WiFi secrets revealed

I've joined a new broadband and phone provider. New ISP, new modem - and this one seems to be noticeably slower than its predecessor. So I checked my earlier blog about wifi problems, and opened up Apple's Wireless Diagnostics.

Last time I ran this application there were lots of interesting charts and information about one's wifi connection. Now, they seem to have disappeared with only a boring screen telling one all is well (or, I suppose, not).

However, I found a clue elsewhere online. The discussion refers to Mavericks but I'm running Mountain Lion - same applies.

Bizarrely, with Wireless Diagnostics open, go to the top menu bar and click Window > Utilities. You get a new window with all the previous ways to allow you to obsess about your wifi setup.

Oh dear, my Performance chart is not looking good -  apparently signal (RSSI) should be a lot stronger than noise (makes sense), at least -25 between the numbers, while mine has barely -10.

I can see hours of "fun" coming up trying to sort this out. Watch this space.

MacBook Air drops WiFi connection - solved

We had to change the wifi security to WEP to accommodate a primitive PC laptop. After that I had to re-log in to the wifi network every time it woke up. Absolutely maddening.

Lots of internet searching and different solutions later, eg delete network and re-add it, etc. Finally a sensible suggestion from someone: Run Repair Permissions from disk utility.

Problem solved, connection drops no more. So simple!

A few weeks later ...

This is from me! I really was doubtful that the solution could be that simple, but my MacBook Air was dropping the connection again, this time to a brand new BT HomeHub router.

So I ran Permissions Repair and guess what, it's fixed again! Hope it lasts.

And subsequently ...

Dropped again - this time I just did "turn WiFi off" from the top menu bar, and then on again, and it picked up again.