Update: Notes on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger--AirPort & Bluetooth Glitches & Performance Drop

AirPort: We can confirm another instance of a Mac not reconnecting automatically to an AirPort network. This time it's a 17" 1.67GHz PowerBook G4 and an AirPort Extreme Base Station. After sleeping and waking and restarting a G4 Cube, a 17" PowerBook G4 and a Power Mac G5 many times with automatic reconnection to our AirPort network, set for 802.11b/g to use the Cube which needs the "b" protocol, we thought the iMac G5 issue might be an isolated instance. Then, we used the AirPort Admin Untility from the PowerBook to reset the ABS to the 802.11g-only protocol and to restart the ABS. After the ABS restarted, the PowerBook did not reconnect automatically. We had to manually enter the network name and password to connect just like with the iMac G5. A reader suggested that in the Network preference pane for Airport we switch from "By default join: Automatic" to "Preferred networks" which we have done.

Bluetooth: We still have to occasionally manually reconnect our Bluetooth keyboard and iMac G5 after a restart. However, we have not had this problem with a G4 Cube using a D-Link adapter to connect with a Bluetooth keyboard.

Performance Drop: We have mostly completed our speed tests that will be posted on Monday's edition. The news is basically good, very good with G5s, but we have experienced an unexpected, confusing and significant performance decrease in our 1.67GHz 17" PowerBook G4. We are still investigating this result but we are afraid that it is real, having reverted to 10.3.9 and back to 10.4 with a different hard drive but with the same resulting performance drop. [Bill Fox]