Macbook continually drops signal to netgear wireless router

spiki

spiki

spiki

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Hi there - need some help with a little problem

I got my 13" macbook in Sept 07 and shortly after bought a Netgear DG834N wireless router. I set the router up as instructed and initially everything seemed fine. Strong signal and very reliable connection to my desktop and also to the macbook, connecting through airport. However, I have found more recently than whenever I am in other parts of my house and using the mac to browse the net that after a few moments the page will fail to load and I need to go into Preferences and then Network and reconfigure the connection to the wireless network. I had not had this problem previously anywhere in the house. I have the router password protected and using the highest level of security and the mac has no trouble seeing the network. But is there maybe something I can configure on the mac (or router)to keep the connection constant or is it just one of those things with using wireless technology? The max range of the router is 270mps although I could lower this if it would make any difference.

Thanks for any advice you may be able to give me.
 
ok ok ok

since the upgrade to 10.4.8 and right through to leopard out three macs (2xG5 and a macbook pro 15 and a PC (sony) have been having a nightmare of a time keeping wireless connections. like it would drop all the time. i tried everything no joy, ( only in macosx )
so about three days ago i decided to go through each setting on my router and macs ( something i may add i have never had to do at before with other routers )
So i am guessing the issues is somthing to do with Mac OS unable to auto detect wireless security settings.
So i went into my rounter and set it to WPA personal with TKIP encoding and now everything is great.
This only started with 10.9 and same with leopard. LOADS of people are compaining about this issues online. So i suggest you manually setup your connections again on the router and manually on the mac too.

good luck


/edit.... i would try WPA personal too.... maybe its the level of encrytion thats cauing the prob.
 
I have never had such issues with my Macbook, purchased around July time.

I run a Netgear and have the SSID set not to broadcast with WPA PSK, and MAC filtering and the connection is rock solid.

I have mine running on channel 6, if lots of people in your neighbourhood are all running defaults this could cause the issues.

The non overlapping freqencies are 1, 6 and 11, most people will be usually set to 11 or 1 by default so try 6.

Also don't use auto security settings, I would force it.

Not sure if this is any help, just thoguht I would post my 2 pence worth.
 
AFAIK It is a known issue, and was caused by a software update (which would explain the same issues on multiple machines).

You can try changing the wireless channel, and all sorts.. but my advice is try them one at a time otherwise you'll never pinpoint the cause.

If you can't connect using certain encryption try putting a $ infront of the wireless network's SSID :)
 
Ok, quick update

When I did a rescan with airport I am able to pick up two BT home hubs and a BT voyager in my area. I had my channel set to auto but have now selected 6 instead. For some reason security was disabled. I think this may have been because one of the kids powered of my router one night which meant I had to do a factory reset (long story but this is an issue with this Netgear model) and forgot to set security level. Its now set at:

WPA-PSK [TKIP] + WPA2-PSK [AES] plus passowrd protected.

Everything seems to working better. I will try it later again since its usually later in the evening that the problem is most noticable.

Thanks again everyone - you've been really helpful
 
This should be moved to the Networks subsection, I'll RTM it just incase you have further issues :)
 
OK EVH. I thought since it appeared initially to be a macbook problem that it fitted here best, but given the solution, I agree with you.
 
It should be on 10.4.10 or 10.4.11 if you're on Tiger.

You can check by clicking the apple in the top left of the screen, then clicking about this mac.

It's worth installing the update either way and see if it stops after that, since I'm not sure if it would already be on your OS, as I don't recall it showing up on Software update, it won't mess anything up if you do install it, so it's worth giving it a go, I had very similar problems to you and it fixed it.
 
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