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Mac Mini M2 Pro Wi-Fi issues
- Thread starter Bearygoodfries1
- Start date
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Just got my new M2 Pro Mini last week, and boy it has issues. I had to switch to Ethernet cable, because wifi is acting like garbage as endlessly discussed in this thread. I am also seeing weirdness with Bluetooth. Does it not like 4 Bluetooth devices at once? Mouse, keyboard (both the apple silicon versions), airpods Pro, and was trying to use Homepod as an airplay speaker instead of the built-in tin can speaker on the Mini. But sound is delayed by several seconds! (AirPods audio is fine). Is my new mini a lemon? It upgraded to 13.3 during the initial setup.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
If it is then it's limited. I have my Mac Mini sitting between a 4-bay NAS, my router, and a laptop and PC. Not a single issue with Bluetooth.
I have my mini M2 Pro since almost 2 weeks now, and no WiFi issue yet, AFAIK. No problems with BlueTooth neither, except maybe the Apple Magic mouse. Apparently, I may have some mouse clicks lost, randomly from times to times. I can't tell if it's a BT issue yet.
From reply 54 above:
"I am also seeing weirdness with Bluetooth. Does it not like 4 Bluetooth devices at once?"
The Mini's have always had weak and spotty bluetooth (since the current body design was introduced, was it 2010?). This can be affected by where you place it, or by the number of cables attached, or other factors.
A solution:
An EXTERNAL bt adapter, on the end of a "USB extension cable" to get it away from the body of the Mini.
"I am also seeing weirdness with Bluetooth. Does it not like 4 Bluetooth devices at once?"
The Mini's have always had weak and spotty bluetooth (since the current body design was introduced, was it 2010?). This can be affected by where you place it, or by the number of cables attached, or other factors.
A solution:
An EXTERNAL bt adapter, on the end of a "USB extension cable" to get it away from the body of the Mini.
I'm putting this here guys. hope it helps. My Mac mini m2 pro can't seem to connect to wifi 5Ghz, however after checking with apple support. This Mac mini setup is wifi 6e (802.11ax)2 , seems not to be working great with wpa2. I changed my router to wpa3 or wpa and its working fine now.
I just posted this on a similarly themed thread over on Reddit (only with more typos), and though it might be useful here:
.
I had this issue and have spent a week doing a LOT of fannying about, aka testing, with my M2 Pro mini.
I tried with in various configurations with 5GHz turned on or off (my router won't allow separation, just disabling of one or the other) and it was absolutely clear that the M2 Pro could not talk properly to 5GHz wifi (from threads elsewhere, possibly 6GHz as well, but I don't have that). Ping tests were showing up to 60% packet loss, with 17-25% typical, while 2.4GHz was fine (slow, but fine). Was pretty much tearing hair out.
Until:
Inspired by a comment elsewhere, I pulled my monitor's HDMI cable out of the M2 Pro and put it in my 2018 Intel mini and ran the ping tests from that via screen sharing.
Ta bloody da.
0% packet loss and sensible download speeds (and intra home network transfer speeds).
I now have the HDMI cable back in the M2 Pro, but with the cable going *straight* out of the back for around 8 inches before bending towards the monitor, and touch wood all is well. I would be 90% confident I could reproduce this at will if I was prepared to mess with a system that is currently working well.
It is quite an old cable, and I suspect a worn or bent pin that, as soon as there is any lateral stress is on the plug, makes a poor connection (but not enough the bork the monitor), unleashing a cosmic hellscape of inference on the 5GHz band used by wifi chip.
I'd buy a new HDMI cable, but I plan on getting a new monitor anyway so will bodge along for now.
Hopefully this will help some people...
IMO this is a design defect of the M2 Pro - wifi should not be in a location that lets hinky connections bork it so obtusely.
But other than that the machine is effing incredible. Seriously, it snorts along and laughs in the face of Photoshop.
.
I had this issue and have spent a week doing a LOT of fannying about, aka testing, with my M2 Pro mini.
I tried with in various configurations with 5GHz turned on or off (my router won't allow separation, just disabling of one or the other) and it was absolutely clear that the M2 Pro could not talk properly to 5GHz wifi (from threads elsewhere, possibly 6GHz as well, but I don't have that). Ping tests were showing up to 60% packet loss, with 17-25% typical, while 2.4GHz was fine (slow, but fine). Was pretty much tearing hair out.
Until:
Inspired by a comment elsewhere, I pulled my monitor's HDMI cable out of the M2 Pro and put it in my 2018 Intel mini and ran the ping tests from that via screen sharing.
Ta bloody da.
0% packet loss and sensible download speeds (and intra home network transfer speeds).
I now have the HDMI cable back in the M2 Pro, but with the cable going *straight* out of the back for around 8 inches before bending towards the monitor, and touch wood all is well. I would be 90% confident I could reproduce this at will if I was prepared to mess with a system that is currently working well.
It is quite an old cable, and I suspect a worn or bent pin that, as soon as there is any lateral stress is on the plug, makes a poor connection (but not enough the bork the monitor), unleashing a cosmic hellscape of inference on the 5GHz band used by wifi chip.
I'd buy a new HDMI cable, but I plan on getting a new monitor anyway so will bodge along for now.
Hopefully this will help some people...
IMO this is a design defect of the M2 Pro - wifi should not be in a location that lets hinky connections bork it so obtusely.
But other than that the machine is effing incredible. Seriously, it snorts along and laughs in the face of Photoshop.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that external BT adapters do not work with Ventura? I’d love to be wrong… I have a 2018 Mac Mini that has dead Bluetooth. The couple of adapters I bought on Amazon that are supposed to be Mac compatible do not work.
MikeDr wrote:
"I seem to recall reading somewhere that external BT adapters do not work with Ventura? I’d love to be wrong… I have a 2018 Mac Mini that has dead Bluetooth. The couple of adapters I bought on Amazon that are supposed to be Mac compatible do not work."
Not sure if it will help, but check this post:
forums.macrumors.com
"I seem to recall reading somewhere that external BT adapters do not work with Ventura? I’d love to be wrong… I have a 2018 Mac Mini that has dead Bluetooth. The couple of adapters I bought on Amazon that are supposed to be Mac compatible do not work."
Not sure if it will help, but check this post:
Mac mini 2018 Bluetooth issues?
I wonder how well it would work to call them about it and ask them to send a trackpad since those obviously will work while plugged in. This is the only fair solution I see since they sold us all a device with faulty bluetooth connectivity. There's 16 pages of evidence here, I don't see why...
forums.macrumors.com
>Did you migrate any settings from a previous mac?
This includes signing into the Mac mini with an iCloud account that would migrate network/wi-fi preferences from iCloud.
I’m having the same problem with my Mac Mini Pro with the M2 chip. Internet connection gets very slow, then drops. I need to reboot my fiber modem to reconnect. I’ve called Apple technical support several times and they say there is nothing wrong with my Mac. To add another twist to this saga, my iPad Pro with an M2 chip is having the same problem. I’ve also called Apple technical support about this problem. They claim both of my products are fine. They pass both hardware and software diagnostics. They claim it is not their problem, even though all of my older macs and iPads work fine, even when the M2 devices stop working. Rebooting my fiber modem temporarily fixes the problem, but not for very long.
One other bit of information. When I’m using one device, and it loses the internet connection, so does the other device. Apple technical support claims the Mac and iPad can’t change settings in the fiber modem, but I don’t see how else they both get disconnected at the same time. Apple technical support see this as confirming their argument that it is a network problem, not an Apple device problem. Even if this is true, since none of my older Apple devices are affected, as a minimum there is an M2 backward compatibility problem.
See my reply above to see if it helps: (here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-mini-m2-pro-wi-fi-issues.2379220/post-32110868)
Since I bought a new (usb-c) monitor the problem has cleared up completely (I bought the new monitor when the problem recurred after I jogged the HDMI lead - think it was just a low quality or maybe worn lead on an elderly monitor).
Sorry, I though that my post was in a discussion about internet connection problems. I’m not sure how an old HDMI monitor cable affects WIFI and internet, but I bought a new Apple studio monitor and cable with my Mac Mini Pro, so that probably isn’t the cause of my internet problem. I also have the same internet problem on my M2 chip iPad Pro which doesn’t have any external monitor. I’m not sure what the Mac Mini Pro and iPad Pro have in common other than the M2 chip. I’ve given up on speaking with Apple technical support since they seem in total denial.
Yes. I understood that. That the HDMI cable was (reproducibly) causing wifi internet connection problems, and that removing it solved the problem completely, is the point of my post.
Something else I did notice was that the problem seemed to destabilise the router (perhaps by spamming it with bad data). Rebooting that provided partial relief and seemed to get the 2.4ghz band functional, but the only thing that cleared the 5ghz problem was eliminating the HDMI lead.
As I said above, I think this is a design defect, presumably caused by inadequate shielding or badly located antennae.
Amazing isn't it? Whether it is specifically HDMI or any poorly fitting/ worn or low quality cable I'm not sure, but my new 4k monitor is chugging away happily via USB-C. Either way, there are poorly positioned and/or inadequately shielded antennae.
The otherwise identical 2018 Intel Mac mini has never shown anything remotely like this (but also can't run Lightroom's DeNoise AI in 30 seconds or less...more like 7 minutes)
Wow, this solved my issue with Mac Mini with M2. I had my monitor connected with HDMI to HDMI cable and was using an USB-C hub in one of Thunderbolt ports with 2 external external discs attached. I wash experiencing dropping of WiFi resulting in irritating silences on HomePod and after minutes resulting in total loss of WiFi connection and it wouldn't reconnect anymore to the network until I unplugged the USB-C hub.
I tried various times: plug in and plug out the hub. With hub drop of WiFi, without hub no issue.
Reading about the HDMI interference I tried to connect the monitor with USB-C to HDMI cable instead. And guess what? No more WiFi dropping, HomePod sound stable and the USB hub with external disks connected at the same time.
I would never have guessed that the issue was related to the HDMI to HDMI connection.
So I had this issue sporadically since I got my M2 Pro in March. It was so bad, I did an exchange in May, it was fine for a bit then started back up a couple weeks after. So, I just gritted my teeth and bore with it, as it wasn't super common.
I was looking for possible fixes, then I ran across this thread. I swapped my HDMI cable to a USB-C/Thunderbolt, and literally saw the speed test adjust back to normal on my second monitor. Who would have thought?
I was looking for possible fixes, then I ran across this thread. I swapped my HDMI cable to a USB-C/Thunderbolt, and literally saw the speed test adjust back to normal on my second monitor. Who would have thought?
Bizarre isn't it? This is such a clear design defect in an otherwise breathtakingly good machine.
Yeah, but I'm not even sure I can blame Apple's design on this. Using the same older HDMI cable, I've been able to replicate this (tho to a lesser extent) on my PS5 and Series X consoles. I've been reading up on the "hows" cheap/older HDMI interference.