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I have a 13'' MacBook Pro from early 2011. Suddenly it can't find any WiFi Networks anymore. It used to find networks (including mine) at my home, but now it doesn't.

I cant remember when this happened, most of the time i'm using ethernet.

I installed all updates, repaired the permissions, tried do de/activate Airport, deleted

 /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
 /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist
 /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.network.identification.plist

rebootet several times. Still no wifi.

Any ideas?

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3 Answers

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If your Mac is capable of running internet recovery, I would boot to the Recovery HD or full on internet recovery to see if the OS is the culprit.

If you can't join any networks from recovery HD it's very likely a hardware or severe interference issue is at play. At that point, you could take your Mac to one or two different networks that are known to work with Macs and test.

Being able to isolate the major systems helps when it's hard to guess what is happening.

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as the w-lan was also not working under linux, i gave it away for a repair, and it turns out, the wireless&bluetooth boards were broken. – jojoo Jan 17 at 11:53
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have you tried reseting the PRAM and SMC? Howto: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964 and http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

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tried that, didn't work. any additional ideas? – jojoo Aug 9 '12 at 18:12
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Try to do a site survey and determine if there are "new" wirelss APs in the area. NetSpot is a FREE handy tool. A new device may bew causing a conflict. This could be in a nearby building. If you find conflicts, change her wireless channel to an unused one and set it so it does not auto select. U can download free here: http://www.netspotapp.com/

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2  
How can they do a survey if no networks are found? – bmike♦ Nov 5 '12 at 15:30
It can find any network! It's very powerful utility! – Alex Nov 13 '12 at 11:22
You can use netspot to basically create a 'map' of your location, and see network information around you. It will show you areas that network connectivity may suffer. You can then revisit the data points to possibly determine better locations for your router, or where the worst offending networks are to better decide which channels to use. – Alex Nov 13 '12 at 11:23

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