{"id":46996,"date":"2025-03-10T20:37:37","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T00:37:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=46996"},"modified":"2025-03-12T09:51:26","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T13:51:26","slug":"weak-m4-mac-mini-wi-fi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/10\/weak-m4-mac-mini-wi-fi\/","title":{"rendered":"Weak M4 Mac mini Wi-Fi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/inside\/mac-mini\/tips\/how-to-fix-weak-wi-fi-on-a-m4-mac-mini-when-connected-to-a-drive-or-dock\">Mike Wuerthele<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/inside\/mac-mini\/tips\/how-to-fix-weak-wi-fi-on-a-m4-mac-mini-when-connected-to-a-drive-or-dock\"><p>Hours after the new Mac mini hit customers&rsquo; desks, some users started complaining that when they hooked up a hard drive or SSD to the unit, they&rsquo;d see Wi-Fi speeds drop, or be cut entirely. The reports were almost always followed up with the realization that when disconnected, the Wi-Fi speeds would go back to normal.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>The case of the M4 Mac mini is aluminum, with a plastic lower case. There are no breaks in the aluminum for the Wi-Fi antenna, so Apple has placed it underneath that very thin plastic base of the unit.\n<\/p><p>For the most part, this is fine. The desks and surfaces a Mac mini are generally placed on are wood, which has nearly no Wi-Fi attenuation.\n<\/p><p>Since that plastic is so thin on the base, things get a little dicier when the unit is placed on top of a metal-enclosure hard drive, or dock, for instance.\n<\/p><p><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He also triggered the problem with RF interference from certain USB cables.<\/p>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/16\/m4-mac-mini-usb-c-issues\/\">M4 Mac mini USB-C Issues<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/03\/m4-mac-issues-with-ultrawide-monitors\/\">M4 Mac Issues With Ultrawide Monitors<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/10\/29\/mac-mini-2024\/\">Mac mini 2024<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"weak-m4-mac-mini-wi-fi-update-2025-03-12\">Update (2025-03-12): <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SheriefFYI\/status\/1899543366603583594\">Sherief, FYI<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SheriefFYI\/status\/1899543366603583594\">\n<p>high speed [differential] signals on a wire become indistinguishable from a radio source at points - Intel published <a href=\"https:\/\/usb.org\/sites\/default\/files\/327216.pdf\">a paper<\/a> on this and a little birdie told me this was actually discovered while working on Apple hardware.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@fds\/114143727713710042\">Franklin Delano Stallone<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@fds\/114143727713710042\"><p>I raised my mini by placing it on a  thick stone coaster. I&rsquo;ll have to do some testing after work. It would explain why the mini has been the most unreliable with the Vision Pro.<\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mike Wuerthele: Hours after the new Mac mini hit customers&rsquo; desks, some users started complaining that when they hooked up a hard drive or SSD to the unit, they&rsquo;d see Wi-Fi speeds drop, or be cut entirely. The reports were almost always followed up with the realization that when disconnected, the Wi-Fi speeds would go [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-03-11T00:37:40Z","apple_news_api_id":"dcef3964-ee71-4774-b7d2-307c62e1b18f","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-03-12T13:51:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A3O85ZO5xR3S30jB8YuGxjw","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[90,30,557,2598,174,175,187],"class_list":["post-46996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-cable","tag-mac","tag-macmini","tag-macos-15-sequoia","tag-storage","tag-usb","tag-wifi"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46996"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47021,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46996\/revisions\/47021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}