 May 2009 at 11:32

Since the router appears to be working fine and your Mac Mini did work fine with it...

In order to try:

System Preferences > Network > Airport > Advanced > (Airport Tab) Delete every network. Then spotlight Keychain Access and delete all Airport Network Passwords. Then add the network back as normal.

If you are using WEP encryption, do the same as above but before adding it back change the encryption on the router to WPA or WPA2.

If that doesn't work, factory reset the router, delete the networks and passwords and do the same as above.

Last resort: Backup, format (make sure to select this, not archive and install or upgrade or whatever) and reinstall OS X. With formatting be aware of what you need to backup. It may sound drastic but what with the randomness of it all if it doesn't work after doing that then it's definitely a hardware problem

Scythe · 10 May 2009 at 13:51

I have deleted the airport prefrences plist file and let it recreate it, and it seems to have improved.

Will see how it goes!

Edit: Just came back to my mac, no luck. Although it connected on boot, it soon dropped the connection.

I just create a adhoc network from my mac, when works on my laptop, so it seems to be able to create a wireless network, but not join to one!

Scythe · 14 May 2009 at 21:55

UPDATE:

Currently running ubuntu 9.04 off live cd on my mac mini.

Connects fine and sees the other networks in the area, which OSX fails to, even after a fresh install.
However, my windows laptop next to my mac reports full signal, whereas this only reports 55% signal. Possible antenna problem?

Where is the antenna on the Mini, could it be possible that wiring has come loose? I'd rather not buy a new airport card for 80 quid when it can be repaired easily by myself!

Many thanks