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Wifi problem with external HD in room
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Southern, NJ (near Philly YO!)
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I just got a MB Pro 15" i7, here's my issue, I have an external 3.5 hard drive in an enclosure and whenever it is on, it interrupts my WiFi signal to the point where the bars on my AirPort go to none. I move away about 15 feet and signal comes back. My 17" had no issues with the same hard drive. Any ideas, solutions? And yes I have moved the drive away from the computer as far away from the computer as I can and the USB will allow. But even unplugged from the computer it interrupts.
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MacBook Pro 15" i7 ~ Snow Leopard ~ iPhone 4 - 16Gb
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Administrator  Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
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Ideas? Your external drive's enclosure puts out a significant amount of radio interference, which makes it disrupt your wireless network. What drive/enclosure is it? There may be a simple fix to shield it, or a not so simple workaround.
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Southern, NJ (near Philly YO!)
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I was just wondering why it didn't do this with my PowerBook but with this new laptop it does. It's a MadDog 3.5 PATA Enclosure. About 3 years old. FireWire/USB version.
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MacBook Pro 15" i7 ~ Snow Leopard ~ iPhone 4 - 16Gb
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jan 2003
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just as an experiment, try wrapping it in tin foil and see if that solves the wifi problem.
you can still get PATA enclosures, so your solution could be as simple as getting a new enclosure.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
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An external hard drive should not be interfering with your WIFI network. That's really weird.
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"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
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Administrator Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
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Originally Posted by Big Mac 
An external hard drive should not be interfering with your WIFI network. That's really weird.
That was my thought too, but stevesnj seems to have isolated it to that device. This makes me think that the external drive's power supply is bad or going bad, and that it's leaking RF all over the place.
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jan 2003
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Ah! hadn't thought it might be the power supply (good thinking!)...if it is the power supply, then simply getting a new power supply would be an even better solution!
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Southern, NJ (near Philly YO!)
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Good suggestions, but if it was going bad, why would the power supply affect one laptop and not the other...I hope there isn't anything wrong with my laptop, my iphone works fine wirelessly near the hard drive.
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MacBook Pro 15" i7 ~ Snow Leopard ~ iPhone 4 - 16Gb
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Administrator Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
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Which MacBook and which PB do you have? I have a theory that the RF is too high in frequency to bug the PB, but the N-equipped MacBook gets snowed under by 5GHz radio noise...
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Southern, NJ (near Philly YO!)
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Originally Posted by ghporter
Which MacBook and which PB do you have? I have a theory that the RF is too high in frequency to bug the PB, but the N-equipped MacBook gets snowed under by 5GHz radio noise...
My Pb was a first Gen 17" aluminum with Wireless G, I now have a MB Pro 15" core i7.
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MacBook Pro 15" i7 ~ Snow Leopard ~ iPhone 4 - 16Gb
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jan 2003
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I'm still curious: do you have another power supply that you could use with the enclosure? (try Radio Shack.)
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Southern, NJ (near Philly YO!)
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Originally Posted by amazing
I'm still curious: do you have another power supply that you could use with the enclosure? (try Radio Shack.)
Nah i don't and it's a weird 9 pin D-Sub connector. So I'm not gonna buy a new supply to test it out, I may try the foil thing first.
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MacBook Pro 15" i7 ~ Snow Leopard ~ iPhone 4 - 16Gb
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Administrator Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
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The aluminum PB was much better at WiFi than the TiBook, but still B-only or B/G only at best. The current generation of all Mac laptops is N compatible-this is what I think the issue is.
As for the power supply, wrap that puppy up in aluminum foil and see if you get the same effect on your MBP. If you do, wrap foil around the cable between the power supply and the enclosure and try again. If still a problem, wrap foil around the enclosure itself. Note that I did not say to remove any of this foil as you go... The answer will be which part you wrap with foil just before you notice that you don't have the problem anymore.
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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