OS X 10.5.8 wireless issues: Airport slow or nonfunctional when on battery
<p>Yesterday we found that some laptop owners who applied the 10.5.8 system update were having difficulties connecting to their WiFi networks. There are a variety of reports regarding this issue, some of which claim the WiFi cannot connect at all, others
Written by Topher Kessler
Yesterday we found that some laptop owners who applied the 10.5.8 system update were having difficulties connecting to their WiFi networks. There are a variety of reports regarding this issue, some of which claim the WiFi cannot connect at all, others that claim WiFi is slower, and some discussing only intermittent WiFi connectivity. Despite these, many other people who have updated (including us at MacFixIt) have not had these WiFi problems even on the same hardware reported.
It appears this problem for the most part happens when people run on the battery, as described in several Apple discussion threads (1, 2). For instance, when plugged into A/C power, servers can be pinged with a consistent response time; however, when switching over to battery the response time will become very erratic. While this indicates the possibility of specific hardware incompatibility, this problem has been shared by both MacBook and MacBook Pro owners. Additionally, owners of the same type of computer with the same Airport card firmware and hardware revisions have had different effects by the update, with some losing connectivity and others running just fine. People with differing router setups also have experienced the same problem, indicating the network is not to blame.
All evidence points to a software problem, or at least how the software is interacting with specific hardware settings, and as such there are several potential fixes that can be attempted:
- Reset the PRAM and SMC
Since this appears to be a power issue, some setting in the PRAM or SMC may be contributing to the problem, so first try resetting these controllers. To reset the PRAM, reboot and hold the options-command-P-R keys all at once; the system will continually reset and make the boot chimes as long as these keys are held. Let the system reset a couple of times and then release the keys and allow it to boot normally. To reset the SMC for portable systems, refer to this Apple knowledgebase article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411
- Clear system caches
There may be a boot cache or kernel cache error that is contributing to this problem. Perhaps a setting or driver in the caches is being loaded incorrectly if the system has not cleared the boot caches properly after updating, so you can do several things to ensure the system's caches are flushed and reset. The first is to boot into Safe Mode, which will run some maintenance scripts at startup and clear some caches. When in Safe Mode, run a third-party cache cleaning utility and clear all system caches, especially the boot and kernel caches. Several that we recommend are the following:
- Remove and re-add Airport networking service
Go to the Network system preferences and remove the Airport service, clicking "Apply" to ensure the new configuration is saved. Then click the " " button and add the service back, saving it with "Apply" as well.
- Reapply the combo updater
Download the OS X 10.5.8 Combo updater and then boot into Safe Mode (hold shift at startup) and apply the updater. Users have found that running the updater twice has cleared some other problems, such as the permissions errors, and has helped a few with their WiFi connectivity issues.
Overall, while this problem may require Apple to address it, these suggestions should get some people up and running since the problem does not appear to be an incompatibility with specific hardware. In the mean time, if you are not able to clear the problem, you should still be able to connect to WiFi networks by keeping A/C power plugged in.
UPDATE: It appears Apple is aware of this problem and is looking into a fix. We will report any updates as they come.
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Topher has been an avid Mac user for the past 10-15 years, and has been a contributing author to MacFixIt for just over a year now. One of his diehard passions has been troubleshooting Mac problems and making the best use of Macs and Apple hardware both for family and friends, as well as in the workplace. He and the newly formed MacFixIt team are hoping to bring enhanced and more personable content to our readers, and keep the MacFixIt community going here at CNET. If you have questions or comments for Topher or the other MacFixIt editors, feel free to contact us at http://www.macfixit.com/contact
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