Airport connection drops out randomly

[mmcgurk]

I have a new iMac 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB of 800 Mz RAM.

When I am online, the Airport connection drops out randomly for no discernible reason.

I have run all the checks possible, repeatedly, on my router. I know that is not the problem because my old iBook Airport card gets and holds a signal with no problem, sitting on the same table with the iMac.

I am running OSX 10.5.5. and use Firefox browser 3.0.3. I also have Parallels on the iMac, but rarely fire it up.

I have spent hours on the phone with Apple support and nobody can come up with any reason why this is happening or what to do about it.

Is there anything, anything at all, I can try short of turning the iMac over to an Apple store? It would be tremendous hardship for me to do without this machine for the xxxx weeks it would take to get it back.

Thanks for any hints or suggestions.

 

[didoman]

I have run all the checks possible, repeatedly, on my router. I know that is not the problem because my old iBook Airport card gets and holds a signal with no problem

I'm in pretty much the same situation... My old PowerBook G4 1.67 (10.4.x) worked just fine with my DLink DI-624, but my new(er) MacBook SR 2.0 (10.5.5) has had the issue from day one. The thing is, I ONLY have this problem with my home router (which there is nothing wrong with, PCs work fine)! It works great on my university's wifi, work, friends' places, literally everywhere else I go... For this reason I doubt that the problem is a faulty airport card.

Unfortunately I don't have a solution for you... Some people on apple support figure its a problem with leopard, others with the newer airport cards. I figure it's possible that newer apple hardware just doesn't work well with that particular router, or possibly with a certain type of router. I'll probably end up just buying a new router.

What kind of router do you have? And what are your security settings? I have WPA2 enabled, but it drops out with WEP too. Can you bring your imac to a friend's or something and try out someone else's wifi? Or borrow someone else's router? If anyone has some ideas on ways to go about troubleshooting I'd be very interested!