iMac 27" WiFi losing connection intermittently

In the aid that this helps anyone I thought I'd post it up there with my normal helpful stuff :).

This week I decided to finally bite the bullet, you can see through my exhaustive blog that I have found and fixed my fair share of Windows OS problems and it's only fair I give MAC OSX it's shot. So I invested in a brand new 27" iMac, Quad Core 3.4Ghz i7 with a 1TB hard drive I was more than looking forward to working on this bad boy.

I was incredibly disappointed when I took it home though, to find that at least three / four times an hour I was having frequent drops in Wireless Connection. I have a decent wireless router (Yes I'm perhaps 30ft away) but I can sit in my car outside (60ft away) and still get a good signal on my iPhone.

I found a few 'hot fixes' online, something about in Network Preferences, set it to a new name and not Automatic. I gave it a try, no joy.  So amongst my troubleshooting steps I took note of every change and tested and tested and tested until eventually JACKPOT.

The problem I have is that my wireless is running WPA-PSK encryption; although my Windows PC, two iPhones and iPad have NO PROBLEM whatsoever the iMAC does! The second you change it to WEP it works like a gem!

I have to say I am very, very unhappy about having my network open to WEP. So I went into my Access Point and locked my network down to mac address access only, so I have to approve anyone coming onto my wireless. It gave me that extra piece of mind.

To be fair, I'm not entirely against WEP and it will work fine for a lot of people, I just know from my own technical understanding of 'hacking' etc that it is fairly easy to break!

Hopefully this post finds those in need well and let me know if it helps.

Kris

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