New Macbook Pro (10.6.6) drops airport, "looking for connections"

Question

Ok, I do shope somene can help as I am getting very frustrated here.
I just replaced my trusty ibook G4 with a new macbook pro. I have had problems with the airport connection on the macbook-- it keeps dropping the wireless network and saying "looking for connections" every second or two. I can't sync my 1st gen apple tv, and I think the problems may be related. In any case, I had the same problem on my imac G5 when I first got it-- it was completely unusable for a while, and finally a genius at the apple store gave me a fix that involved deleting some preference file, saying that the imac was constantly trying to find a stronger connection and switching between other networks I had used.
Unfortunately, 1) I don't remember the exact fix, and 2) I have not hooked up to nay other network, so I don;t know why it would be looking. I have required it to ask for permission to switch networks as well, but I guess that doesn't stop it from looking.
Can anyone help me figure out how to get it to stick with the assigned network & leave the others alone?
If anyone also has any idea why the apple tv can't connect that might be different, that would also be helpful-- it's telling me I might have port 3389 blocked by a firewall, but I don't, and it was connecting earlier (though it was slow). I can't get a sync on wireless or ethernet.
Thanks.

Answer 1

Clare in Chi wrote:
I have had problems with the airport connection on the macbook
It might help to reset the connection settings on your Mac using these steps one at a time until the problem is resolved, recognizing that, depending on your problem, not all of these steps will make sense:
1) Use the AirPort menu bar item to turn AirPort off, then on again.
2) Try to select your Wi-Fi network from the AirPort menu.
3) In the Network panel of System Preferences delete the AirPort item from the left column, then add it back.
4) In the same panel as (3), define a new location and see if you can make that work.
5) In the same panel, select the AirPort connection item, click the "Advanced" button, select the "TCP/IP" tab, then click "Renew DHCP Lease".
6) In the folder /Library/Preferences ( not <yourhomefolder>/Library/Preferences), move the folder SystemConfiguration onto the Desktop, then restart your computer. See if you can now make your AirPort connection work.
These steps may not help, but they'll only take a couple of minutes to try. Before you try these, if you have any special network settings on your Mac for things like DSL credentials, note all your network settings, because the latter steps will destroy them. If you got all the way to the last step, if things don't work any worse than before, you can trash the saved SystemConfiguration folder.
Can anyone help me figure out how to get it to stick with the assigned network & leave the others alone?
Open the Network panel of System Preferences, click the lock to authenticate if it's "closed", select the AirPort connection item, and click the "Advanced" button. Click on each of the nearby networks that aren't yours and click the minus sign.
If anyone also has any idea why the apple tv can't connect
I'm not sure what to suggest about that.