Macbook sometimes drops my wifi connection and can't reconnect for a few minutes

Every now and then my macbook will drop my home wifi connection and the network will not be visible in the list of available networks for a few minutes leaving me unable to reconnect. Eventually my network reappears and I reconnect and it works again. I don't believe it to be a router issue as my iPad and iPhone never have this problem and I still have a working connection on them even when my mac cannot see the network.

I live on a street where there are quite a few neighbour's wifi networks within range of my PC. I have experimented with a number of different wifi channels on the router but it hasn't solved the issue. Any ideas?

The router is a Virgin Media "Super Hub" (some sort of Netgear)

Solution 1:

If you were to run the Wireless Diagnostic tool each time the network dropped, you might be able to look over the logs once you have 5 to 10 events and see if you can determine a pattern. It's hidden in the folder /System/Library/CoreServices/ and also available if you hold the option key and click on the wireless icon in the menu bar.

Once the tool runs and deposits the diagnostic data on your desktop - you might run it a second time and use the Utilities window to see if you can see interference or other issues on the Performance view.

That section where the noise jumped up was when I turned on our Microwave.