MBP 13inch late 2011, a few issues

1. I seem to temporarily lose connection more often than on my old Dell laptop. On my Dell, I probably lost connection to my home wifi connection like twice in 3 years. I've had this MBP for about 2 weeks now and have temporarily lost connection like 10 times. Sometimes it is fine a few minutes later, and sometimes I have to disconnect and reconnect. I'm certain I'm close enough to the router and there's no interference from other devices.

2. Because of problem 1, when I'm downloading things sometimes the connection gets interrupted. If this happens when, say, the file is 90% complete in downloading, then I get the option to resume or reload the download. When I click this, it basically instantly cancels the download and the file shows up in "downloads" as like less than 10kb in size even though the amount that was downloaded was actually like 90 MB.

 

That isn't normal behavior. I believe OS X Lion has a wi-fi bug with the MBP lines (it might even affect the MBA) that causes it to not automatically connect to a network forcing the user to essentially disable and re-enable wi-fi. I experienced it myself quite a bit. However, I never lost a connection after making one.

Make sure OS X is fully updated and, if you have a physical firewall installed, ensure that it isn't trying to block your system from internet access. By chance, what brand and model wi-fi router do you have?

 

You can try a "flush" of settings by deleting files under preferences (not the .plist files or preference panes) under /System/Library from your main hard disk. Be sure to turn off your wifi before you do the above and then restart your system. The computer would just remake the settings as the drivers are already there.

Have you tried it at any other locations? Sometimes, the airport card itself is the problem as it is not the best of the class that apple puts in its machines. I hope you live close to an apple store where they can swap out your card if it is defective.

 

When using my Bluetooth headset, I have the same issue of it disconnecting repeatedly from WiFi.

 

I can automatically connect just fine. I'll check later and get back to you on wi-fi router brand.

Anyway, even if my internet connection on the mac is fine, any idea on problem #2? Say I'm downloading something and delibrately disconnect the internet. When I reconnect, I have the option to "reload" the download which I presume means to simply continue the download from where it left off. When I hit reload, it doesn't do that and instead just cancels the download basically.

 

Well, if you are talking about Safari, it is reloading the download. Reloading is different than resuming where the download left off. Safari can't pause and resume a download and I am not sure if there is a plug-in that would allow for that type of functionality.

 

i had a problem with the internet loosing its connection so i changed the channel on my router and now i have no issues at all. if you router is on the default channel and everyone around you in the area is also using a router with the default channel it can be crappy.