Fix Wi Fi Not Working Issue on MacBook When Connected to External Monitor Via Dongle

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Asif Ahmed
Asif Ahmedhttp://techtippr.com
Founder and Cheif Editor of Techtippr, Get in touch with me on Twitter or Enjoy my Stories on Instagram. I think they are interesting. :-)

If you are using the new generation of MacBook Pro laptops that have got only USB type C slot, and you to use an external monitor and other computer peripherals to boost up your productivity, chances are you will end up buying a dongle.

After my 5-year-old MacBook Air started acting up I had to buy the Macbook Pro 2019 July refresh, the entry-level variant of MacBook Pro has got only to USB type C slot on the left-hand side.

I bought a USB type C dongle for MacBook Pro for around $40, from Amazon, it looks something like this.

Buy from Amazon USA / Amazon India

The USB type C dongle has got 2 USB type A slots, 1 Micro SD card slot, 1 SD card slot, 1 HDMI slot, and 2 USB type C slot. One of them is capable of delivering power to the Macbook Pro for charging it.

The design of the dongle is also pretty clever since it snaps to the side of the Macbook Pro and it’s pretty clean as if it is an extended part of your MacBook Pro.

There is an issue with the design, whenever I connect my external monitor using the HDMI cable, the Wi-Fi starts acting up. It will work for a few minutes and then then it will completely stop working.

I couldn’t figure out the issue but after hours of troubleshooting I found out that the HDMI slot on the dongle is near to the Macbook Pro area where the hardware for Wi-Fi is installed and whenever I connect the external monitor using the HDMI cable, free Wi-Fi starts acting up.

This makes using this dongle pointless for me since I got it just to use my monitor primarily, it was annexed referred to have other slots but I won’t usually need them.

How to fix this issue of Wi-Fi not working while external monitor is connected.

All the other spots on the dongle work, I tried connecting my external SSD, my blue Yeti microphone using the USB type A, I also tried the SD slots. All of them work.

Even the external monitor works pretty fine, but Wi-Fi stops working. So the workaround that I found was. To flip the USB dongle, so that the HDMI slot goes a little far from the area where the Wi-Fi hardware is installed on the Macbook Pro.

Simply flip it over and connecting it to the Macbook Pro solve the problem and I was able to use the external monitor along with Wi-Fi.

So if you have already bought a dongle like this, when you can either use it by flipping it over when you want to use the external monitor.

Or you can replace it with another USB type C dongle which has a small wire so that it keeps the HDMI slots away from the MacBook Pro.

The one that I ended up buying, was something like this.

Buy from Amazon USA (Different Brand) / Amazon India

When I tried using Wi-Fi Internet while connecting it to the external monitor, I was able to do so and all the slots are working fine.

This USB dongle cost $10 extra than the previous one, is a little Bigger but also comes within RJ45 slot for connecting to the internet via a LAN cable.

The benefit of connecting to the internet via LAN cable is that to get maximum internet speed, in my case the difference was almost to represent as I was able to get around 92Mbps upload and download on my 100Mbps connection.

While on Wi-Fi I get somewhere around 50 Mbps both up and down.

So to wrap it up,

if you already have got a dongle which looks like this and you have a problem where you are not able to use the Wi-Fi Internet when you connected to the external monitor.

  • Flip over the dongle whenever you want to use an external monitor
  • Get a new one which is a small wire or for maybe e a way to connect to the internet via a wire.

Check out this video for a better understanding

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