Upgraded to 10.5.8 (from what was maybe 10.5.6?) and it all broke loose. Dropping connections all the time. Never lasting an hour, sometimes only lasting a minute. Tried all the pref deleting stuff. Tried every combination of radio settings on the base station that I could. Nothing worked.

I had a strong suspicion that it’s all about the “n” networks, but you can’t turn off “n” on this base station. You can’t force your client to only use b or g, either.

I took an older AP Express from my travel bag and plugged it in and made a “parallel” network (b/g only). I now connect just fine and have had no drops.

So, it does seem to be a problem with “n” networks. I think Apple needs to put an option on the clients that allows you to force “g” connections. They obviously have issues with “n” networks that are not going to be fixed quickly. (These sorts of bugs can be very hard to squash.)

I’m really ticked off by this. Flawless wireless has been an Apple trademark for many years. They got ahead of themselves with 802.11n, and don’t seem to be taking any actions to protect that reputation.

Flakey network connections, in this day and age, are completely unacceptable. Apple needs to take the hit to their egos, admit that the “n” standard isn’t appropriate for everyone yet, and give us the option to operate on older, more stable standards. Immediately.

All devices plus airports are all Apple stuff. How can this happen?

Airport connection LOOKS OK all the time. Five bars. You notice it when Safari tells you that you cannot load a page. Then it starts up fine again after closing and opening airport again.

I have realized that there is no magic to solve this, just wanted to add to the different symptoms listed here, so someone might see a pattern one day and solve it.

i know this is totally dumb luck or prob has nothing to do with the prob, but i removed “hotspot shield” and have not had a dropped connection since.

take this at face value, i was willing to try anything.

luck all

If you are considering changing from a PC to an iMac, don’t do it. I had all of these great expectations and it’s all the same… It just does not work. And trust me, I am an electrical engineer and cannot get this to work.

My imac was working fine and then I did an “upgrade” and everything broke. I cannot and will not run CAT5 cable from my router to my MAC. Nope… “Not gonna do it.” My mac worked great when I first got my imac Intel core duo. Now it does not work. I know I am not the only one. Do a google search on “imac wireless dropout”. Then you’ll see the pain an frustration.

My next purchase… Dell PC. I had so much faith in the imac. I’ve done nothing out of the ordinary. I just did an upgrade… And my wireless network connection is gone. Strong signal… then just disappears. Don’t purchase this… You’ll go crazy like me….

Sorry Apple. You lost my faith and trust. Right now…. zero bars. What the f!@#$.

dz

However the issue was also apparent on a Dell notebook running Vista and on Bootcamp where there were difficulties connecting to the wireless network on bootup.

Tried various security methods (WEP, WPA, WPA2) and all had similiar issues. Suspecting that the issue now lies with the Belkin Wireless N Modem-Router and more specifically the algorithm used to authenticate, I turned off security and enabled filtering by MAC address (MacBook, Dell laptop, iPhone 3G and iPod touch) to only allow those devices to connnect.

I was seeing authentication timeout messages on Vista that gave me a clue on the connectivity issues.