Troubleshoot MacBook Pro Airport Card Disconnecting Issues

It Works! …Now it Doesn’t.

One of the most common greiviances with pretty much any Mac portable, including the MacBook Pros is the airport connection. Just like “OMG! Safari seems so much faster!” is an inside joke with pretty much every Mac Os X update that comes out, even the incremental ones, the airport disconnecting is one of the inside jokes with pretty much every hard ware upgrade that happens to Apple signature laptop line. Of course its all fun and meme worthy until it happens to you. Then it is real trouble. More so if you are touring half way around the world or if your laptop is essential to your college work. You can’t really send your Mac off to the guys at Apple Care for the better part of two weeks can you? And I’m not even including the half a day that you are going to end up wasting trying to get the thing diagnosed at an apple store.

Apple Care is the Best Option

The easy thing to do in this case is to see of your Apple MacBook Pro is still covered under the Apple Care Protection Plan which will make it as much as Apple’s problem as yours. If it isn’t though, then there are a couple of ways in which you can diagnose this one.

It is not uncommon for airport cards to come lose, it is rare but it does happen from time to time and the incidence is a lot more common on the pre-Unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pro’s. The easiest way to check if your MacBook’s airport card has come loose is to first make sure that your airport hasn’t stopped working for nay other reason. Sometimes, a recent software update can cause the same problem as an Airport card coming unseated so.

Since many a Mac has been configured by default to apply updates automatically over startup you’ll need to open up your computer’s System Preferences and head over to the Log to see if an update has recently been applied to your system. If that isn’t the case and you are sure that your Apple Care has expired then what you need to do is get set to open up your MacBook Pro by yourselves and re-seat the Airport Card by itself.

But I Am Good with Tools…

This is not something that the faint of heart and the not so nimble with tools should attempt but if you are confident you can do it, then the guys over at iFixit have the most detailed tutorials that you will ever need. There are some tools that you will need before you attempt this feat though;

• Spudger
• Phillips #00 Screwdriver
• Coin

A spudger is optional but it makes the job a lot easier. Once you have all the tools you should also get some plastic cups for the screws as you don’t want to misplace them later on or lose one in the internal works of your computer. With that set follow this guide over here and your Airport problems will soon be gone.