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fdmendez · Aug 20, 2006, 08:12 PM

Hey guys,

I'm new to the mac world. I just bought a macbook pro two weeks ago as a replacement for my older Acer pentium M machine. I really like Mac OSX and the Macbook pro as a whole as well, but I don't like how hot it gets underneath after being on for a significant amount of time (but that's anohter issue but if you can offer any advice as to whether this is fixable please do).

Anyways, I've noticed that when I'm running off the battery, the Macbook Pro won't stay connected to my wifi network unless i'm actively using it. I like this power saving feature (it's a power saving feature right? not a defect?), but it disconnects way too soon. Is there any way to make it stay on longer w/o disconnecting or just leaving it on all the time? This is a great forum btw.

paulccpaul · Aug 20, 2006, 08:24 PM

Not sure what your problem is exactly, I've never seen an option to change network connectivity related to power saving, but recently I had a problem in my powerbook with the wifi disconnecting or rather being connected but not pinging, and I changed the airport extreme card and that fixed it. You might try opening energy saver and adjusting your performance settings under battery to see if that changes anything. Also, you can open up network preferences in your system prefs and double click airport and under the airport tab click on the options button and select automatically join an open network instead of having it on ask before joining an open network. If you've saved your password in your keychain, that might fix it by automatically reconnecting?

fdmendez · Aug 20, 2006, 09:00 PM

really? i thought that this was a feature... weird. anyone else got anything?

ghporter · Aug 20, 2006, 09:00 PM

Welcome to the MacNN Forums, fdmendez! I'm glad you've graduated to a more solid platform, and that you had the good sense to look here for answers!

But we have a forum specifically for networking issues, and I'm pretty sure this will turn out to be a networking issue, not an issue with your MacBook Pro.

Unless someone can show how this is a MBP hardware issue, I'm going to move it to Networking.

fdmendez · Aug 20, 2006, 09:03 PM

it's all good man, i just want to get this figured out.

ghporter · Aug 20, 2006, 09:07 PM

So do I. I have one coming in the near future. But I don't know what's going on yet, so I'm going to leave this here until someone who knows what's going on tells us both!

fdmendez · Aug 21, 2006, 03:00 AM

WTF!? Why does it keep disconnecting? I know I found another thread on this forum with the same topic but no one replied.

dahcar · Aug 21, 2006, 11:10 AM

there are a couple threads on the apple forums about this. i'm too lazy to look it up, but you might want to check it out. my MBP 15 drops the network connection randomly, but never happens when i take it to the apple store. i haven't noticed that it only happens on battery though. i just sent it in through applecare to take a look at it among other small issues. if it comes back working properly i'll let you know.

als352 · Sep 13, 2006, 10:08 AM

I'm experiencing this same problem and was wondering if anyone has had any success in figuring out what's wrong. I'm also a first time mac owner, with 2.0 GHZ MBP and 1.5gb of RAM. I'm usiing a linksys router that's I've had for a couple of years and never had a problem. But when using the MBP on battery, the airport randomly disconnects, even when only 10ft away from the router with a direct line of sight. Sitting in the same spot connected to the power adapter and it works fine. Any thoughts?