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Rapid DHCP: Or, how do Macs get on the network so fast?

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354 points timdoug | 7 comments | 12 Jul 11 17:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.879s | source | bottom
1. troels ◴[12 Jul 11 17:48 UTC] No.2755659[source]▶
Anecdotally, my mac is absolutely horrible at connecting to my wifi. I often have to try multiple times and some times I give up, have to walk over to the router and restart it before I can get on. Probably an issue with the router ultimately, but I don't have this problem with other devices.
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2. wildmXranat ◴[12 Jul 11 17:54 UTC] No.2755685[source]▶
I was looking for this type of comment and I'm baffled it's a single one. None of my macbooks are that exceptional at re-connecting to wifi spots, especially the 2007 laptop. Coincidentally, I bought a linksys usb wifi adapter that could pull my neighbor's wifi from across the street. Just saying.
3. cbs ◴[12 Jul 11 19:18 UTC] No.2756081[source]▶
Anecdotally, my mac is absolutely horrible at connecting to my wifi.

There are certain networks they loathe to connect to and I haven't been able to find a common cause. The 802.1x authentication at college took lots of fiddling around on my mac every time I tried to connect, while all my other devices worked fine.

4. msbarnett ◴[12 Jul 11 19:44 UTC] No.2756196[source]▶
The only time Ive ever had issues with OS X connecting to wifi was while using a cheapo router that insisted on advertising its 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks using the same SSID.

Moving to a router that allowed them to be configured with different SSIDs resolved all my issues.

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5. shinratdr ◴[12 Jul 11 22:31 UTC] No.2756925[source]▶
> The only time Ive ever had issues with OS X connecting to wifi was while using a cheapo router that insisted on advertising its 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks using the same SSID.

That is the default behaviour for an Airport Extreme.

6. jrockway ◴[12 Jul 11 22:33 UTC] No.2756932[source]▶
There are cheapo routers that do 5GHz?
7. 5hoom ◴[12 Jul 11 23:16 UTC] No.2757055[source]▶
Another anecdote, I have encountered the occasional bit of strange behaviour with my macbook & various iDevices 'stealing' existing ip addresses on my home network, but it happens infrequently enough that I haven't been motivated to look into the problem. How it seems to go is that if the mac & iDevices are switched on simultaneously suddenly my PC's get connectivity issues. My interest in getting to the bottom of this phenomena has been piqued after reading this story. I will confess however that my router is a bit old & flakey & that I'm a very lazy admin ;)