Having Problems With WiFi in Lion? Here’s How You Can Fix Them

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Airport in OS X Lion

Hopefully by now you’re running Apple’s shiny new cat, OS X Lion, on your Mac. You may be noticing all the improvements and changes that Apple made in Lion, and we recommend reading our comprehensive review of Lion for all the info you need to know about the latest edition of OS X.

For most users, upgrading to Lion is a smooth and pain-free process. For others, there seems to be several problems, specifically with intermittent Wi-Fi dropouts.

Reports from disgruntled Lion users have been surfacing on the web through social networks like Twitter, and even on Apple’s discussion forums. Most of these wireless-related complaints condense into one problem: unreliable Wi-Fi connectivity.

There’s a myriad of possibilities as to why this issue could be happening for so many users, but it’s most likely related to a driver issue with some Mac wireless cards and Lion. There’s a good chance that Apple will push an updated to Lion soon to fix this problem, alongside others.

Here are some basic tips to fix spotty Wi-Fi connectivity in Lion.

Basic Wi-Fi troubleshooting tips in Lion:

  1. Turn Wi-Fi off and then back on in Airport on your Mac.
  2. Reboot your Mac.
  3. Reset your router.

Step 1 is definitely the first thing you should try to fix a bad Wi-Fi connection. Simply switching your wireless card on and off could very well fix any wonky connection between your router and Mac.

Step 2 could reset some settings on your Mac that may have carried over from Snow Leopard and caused conflicting issues with Airport, but that’s far-fetched.  Rebooting your machine is really just the most basic thing you can do to see if something can be easily corrected.

Reseting your router (unplug it for about 15-30 seconds) will theoretically fix any issues specifically related to your router not playing nice with Lion. If you’ve got some IP address confusion with multiple devices on your network, a router reset could just do the trick.

If you’re still having problems with Wi-Fi dropouts, OS X Daily has some more advanced Wi-Fi troubleshooting steps for you to try.

Let us know what your experience with Wi-Fi dropouts has been like in Lion. Did the above steps help you fix the problem? Also, feel free to share your knowledge with us all below if you’ve successfully fixed this problem on your own!

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