Airport Dropout Issue Post-10.5.2 Partially Releived

Though I rarely ended up mentioning the Airport dropout issues I’ve been somewhat consistently seeing exhibited on my MacBook, they have been happening. Most signs of this issue, including what AppleCare has said, say that it is a hardware issue and therefore needs to be sent in to AppleCare to be replaced. However, I never really trusted that on the sole basis of how and when the problems started occurring. My grandmother, Dagmar, just left today after a weeklong visit. Part of what happens during any time the two of us are together is that she bombards me with questions about her MacBook (same generation as mine). Though she was unaware of it, one of the things about her MacBook that I noticed is that it is experiencing the exact same dropouts that mine is! That means a couple of things: 1. It’s not a hardware issue and therefore sending my MacBook in won’t (shouldn’t) help, 2. 10.5.2 did cause it, 3. It’s a bug either related to the 10.5.2 MacBook Airport Card drivers or their interaction with the kind of Airport base station we use here. Regardless of what combination of these and others not mentioned here it is, the issue seems like it’s probably widespread enough to have a good chance of being fixed in 10.5.3 (which now seems like it will be released alongside WWDC). This does not relive me of the problem now, but at least assures me that a fix is likely to come soon. Enjoy, Alex.