WiFi still dropping
Well, despite my moment of triumph in the previous post, my MacBook Air still kept dropping the WiFi connection. My earlier recommendation seemed to work for a while. So then I tried restarting the computer, and switching wifi off and on again, which worked, but what a pain.
I changed the security settings on my router to WPA2 (was WPA/WPA2). That may have improved things a bit.
Change the Mac's network settings
For those who aren't afraid to delve into the Mac's system here are some more suggestions, relayed from
macdailynews.com/ .
I chose their Fix #2, to change the MTU size.
Eh?
MTU stands for Maximum Transmission Unit and controls the largest packet size allowed for transmission over the network. If this setting is greater than network capacity, the computer will experience packet loss and dropped connections
That post has detailed instructions, although my screens looked a bit different to theirs. I reset the MTU to 1453, a magic number apparently. Hasn't dropped again as yet.
Investigate your network
Temptingly for those who like to delve into the works,
this post also says how to investigate your wireless network in detail. It's getting crowded out there, I discovered just how many other networks there are around mine. You use Wireless diagnostics, on mine it's in Applications. (I definitely do not recommend changing anything other than the settings described in Fixes #1 and #2, as networks are extremely complex and delicate.)
Move the router?
A'hm, the author does suggest another simple solution - move the router to a better position:
Using Wi-Fi Diagnostics I discovered my wireless signal to be much weaker when keeping the wifi router out of sight behind an LCD TV, simply moving the router away from the TV a few feet dramatically boosted signal strength. Run the app yourself and see what kind of performance boost you can get by adjusting your own wifi network.
