Seemingly unsolvable Macbook wifi issue

bakoo5

Estimable
Jun 19, 2014
3
0
4,510
After a great deal of browsing, it seems that wifi issues amongst apple products (specifically computers), are tragically commonplace, yet my laptop appears to have an issue unreported on the internet.

So, my 13" MacBook Pro with Retina Display (which I've owned for just about a year an a half now), has, in the last few months (3 or 4 months I'd say), been having odd wifi issues. I'm stressing that this is, to my knowledge, a new issue with the laptop, in case that has any baring on potential ways to solve the problem.

Essentially, my wifi drops, almost perfectly, every 15 minutes. Consistently. I've tried everything I've seen available, setting up a DNS server/wifi thing (which just didn't work at all), deleting wifi preferences, which does work for about a day, but then the issues shortly return. I've tried playing about with the priority of my wifi over ethernet, the ordering of the wifi it actually connects to, creating a new wifi profile entirely, messing around with power saving preferences, and almost all other preferences you can image could have an impact on wifi. I've also tried deleting that file from keychain which is commonly suggested, but I couldn't even find it in the list of profiles on my keychain so I disregarded that, too.

I've tried extensively, and this is such an annoying issue, whether I'm watching youtube videos, movies, playing online games, etc, such persistent wifi interference is driving me insane, and I'd rather not have to force reboot every other day after deleting wifi files, as it just becomes a needless inconvenience.

I'm at the point where I'm tempted to go to the apple store, but thought I'd ask here for help, in case I can fix it myself, and save myself time and money (as I'd probably have to have my laptop taken away to be fixed, which means sacrificing time spent doing uni work, etc), or have to get a new laptop entirely.

Please, if anyone has some alternate solutions, I will try anything!

Thanks!
 

bakoo5

Estimable
Jun 19, 2014
3
0
4,510


I'm not sure, potentially, would that be router or hardware dependent? If it's possible then I'm willing to try it if I knew how!

It might be worth adding at this point that the issue, to my knowledge, is not with the router or internet itself, no other devices in my house (phones, laptops, etc) disconnect in the same fashion as my laptop.
 

CelicaGT

Honorable
Jul 22, 2013
89
0
10,610
It is done within the router software itself usually. You'll log directly into the router from a browser and make settings from there. The particulars of how to do that, password/username etc should have been supplied with the router (sometimes are an a sticker on the side or bottom if it's ISP supplied). Consider it a step of troubleshooting, and no doubt it will be something you are asked at the Apple store.
 

AntonyLovric

Estimable
Aug 4, 2014
14
0
4,570
There could be a phone (cordless), microwave oven, car alarm, or other access-point that hops around channels and cuts into your channel. Wifi routers work on a carrier frequency (2.4Ghz / 5.8ghz) and channels within that frequency (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels)

There are MANY things that can cause the trouble you're experiencing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2.4_GHz_radio_use#Wi-Fi_networks


There is software I've used on windows systems before to identify channel hoping devices / interference:
http://www.techspot.com/downloads/5936-inssider.html

You can see if there is something running at a given channel, then change your router to not use 'auto' selection but one of the unused channels.

Cheers




 

bakoo5

Estimable
Jun 19, 2014
3
0
4,510
In response to the two suggestions above, I've tried swapping the wifi channel, changing to 5Ghz as opposed to 2.4Ghz (unfortunately, my laptop is the only laptop in my house capable of connecting to it, though, which seems unfair, so had to stop that), but yeah, channel swapping etc hasn't worked thus far, although I'm still channel hopping momentarily and seeing if the wifi lasts longer than the 15 minutes I alluded to in my original post.

It's looking increasingly likely that it's a laptop issue, maybe with the version of OS X, I'm not sure. I'll keep trying channel hopping and searching for other solutions I can execute myself before I take it to the store.