M1Pro 16" Terrible WiFi performance

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

There is from Broadcom, it's just Apple is not using it.

There is also 160mhz 2*2 ,which is far better.

Honestly this is one big thing that makes me question the future proofing of these devices.

Or for those who hate the word,can you expect to keep such a device for over 4 years ? Because that's what many many are willing to

 

[Quu]

There is also 160mhz 2*2 ,which is far better.

Honestly this is one big thing that makes me question the future proofing of these devices.

Or for those who hate the word,can you expect to keep such a device for over 4 years ? Because that's what many many are willing to

Certainly you can. I saw in another thread a person who had an Asus WiFi 6 router getting just under 900Mb/s through WiFi on these machines. That's almost as good as a wired 1Gb ethernet cable.

I once kept a MacBook Pro in use for 6 years (2009-2015) and it was far below these machines in capability.

 

[pshufd]

I just tested using two different sites and both return 8 ping, 119 mbps down and 5+ mbps up. We are provisioned for 100 mbps down and 5 mbps up. I have my 2021 MacBook Pro in my basement and the router is an Apple Airport Extreme from around 2010 and it's in the living room. I have another router in the basement but I have not set it up with the MacBook Pro yet (it has a pairing security feature which requires physical access and the password is a huge string of hex digits).

But it seems like the WiFi on my system is performing as well as possible in my household.

 

[xraydoc]

WiFi on my M1 MBA connecting to an old Apple AirPort Extreme AC gets 400Mbps (over 900Mbps on ethernet when docked at my desk).
I keep looking for an excuse to upgrade my WiFi equipment but these old Airports are still just working too well.

 

[maxsquared]

Certainly you can. I saw in another thread a person who had an Asus WiFi 6 router getting just under 900Mb/s through WiFi on these machines. That's almost as good as a wired 1Gb ethernet cable.

I once kept a MacBook Pro in use for 6 years (2009-2015) and it was far below these machines in capability.

940 Mb/s is what most 1gb connection is capable of. So that’s pretty good.

I have 1gb connection and my ISP now offers 3gb, I don’t see the point of going anything higher than 1 gb.

 

[jhonnypolak]

Ok so I did a bit more testing and the story gets even weirder:

I can say with confidence that now my WiFi is setup towards the new MBPs.
I started testing using Ubiquity’s WiFiMan app and the speeds I get between the MacBooks (both the 2015 and 2021 models) and the UDM Pro gateway (main router) are now identical.

The difference now comes in to play when I do a speed test using Speedtest.net
The MBP2015 consistently outperforms MBP2021. Bizzare. Even when I select the same testing locations on both laptops.

 

[ADGrant]

Certainly you can. I saw in another thread a person who had an Asus WiFi 6 router getting just under 900Mb/s through WiFi on these machines. That's almost as good as a wired 1Gb ethernet cable.

I once kept a MacBook Pro in use for 6 years (2009-2015) and it was far below these machines in capability.

I just paid $200 to have Apple replace the battery in a 2014 15" MBP. I used it until about a year ago when I gave it to my daughter so she could use it for remote learning.

I did consider just buying her an M1 MBA but she is basically using it as a glorified chrome book. The base MBA is a good deal but it still costs about $1000 and the Apple Care would be $250. If I wanted to match the RAM and SSD capacity it would cost $1500 plus $250 for the Apple Care.

 

[flapflapflap]

I've got a custom order: 16" M1 Pro with 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD.
I updated to Monterey 12.0.1 as soon as I powered it up last night and I have noticed today the wifi performance is not great. Very spotty.
The wifi disconnects during large file transfers.
When I run ping tests, sometimes there's prolonged periods of time where there's no acknowledgment at all. (10-15 seconds at a time). Then the ping comes back for 2 seconds.
Ping responses would be anywhere between 300ms - 6000ms
I restarted the laptop a few times and the WiFi seems to come back for a while and then it drop off.
Sometimes the laptop would not connect to the Wifi at all. Even when I turned the wifi on and off on the laptop it would still not connect.
Sometimes it would re-ask for the WiFi password, which is strange
So I started testing with my old Retina Mid-2015 15" MacBook and to my surprise I have found the following:

2015 MBP - connects to my wifi @ 5GHz
2021 MBP - connects to my wifi @ 2.4GHz only.

Btw I'm running a Ubiquiti setup with UDM Pro and U6-LR wifi access points. (which I have also since restarted with little to no effect)
If I sit the two laptops side by side with the 2015 MBP closer to the WiFi access point, it will interfere with the 2021's wifi signal.
Have a look at the attached pictures.
One shows the 2015 MBP closer to the wifi and then the other shows the 2021 MBP closer to the wifi (as indicated by the blue arrow) - the wifi access point is south east to the location of the laptops.

The yellow arrow indicates where I moved the 2015 MBP to be further away from wifi and the 2021 MBP closer.
As you can see by the graphs, the 2015 MBP doesn't care if its closer or further away, the signal strength and quality remains the same. Its the 2021 MBP that's affected.

More reason why I returned the 16. The ports and WiFi are outdated. I'll wait for the upgraded/better version in 2022.