# Wi-Fi connectivity problems with iPad?



## SteeleCratos (May 30, 2010)

I picked up my iPad (Wi-fi only) in Buffalo NY a month ago for my parents, and its all been well and good. But its been afflicted with the issue of dropping connections, weak signals and forgetting DHCP credentials and such. I've tried every solution in the book and more, even Apple's recommended actions to take, and I've got nothing. 

Has anyone else had any problems with their iPads, and if so, any news on a fix?


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## iJayTee (Apr 20, 2010)

The easiest and most common workaround is to assign the iPad a static IP address using the router software. The problems seem to be related to acquiring and releasing IP addresses.


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## SteeleCratos (May 30, 2010)

How would you go around doing that on a D-Link DIR-625 Router? I've never done that before.


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## iJayTee (Apr 20, 2010)

SteeleCratos said:


> How would you go around doing that on a D-Link DIR-625 Router? I've never done that before.


I'm not at home or I could tell you exactly off my own D-Link set-up page. 

But basically you need to type in the router's local address into your browser. This is usually 192.168.0.1 

You then want to go to *Network Settings *and do a *DHCP Reservation* using the iPad's MAC address. Save that and the iPad will always have that IP address internally in that network.

You can find the MAC address in the iPad under settings > general > about. It's labeled Wi-Fi Address and will be a sequence of 6 number/letter pairs separated by colons. It'll be just slightly different than the Bluetooth address just below that.


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## SteeleCratos (May 30, 2010)

I didn't need the MAC address for the ipad. Set it up like you said and it's working beautifully! Still fluctuates in strength but that doesn't affect web browsing. Finally after a month of torture it works! 

Thanks alot!


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## iJayTee (Apr 20, 2010)

SteeleCratos said:


> I didn't need the MAC address for the ipad. Set it up like you said and it's working beautifully! Still fluctuates in strength but that doesn't affect web browsing. Finally after a month of torture it works!
> 
> Thanks alot!


Cool. Glad it did the trick.

I actually stumbled on that fix by accident: I wanted to give everything (PS3, cell-phone, desktop, etc.) a fixed IP so I could fool around with the QOS settings to assign priorities to devices. I was mostly interested in giving the iPad priority over everything else so large DL's on the PS3 or desktop wouldn't hog all the bandwidth (this works like a charm by the way.)

I did that with the iPad from day one so I didn't have problems but then I started reading--mostly in the Apple support forums--about this problem and people theorizing about IP release being the culprit. So I turned off the reservation for the iPad and sure enough, I started having problems too. Quickly put it back to static.

Hopefully the first update will fix this. It's a fairly common problem that a lot of people have written about now.


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## vfr (Jul 22, 2009)

SteeleCratos said:


> Has anyone else had any problems with their iPads, and if so, any news on a fix?


For the first six weeks of ownership (April 3rd buyer), no problems at all with WiFi. Only in the last two weeks it will randomly drop the connection in the middle of using it for no reason. The router sits about 6-12 feet away. There is supposed to be an OS update Real Soon Now, though, with Apple busy getting iPhone OS 4.0 out the door, don't hold your breath...


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## SteeleCratos (May 30, 2010)

Eh, so after one day of using this solution, the problem returns. Much less frequent, but usually while streaming a youtube video or just while walking around the signal goes to very low and occasionally drops.. Mind you this is on the other end of the house, but other devices are perfectly fine at the same distance.

Any ideas?


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## ldphoto (Jul 9, 2009)

By any chance, do the dropouts co-incide with the microwave oven being used? That will wipe out most 2.4 GHz WiFi signals. I have that problem at work. My office is near the lunch room, and the WiFi is pretty crappy when everyone is heating up their lunch. Some cordless phones are the same (although in many cases, it's the WiFi that causes interference to the phones)


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## SteeleCratos (May 30, 2010)

No not really, the microwave is almost never on. They're very random.

It sucks because I pitched this thing to my parents as something they'd use, and now they never use it cause it keeps cutting out the connection every so often. They now hate seeing that connecting bar interrupting their browsing. 

EDIT: Another quick question should I keep the wifi on the DHCP tab on the iPad or should I change it to the Static ip tab?


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## Rounder (Aug 9, 2008)

I've been experiencing connectivity issues as well, but not to that extent. Mine just disconnects from my wifi randomly and then I have to turn off my wifi and then back on and usually that will fix it. However, the odd time it doesn't and I have to reboot the iPad in order to get the wifi working correctly. No other device on my network ever experiences this problem.


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## Rounder (Aug 9, 2008)

Just wanted to quickly note that my connectivity issues are now gone. My wifi was always randomly dropping and i decided to do a restore and then restore my backup. Since i did that yesterday, my connection has not dropped once. Maybe it's coincidence, but i think not.


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## Carl (Jun 7, 2003)

I bought the 64 Gig Wifi 3G, and returned it the next day (one reason I buy my Macs at Best Buy now....no hassle), because of the silly WiFi problems. I Googled it and found the Apple troubleshooting page which basically said two things. One, move closer to your wireless access point, which is stupid when you think about it, and the second talked about changing channels and reconfiguring the router.
The second seemed plausible at first, but then I realized, I would be taking this out into the world. I have never been at a free wifi spot and had an opportunity to change the channels on the router. So to me, it seemed like a thousand bucks after taxes, was too much for a "what-if" device. 
I love my iPhone though and will upgrade to the new 4.0.
Once I plugged my iPad into iTunes, I realized how the whole device is basically controlled by Apple. Not a big fan of that. For some reason, it doesn't bother me on my iPhone, but it does with the iPad. So, after the WiFi nonsense, and the realization that I had to keep this thing married to Apple to use software, I decided that I will most likely buy an Android pad. I's a toy for me, and my MBPro i7 does everything I need, including let me install whatever I want on it. I'm one of those users that has the MBPro and the iPhone, so only bought the iPad because it seemed fun.


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## iphoneottawa (Apr 21, 2010)

I thought only US 1st ipads had the Wifi problem. 
Few iPads at m'y worl place a none has wifi issue.


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## Roofjac (Oct 23, 2009)

We have continual Wi-Fi problems with our iPad. Got the Airport Extreme router, and it sucks. The iPad experience so far has been a bust. Waiting for AppleCare to phone me right now. Hope they can figure this out. It always says Safari can't connect or something like that. I really thought this would be a great thing. Not so much so far.


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## Paul82 (Sep 19, 2007)

I've had no problems though I do notice that it connects at a much lower speed than n should be capable of. I have a time capsule iMac connects on n at ~250 Mbps iPad sitting right in front of the iMac connects at ~50 Mbps on the 5ghz band so definitely using n... And ideas why? Power saving? It's not really an issue as my net connection is only about 10 Mbps and the connection itself has been rock solid. But still seems odd.


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## Roofjac (Oct 23, 2009)

AppleCare solved the problem. Something with the way I set up the router and iPad the first time. Operator error, what else is new.


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## Rounder (Aug 9, 2008)

Roofjac said:


> AppleCare solved the problem. Something with the way I set up the router and iPad the first time. Operator error, what else is new.


What exactly was it you had to fix? Can you give a breakdown to help those of us still experiencing the random signal dropping? My restore seemed to have fixed it but it still drops every now and then. However when I use Mywi, the signal never drops. I would really like to hear what they told you.


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## Roofjac (Oct 23, 2009)

We did a restore just now with the Applecare guy. Still doesn't connect to internet. He set a appointment with apple store person for this morning. I have to take the iPad there and they are going to check it out. When we originally set up the iPad, somehow we got a guest network, my network, and something called dlink. No one seems to know what network we should be using. Spent 45 minutes on phone last night and the iPad worked when we were checking emails, and stuff. I loaded a book for my wife from Kindle, surfed a bit. When I tried to check emails this morning it would not connect to the internet. Now after another hour on the phone, we are going to the store and have them do a check. What a complete waste of time and money so far. I am not a computer person, we bought Apple stuff because it is user "friendly". Not so much. He said it could be the iPad, or the router (Airport Extreme), or maybe our internet provider (Shaw). I don't think this answers your questions. I really don't know what he told me, except there is something wrong with one of these things. Sorry I cannot be of more help.


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## alspad (May 30, 2010)

I have some as the same issues as the rest of you so I decided to do some speed tests this morning, here are the results;

Speedtest.net Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test

Toshiba Netbook	download: 18.03	upload: 0.96

Dell XPS laptop download: 25.73	upload: 0.95

Dell XPS desktop	download: 29.80	upload: 0.95

iPod Touch download: 12.71	upload: 0.92

iPad download: 21.84	upload: 0.94


Router Lynksys: WRT 601N ver. 2 - 

Routers

It is interesting that my Touch with less speed loads web pages as fast or faster than my iPad. My big issue with the iPad is slow loading web pages, its like the good old days of AOL. Mostly I get half or full pages of checkerboard if I scan down a page at a normal speed, if I do it quickly I get a full page of checkerboard. Is anyone else getting the checkerboard effect on your screen?


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## shooting_rubber (Mar 22, 2008)

I had some WiFi problems with my iPad as well, but changing my networks security to WPA2 solved the problem.


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## alspad (May 30, 2010)

After I did my post above I went to Future Shop and hooked up with the manager of the computer department to discuss my WiFi issues with him. Long story short the problem is fixed. The manager reduced the iPads screen brightness to zero, shut the iPad off for ten seconds and restarted it and that ended the problem. Apparently the brightness control effects the WiFi antenna thus causing a problem with internet speed. He said that Apple will soon have a software fix available for the brightness/antenna glitch.


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