You love your MacBook.

Of course, you're a bit more fond of it when the wireless system works as it's supposed to.

According to AppleInsider, MacBook owners are reporting that their wireless networking functions have become much less reliable since installing Mac OS X 10.5 ("Leopard) as well as recent updates to Mac OS X 10.4 ("Tiger"), especially in situations where the systems are running from battery power.

The problem appears to have first surface with the Mac OS X 10.4.10 system update this summer and is said to affect most models, although reports of the instance are scarce from owners of Apple's newest Santa-Rosa-based MacBook units.

In many cases, the problem seems to emerge when the laptop is disconnected from its power supply. Once the user switches over to battery power, the wireless link becomes intermittent and in many cases the network connection drops entirely when idle.

Other symptoms of the problem include users being unable to detect nearby wireless networks after restarting but almost always being able to find a dependable connection after reattaching the power plug. A handful of owners have reported having to restart the computer to restore the Wi-Fi connection.

To date, Apple has yet to publicly acknowledge the problem, which seems to be present in Mac OS X 10.4.10, 10.4.11, 10.5 and 10.5.1. Some users have commented that the situation has improved somewhat with the most recent updates to Mac OS X 10.4 and Mac OS X 10.5 but the situation still seems far from resolved.

Successful workarounds have included reverting back to Mac OS X 10.4.9 and setting up commands in the Mac OS X Terminal program that help keep the connection alive. The problem does not seem to occur in systems running Windows XP or Windows Vista under Apple's Boot Camp software.

If you've seen this on your end or discovered a fix or workaround, let us know in the comments or forums.

"Whenever I unplug my AC adapter, my wireless Internet goes a little crazy and starts continually disconnecting and reconnecting moments later," says one owner.