Most importantly after trying to tweak the VISTA settings without success I decided to try Steve’s advise and took Real Player Downloader off of my MacBook Pro by taking it out of the list of startup programs. After doing this, and rebooting my MacBook Pro, low and behold my VISTA laptop and my MacBook Pro can now co-exist happily on the same WIFI network. I now have great speed and no connection drops. Yipee, Yaahoo!!!!!! Finally something that seems to help. I too have my fingers crossed!

For reference, my wireless network was set up using a MAC Time Capsule.

May I express my profound thanks to Lauren, Steve, Ben Lam, and all the others who took the time to make posts and help others to solve this problem!!! You are all wonderful, giving people who I can’t praise enough.

As for Apple, Real Player, and Microsoft I suggest that they get together to resolve this problem as I have found Real Player Downloader to be a useful utility in spite of all the problems it has caused me.

That explains why, when you bring your MBP to the Genius Bar, the connection works because you connect to Apple’s Router while at home this Airport Utility things keep looking for Apple’s Airport station and demend that you spend soe more chaching to buy Apple’s hardware (router). Doh.

Somewhere along, I have updated this package b mistake.

What I did today is re-install Leopard from the DVD install disk then updated straight to Combo 10.5.6 update package. Babing! My connection is rock solid!

Having had at least 3 routers (D-Link, Netgear, Belkin) all with different capabilities (currently using a Pre-N Belkin) the Mac seems to like a router for a while and then develop an allergy to it. Things I find in regards to the solutions I have seen here:

1. Preferences file deletion. Does work, but will quickly stop working.
2. PRAM Reset. Again, does work but quickly stopped working.
3. Change channel on router. Does help, and if anything, using APGrapher to find out what channel your neighbour is on is good simply so you can get the best connection possible.

I am about to try little Snitch, but I have one question for everyone. Where is your router & modem? Mine sits very close to my TV and I wandered about where other people kept their? I have heard of interference from wireless phones etc, but just be interesting to see if there is a common link…

It seems silly that the problem could have been that simple, and maybe it wasn’t. But I’m not going to argue with success at fixing a long, irritating problem.

I know this problem is frustrating beyond most can comprehend. The worst part of this issue is how unclear the cause of the problem is and the lack of a surefire solution.

From my experience, removal of unused or unnecessary Keychains from Keychain Access plus removal of all unused favorite networks solved my Airport wireless network connection drops in Leopard 10.5.2.

I have heard from many that this solution does not solve their disconnection issues. Why this works for some and not others, I cannot explain. There are often too many different variables to definitively point to a cause.

I originally had a DLink router and thought it was the culprit. I bought a Linksys router, to replace it with, thinking this would help. The same problem persisted. I was on the phone with Apple for over 4 hours, being handed from low level to higher level reps and they all said that they have never heard of such a problem before. However one of the reps insisted that if I bought an AirPort Express or Time Capsule with wifi that all my problems should go away. I did buy a 1 terabyte Time Capsule. Well, my problems didn’t go away.

One thing I found is that it is worse in different locations of my house.

If I leave and go to may fathers place, I have no problems with running my MacBook Pro their. If I go to my sisters, I have no problems their either.

I’ve tried turning off all other electronics in the home, have rebooted my router many times and still no success.

I’ve tried all of the suggestions from this very informative forum but nothing seems to work.

One thing is for certain. It now only happens on my MacBook Pro, even with OSX 10.5.6.

I’m starting to think that it may be that someone has hacked/infected my neighbors router and is attempting to use it to collect wifi packets. Is that possible? Do some wifi experts out their know how to steal data via a hacked neighboring wifi?

Who knows, maybe it could be someone playing games with a radio frequency scanner or scrambler. I’m running out of idea’s.

i’ve been having this problem for a while now. I’ve tried most of the suggested fixes but nothing really seems to work. Just to give you my two cents:

it seems that it is a OSX environment thing. I have a macbook pro 10.5.6 and a macbook 10.4.11 and regardless of the system, the internet drops out while the wifi for all intents and purposes is still working. I’ve got an airport express and the green light happily drums along through all of this. was about to send my router back but it seems that i’m not alone! The only thing that fixes it for me is a power cycle on router computers….

Chris