Is it possible?

[bookmanjb]

I have a "Mid-2005" iBook 1.33; 12"; 10.4.7

I have been troubleshooting my iBook to find out why the Airport signal drops out intermittently and then comes back at full strength. My wife has an identical model with identical settings in the same location and does not experience this problem. After trashing prefs, repairing permissions, zapping PRAM, resetting the PMU, safe boot, connecting with Ethernet cable, etc., etc., I have finally come up with a theory and I want to know if it's possible. In this model, the airport card and antenna are built-in; they are not user accessible. The only pattern seems to be that after working for a while the wireless signal suddenly drops. Is it possible that when the laptop heats up after a little use, something expands or contracts and touches something else and thereby neutralizes the airport card?

 

[PlaceofDis]

does this happen when you both are in the same spot, as in right next to one another?

you could be experiencing interference on your end, but she may not.
have you tried turning on "interference robustness" in the drop down Airport Menu?

 

[Sesshi]

Surely the card must be accessible?

 

[thewhitehart]

I agree. You may just need to activate interface robustness. I have a 2.4 Ghz phone that interferes with my airport signal to my imac, but not all the time to my ibook.

 

[bookmanjb]

does this happen when you both are in the same spot, as in right next to one another?

you could be experiencing interference on your end, but she may not.
have you tried turning on "interference robustness" in the drop down Airport Menu?

Yes, I've tried both of those things. We use our iBooks in our apartment, sometimes at the same table, sometimes in different rooms, sometimes not at the same time. In all cases, mine works for a while, then cuts out. Hers always works.

 

[bookmanjb]

Surely the card must be accessible?

Our iBooks are the most recent generation, known as the "mid-2005" models. These came with airport and bluetooth built-in, i.e., not optional, so Apple in its wisdom made the cards inaccessible.

 

[bookmanjb]

I agree. You may just need to activate interface robustness. I have a 2.4 Ghz phone that interferes with my airport signal to my imac, but not all the time to my ibook.

I wish it were that simple. As I wrote, my wife has an identical iBook and experiences no problems. Activating I.R. was the first thing I tried. This is not a case of a signal fading in and out; it works fine, at full strength, then suddenly drops, and doesn't return until the computer has slept for a while or has been off for a while. in other words, until it has cooled down. Then it works fine until it heats up again. By the way, I forgot to note that it worked perfectly in its present environment for 3 months before developing this problem. I can't help but feel that it has something to do with heating up; just intuition though.

 

[T-Stex]

I don't think it sounds like a heat-related issue, otherwise we'd probably be hearing more about it than just one incident. Have you tried reinstalling Tiger? Although it's a little extreme, that will tell you if it's a software or hardware issue. If that doesn't fix it, I'd take it to an Apple Store and see what they say.