Greetings all,
I got my GF a macbook in Feb 08, so it is a 2.0 GHz model running OSX 10.5.2 Being a gift, she just opened it up and right off the bat we are having poor wireless connections. Sitting right next to her with a Dell laptop, I can get great speeds but the macbook will be chugging along at dial up speeds both off the battery and plugged in. It happens when the Dell isn't running next to it also, so it isn't due to interference from that computer. BTW, it has an Airport Extreme broadcom card.

I have done some searching on the apple forums and there are a lot of threads from people with the same issue and I was curious if anyone over here has seen the same. Doing a few searches didn't bring anything up over here. I am unfamiliar with the OS X and have been stumbling around unsuccessfully trying to find software updates and what not. If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them. The apple forums....well not to bash them but they aren't too helpful.

There was one solution that I saw and tried that involved deleting an airport file in the library but that didn't help any. Thanks!

Next time you should get a PC, it just works.

lol sorry I couldn't resist.

I suggest checking to see if the drivers for your broadcom card are installed. If they are then re-install them. Other than that check the specifications for the card. It may be possible that is just what the bandwith is for that card.

Then again, Broadcomm and *nix seem to have issues. I say try reinstalling the driver. If that doesn't work, give Apple call.

Well, if it makes you feel any better, if this laptop was for me I wouldn't have gone with it. What is driving me nuts is that the OS X doesn't display the connection speed. The user friendly features that lock you out of anything informational about your system is pretty sweet. I am trying to give it a chance though, this is my 2nd day with OS X.


Where do you find driver information about hardware in the OS X? I found the firmware version but nothing about drivers.

Maybe this explains the problem. http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9 [...] ag=newsmap

Grumpy

Wow, that is pretty interesting. Thanks for the link Grumpy. A lot of fingers are being pointed at the software seeing that people have noticed the problem after upgrading to leopard. They run older versions of OS X or Windows Vista and find that it goes away.

It is good to hear that schools are acting against it to get Apple's attention. Taking in account the THG article about Apple shutting down threads about faulty monitors really has me convinced that they listen to their customers

*Update*

Well, I turned WEP off from my router and everything seems to be fixed...the problem is that I can't run my network unsecure though. This sucks. My router isn't the best either. It is a Netgear WGR614 v6, 54Mbps G router.

The thing that sucks is that with WEP off, all three of my computers have an insanely huge increase in stability now with their wireless connection. The Mac was utterly useless and my other two PCs would drop to 1Mbps a lot. Now they all run at a solid 54Mbps and have been for 3 days.

I have a new question for the experts. Would a newer router have a more stable and faster WEP connection or will this happen across the board regardless of router? I am messing around with WPA-PSK security at the moment but my old laptop doesn't seem to use it. I am in an apartment complex so I need to figure something out soon, I can't run unsecure for that long.