[Q80]

I have a MacBook Pro 15"(2.16 ghz intel core 2 duo,3 gb 667 mhz ddr2 sdram (running mac osx 10.4.11)). The HD has been acting up, i am thinking of removing the hard drive and installing a 500 gig one

Model Name: MacBook Pro 15"
Model Identifier: MacBookPro2,2
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.16 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 3 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

Should i just buy one of those new macbook pro unibody one's ? they are sexier anyway. And faster

[mduell]

Wait for the imminent update, buy a new one.

[reader50]

Are you happy with your MacBookPro otherwise? Does it do everything you want it to do?

Hard drive upgrades are cheap and effective. If you have no other concerns, then put a faster/bigger puppy in there and enjoy.

[mkerr64]

today is your lucky day i5, i7

[Q80]

I upgraded to snow leopard and lost my wifi connectivity, now i cant even use wifi and i've been looking at all ways to fix it for 2 days, deleting files, updating the OS... nothing, zip, zero, zilch

[reader50]

wait a minute - I'm pretty sure that sig wasn't there before. And he suddenly forgot about his HD problems. Upgrading the OS is *NOT* the way to stress a questionable HD.

We also nailed a sig spammer who replied earlier - I've just made that post visible again. The sig itself isn't visible on banned members.

We may have a Q&A spambot here.

[macaddict0001]

He's been around long enough that you'd think postcount would be higher, but you never know. Prolly just a user who only drops by when he needs something, kind of like a bad neighbor. The lack of followup in past posts doesn't work in Q80's favour though.

[Q80]

No i am not a spambot, i usually post at codez4mac but now i came here when thinking to update the HD. i upgraded the OS to see how it performs so i could decide why shell out money for a new mac when I could upgrade. Then i encountered his devastating problem

[reader50]

Fair enough.

Upgrading the OS causes thousands of files to be written to the HD - this is a huge stress test for a questionable drive. And it will contribute to disk fragmentation, especially if the drive was past 70% full when you started the upgrade.

In other words, if the HD is marginal, multiple files may have been corrupted during the upgrade. They would occupy blocks that the HD failed to save. So the HD problem could cause the later WiFi problem. I'd discount the results of the OS upgrade test until the HD problem gets resolved.

Note that drive densities have increased quite a bit since 2006, enough to more than double the sequential read/write speed at the same RPM. So I'd expect better performance than your upgrade test gave - this will be true for either a new HD or a new laptop.

[SierraDragon]

Back up asap. Replace the apparently-failing drive because the box is still usable by someone even if you buy a new MBP. New drives are cheaper/larger/faster.

[Q80]

it started running slow and i blame either the hd that needs replacing since its taken a few falls.

other than that, i mean i have like 3 gig ram so i expected it to be super quick forever.. but then again.. its from 2006 so thats 4 yrs old

in the pc world, that makes it dinosaur age.

[Q80]

What i have tried.

1.
Open 'System Preferences' and click on 'Network'
highlight your 'Ethernet' connection on the left and write down the I.P address, Subnet mask and the address to your router.
Okay, now highlight 'Airport' on the left column, and click 'Advanced' to the bottom right.
A new window should pop up, switch to the 'TCP/IP' tab and where it says 'Configure IPv4' it should be set to 'Using DHCP' change that and set it to "Manually'.
Okay, for your IPv4 address, go back to the paper where you wrote the I.P, Subnet mask and the Router address. For example If your IP is 1.1.1.1, change the last digit of the I.P to ONE number up from what it was, so it'd be 1.1.1.2, put that in where it says 'IPv4 Address' (your own I.P, not 1.1.1.2)
Do the same thing for Subnet Mask, put the same number in there as what you wrote down on paper.
Same thing for the router address, hit 'OK' and 'Apply' settings.

2.One more thing, where I said "Do the same thing for the Subnet Mask and the router address" dont change the numbers, keep them the same, only the I.P address you change the last digit.

3.If this doesnt work, open 'System Preferences' once more, click on 'Sharing' and deselect 'Internet Sharing' and wait a minute, then turn it back on and hit 'Start', your Airport should be working now.

If this doesnt work, Im really sorry dude, I just know that you have the exact same problem I had when I upgraded my OS to Leopard, it's worth a try though.. this will not affect in anyway your normal Ethernet connection, just your Airport connection, so just incase, memorize the settings you have before changing them and get back to us and let us know how it went.

[Q80]

Still no luck

[Q80]

Can anyone help ?

[reader50]

I don't know about anyone else, but I've been waiting to hear that you replaced the HD. Or are booting from an external for testing.

The old HD is suspect, so any system installed on it may have glitches, including network glitches. And trying to diagnose a network problem on a system booted from a bad HD could be an exercise in frustration.

On the other hand, it might help to post shots of your network pref panes, so we can see the settings that aren't working.

[Q80]

ok i may get a new hd, are there any you recommend undner $100

[reader50]

Try this link. It's newegg laptop drives, sorted by ratings order, limited to $100 or less.

I've never had a laptop drive, so perhaps others will offer recommendations. Look for a highly-rated drive of the size & speed you want. Were you running low on space before, did you want a snappier drive to speed things up?

[sudowork]

Perform these steps:

1. Back up
2. Run Diags (SMART -> Surface Scan) I recommend Tech Tool Deluxe/Pro
3. If Diags come out clean, then continue onto next step; otherwise, replace the HDD
4. Zap the PRAM and NVRAM (you may experience some quirks on the next startup). Click here for instructions. This should fix your wireless issues if everything is working properly
5. Reset the SMC. Click here for instructions.
6. Repair permissions using Disk Utility
7. Repair hard drive using Disk Utility

Edit: By the way, you should be changing Airport settings for your wifi connection, not Ethernet. Also, if you are not seeing 'Airport' under your Network settings, then that means that your wireless card is not being detected/recognized. Please go to System Profiler again, then Network -> Airport, and see if there are any interfaces being detected for your wireless card. It should be listed as an Airport Extreme card. If not, see steps 4 and 5 of what I posted above. Resetting the PRAM/NVRAM/SMC should cause it to detect if there are no issues with the hardware. Or, another possibility is that you don't have the proper kext.

[Q80]

Thanks sudowork, i will run the diagnostics.

My airport is being detected. However when i connect, it disconnects 2 seconds later. And i have the right password/username and all that.

Will work at this till i get it fixed.

[reader50]

Successful connection suggests all your settings are OK. Might it be set to a crowded channel?

[sudowork]

Try deleting your preferred network and then reconnecting to it. Also try resetting the PRAM/NVRAM + SMC (check the links in my post above).

[Q80]

Originally Posted by reader50 

Successful connection suggests all your settings are OK. Might it be set to a crowded channel?

Sorry i dont understand crowded channel ? please explain

[Q80]

Originally Posted by sudowork 

Try deleting your preferred network and then reconnecting to it. Also try resetting the PRAM/NVRAM + SMC (check the links in my post above).

looking into that right now, thanks.

[Q80]

Originally Posted by sudowork 

Perform these steps:


4. Zap the PRAM and NVRAM (you may experience some quirks on the next startup). Click here for instructions. This should fix your wireless issues if everything is working properly.

quirks.. ahah.. talk about quirks, my finder dissapeared and so did all those icons for about a minute, mac's running a bit slower however if this is what it takes then i'll do the other steps

[reader50]

Airport operates over a number of available channels. You can choose which one to use in Network Preferences. If a particular channel has a lot of other users nearby, then it is said to be crowded. Say, if several neighbors are using the same channel.

The solution is to set your Mac to use a different channel. Then see if the disconnects stop happening.

[Q80]

Originally Posted by reader50 

Airport operates over a number of available channels. You can choose which one to use in Network Preferences. If a particular channel has a lot of other users nearby, then it is said to be crowded. Say, if several neighbors are using the same channel.

The solution is to set your Mac to use a different channel. Then see if the disconnects stop happening.

im downloading istumbler to find out which channel i'm on because i did the recommended steps in the thread and nothing happened.

[Snow-i]

Be careful of istumbler. On snow leopard, it causes a background bluetooth process ("blued" if i recall correctly) to snowball its resource usage, eventually bringing your system to its knees after a day or so even if you exit the program. Last i checked it has not been fixed yet. I'd recommend changing the channel using the methods outlined above, or perhaps setting your router manually to a different channel. Usually, in the case of intereference, you want to change the channel to the furthest available.

OTOH

In my opinion, your issue probably not a configuration error, but instead a hw or sw problem. Try leaving the console open to see if anything comes up. Also, try connecting to a different network and see if it works.

[sudowork]

Originally Posted by Q80 

quirks.. ahah.. talk about quirks, my finder dissapeared and so did all those icons for about a minute, mac's running a bit slower however if this is what it takes then i'll do the other steps

Yes, this does occur sometimes. It should resolve itself upon the next boot. Did this work for you?