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drainyoo · May 3, 2005, 08:29 PM

Every since I installed Tiger the range of my Airport is only at 2 bars. No matter where I am in my apartment. Even when I put my Powerbook right next to the AE the bars stay at 2.

Anyone experiencing this?

ghporter · May 3, 2005, 10:04 PM

How long have you had this PowerBook? Sometimes the antenna cable works loose, and reception goes down the tubes. Check the card out and see if the cable is fully seated. Since just about everyone else is saying that Tiger improves AirPort performance, I think you've run into a coincidence, not some real OS problem.

ghporter · 04:10 PM

Oops. Doubled on me.

drainyoo · May 4, 2005, 02:07 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

How long have you had this PowerBook? Sometimes the antenna cable works loose, and reception goes down the tubes. Check the card out and see if the cable is fully seated. Since just about everyone else is saying that Tiger improves AirPort performance, I think you've run into a coincidence, not some real OS problem.

Ive had it for about 2 years.

Where is the atenna cable?

Grrr · May 4, 2005, 03:10 PM

Its the same on my pb.. After waking up or a restart, it shoots up to the full 4 bars. Then settles at 2, regardless of how close or far i am from the base station. Previously it stayed at 3 bars on OS 10.3
In fact, my imac is now at 2 bars also, when that was also at 3 bars previously too.
Signal reception is the same as it has always been tho, I checked this with APgrapher.

drainyoo · May 4, 2005, 03:21 PM

Originally Posted by Grrr

Its the same on my pb.. After waking up or a restart, it shoots up to the full 4 bars. Then settles at 2, regardless of how close or far i am from the base station. Previously it stayed at 3 bars on OS 10.3
In fact, my imac is now at 2 bars also, when that was also at 3 bars previously too.
Signal reception is the same as it has always been tho, I checked this with APgrapher.

Thats exactly what happens to me. It shoots up all the way they just hangs out at 2 bars.

Maybe its just a display error on the icon.

ghporter · May 4, 2005, 04:13 PM

Originally Posted by drainyoo

Ive had it for about 2 years.

Where is the atenna cable?

Read this article. I took a stab at which particular PB you have. If I got it wrong, check Apple's knowledge base for your particular model.

drainyoo · May 4, 2005, 04:29 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Read this article. I took a stab at which particular PB you have. If I got it wrong, check Apple's knowledge base for your particular model.

Thanks man. I appreciate the help.

Taipan · May 4, 2005, 04:43 PM

Hi!

I've got the same problem on my PowerMac G5. It seems to vary with the channel chosen, though. I'm on channel 1 now, and constantly got two bars. I used channel 13 before and had 4 bars most of the time, but with regular drops to 2 bars, and then my internet connection got very slow (ping to my router was about 2s). For some reason the connection is OK on channel 1, despite having 2 bars only. Maybe I'm going to try the other channels in between when I feel like it...

Kenneth · May 4, 2005, 05:59 PM

AirPort and Tiger are just funky. There's a big thread over on AppleDiscussion.

Taipan · May 4, 2005, 06:45 PM

Forgive my ignorance, but what is AppleDiscussion? AppleDiscussion.com seems to be for sale, or are ypu talking about the forums on apple.com?

Since EBCDIC · May 6, 2005, 10:41 PM

Funny that, as my 800 MHz PowerBook G4 (DVI) is completely deaf since installing Tiger. I guess it's time to see what's happening inside.

Oh, and our bad: they mean

http://discussions.info.apple.com/

as the official place of discussion. But, be warned, Apple routinely deletes (read: censors) postings as it pleases. MacNN is a much nicer (and generally more informed) place to be, IMHO.

polendo · May 6, 2005, 11:03 PM

I have the same problem. The signal strength gets 100% then goes down to 3 bars..and up again.. very unstable. I was getting afraid that this is a hardware problem, but definetly is a Tiger thing. And yes, I also have heard that people get better reception, but for me is the other way. Hopefully on the 1st update this will get fixed.

regards

polendo · May 6, 2005, 11:06 PM

Originally Posted by Taipan

Hi!

I've got the same problem on my PowerMac G5. It seems to vary with the channel chosen, though. I'm on channel 1 now, and constantly got two bars. I used channel 13 before and had 4 bars most of the time, but with regular drops to 2 bars, and then my internet connection got very slow (ping to my router was about 2s). For some reason the connection is OK on channel 1, despite having 2 bars only. Maybe I'm going to try the other channels in between when I feel like it...

Taipan, where do you change the channel? on the router?

regards

Taipan · May 7, 2005, 02:34 PM

Yes, you should be ably to change it in the router config. AirPort on the Mac side will notice and adapt automatically.

mlibbey · Jul 9, 2005, 12:10 PM

FWIW, I'm having the same problem in my iMac G5 running 10.4. My ancient powerbook G4 550 running 10.3 is not having problems -- it can sit right next to the iMac and have no packet loss and full connectivity while the iMac gets 70+% packet loss and low connectivity. Restarting seems to fix the problem for a little while.

fisherKing · Jul 9, 2005, 12:28 PM

not to hijack the thread, but...

since tiger, my wireless printing works...occasionally (also being discussed at apple discussions).
i never had a problem in panther.

i rarely get more than a page printed, then stops halfway thru a page, never to finish.

clean installed 10.4.1, latest airport software.
seems to be common problem.

hope 10.4.2...fixes...this....

molala · Jul 10, 2005, 04:50 AM

This is very similar to my problem. Now I can't see Channel 13 at all

.

Originally Posted by Taipan

Hi!

I've got the same problem on my PowerMac G5. It seems to vary with the channel chosen, though. I'm on channel 1 now, and constantly got two bars. I used channel 13 before and had 4 bars most of the time, but with regular drops to 2 bars, and then my internet connection got very slow (ping to my router was about 2s). For some reason the connection is OK on channel 1, despite having 2 bars only. Maybe I'm going to try the other channels in between when I feel like it...

Grrr · Jul 10, 2005, 08:15 AM

Originally Posted by molala

This is very similar to my problem. Now I can't see Channel 13 at all

.

Symptoms of interference.. Usually from house hold cordless phones. There isn't much you can do about it. Bar change phones (if its yours, and not a neighbours). Or simply find whichever wifi channel works best for you.

ghporter · Jul 10, 2005, 09:10 AM

Here is a thought for you UK users who can't see channel 13 anymore-and this is just off the top of my head, since I don't have any details about your particular systems-do your systems work on channels between 1 and 11? UK and European communication ministries allow all 14 channels (except France which only allows a total of three channels!), but the U.S. Federal Communications Commission only allows channels 1 through 11. Is it possible that your Tiger upgrade discs thought you were in the States? See if you can work on channel 11, then check out 12. If 11 works, but 12 does not, a reinstall of Tiger (or a UK-specific AirPort update) might just fix your problem.

pat++ · Jul 10, 2005, 09:52 AM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Here is a thought for you UK users who can't see channel 13 anymore-and this is just off the top of my head, since I don't have any details about your particular systems-do your systems work on channels between 1 and 11? UK and European communication ministries allow all 14 channels (except France which only allows a total of three channels!), but the U.S. Federal Communications Commission only allows channels 1 through 11. Is it possible that your Tiger upgrade discs thought you were in the States? See if you can work on channel 11, then check out 12. If 11 works, but 12 does not, a reinstall of Tiger (or a UK-specific AirPort update) might just fix your problem.

Regulation has changed in France, and they support channel 1-13 as well.

ghporter · Jul 10, 2005, 11:30 AM

Originally Posted by pat++

Regulation has changed in France, and they support channel 1-13 as well.

I'm very pleased to hear that.

Any results from my experiment?

molala · Jul 10, 2005, 06:50 PM

Thanks for the replies

. Tiger is UK-purchased, but my powerbook is actually US-bought so I have an American airport card. But I was picking up Channel 13 when I had Panther (our house and 1 neighbour), PC's in our house can still see these networks. For me, Channel 11 still works now (other neighbour's network) so it looks like my PB has been re-Americanised after I had already made it British! Can't change our channel though because it's my housemate's server (and he's out of town).

Only Airport Extreme updates I've seen are for the base station

.

As for interference, we do have a cordless phone a few feet above our wireless router. I'll try turning that off tomorrow.

ghporter · Jul 10, 2005, 08:29 PM

Interesting, molala. I can come up with several theories about why your computer and card are behaving this way, but I have no way to prove them. I would suggest reinstalling Tiger to see if it did things right this time, but I doubt it would work. Is there an Apple Store nearby? It sounds like Genius Bar time to me!

molala · Jul 11, 2005, 07:09 PM

Thanks for the ideas. Nearest Apple Store is London, might have time to stop by there and ask them this week, but it is quite a way to be bringing a Powerbook by public transport, I think I will just ask. I'll keep you guys posted if I make some progress

.

ghporter · Jul 11, 2005, 08:29 PM

Good luck with the Apple Store-I agree that a phone call or a drop by is more appropriate-especially considering how public transport in London is still "untidy" to say the least.

Since it seems that this is really more a networking issue, I'm going to move this thread to the Networking forum so we can continue.

JKT · Jul 12, 2005, 08:10 AM

FWIW, the display of Airport in Tiger is no longer of signal strength, but of signal quality. From Mac Help:Airport:Using the Airport status menu to control Airport:

"Four signal bars appear in the AirPort status menu. The more bars that are black, the higher the signal quality."

Why the change? This is actually much more beneficial as it is the quality of the signal that better determines how good your connection is going to be rather than its strength.

However, if you want a more helpful diagnosis tool for your Airport reception download iStumbler and/or MacStumbler. Find them at versiontracker.com or macupdate.com. As a side effect, you can also find out which of your PC using neighbours has a wide-open WiFi network too

ghporter · Jul 12, 2005, 10:28 AM

Originally Posted by JKT

FWIW, the display of Airport in Tiger is no longer of signal strength, but of signal quality. Why the change? This is actually much more beneficial as it is the quality of the signal that better determines how good your connection is going to be rather than its strength.

As far as I can tell, the display NEVER showed simple signal strength. I believe they simply changed the wording in support documents to reflect what the display was really showing. All wireless systems that provide a display indicate a combination of signal strength and raw data throughput, which is manipulated in some implementation-dependent manner to give you a relative quality indication. It is somewhat useful when comparing identical computers, but usually not good for comparing dissimilar machines.