Airport Problems on NIew imac G5

[srlee]

I am having wireless networking problems on a new imac g5 running the latest Tiger OS. I believe what is happening is that the airport is assigning its own IP address as opposed to allowing the netgear router to do it. Despite the fact it is set to DHCP.

I can get it to work sometimes through some combination of reseting the router, rebooting the system, etc, but it will not work reliably.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

- Stephen

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Please provide more information on your setup -- we have no idea what settings you've applied to the AirPort nor the NetGear router, nor do we have any idea about what kind of internet connection you have. Without some information concerning these things, it's nearly impossible to diagnose the problem -- all we know is that you have an AirPort and a NetGear router and an iMac running Tiger and the wireless network works sometimes.

[Thank The Cheese]

Are you using a "Netgear Wireless DSL Firewall Router", model number DG834G (look underneith unit for name and model number).

I am using that router on my iMac G5 and had a lot of problems in the beginning. What I did was update it to the latest Firmware (version 3.01.25) and it has run flawlessly since.

Support page for DG834G (to download firmware update)

or if you have the new verion (DG834Gv2) go to:

Support page for DG824Gv2

If that isn't your model, updating your firmware is still a good start. Go to Netgear's website to download them.

Hope that helps. If you need help installing the firmware post back here, but you sound like you know what you're doing

[srlee]

Thanks for the follow ups.

The model is a Netgear WGR614. Internet connection is cable and it working fine if I am plugged directly into the router on windows or using my Mac laptop.

Airport is set to DHCP, but as I said it seems to self-assign an IP address rather than getting one from the router.

- Stephen

[nixgeek]

Have you set the router to also act as a DHCP server? If not, then that's your problem...you need to go into the configuration page for the wireless router and have it give out IP addresses to the internal network.

[srlee]

Router is setup for DHCP.

Let me describe what actually happened in more detail. This is a very strange problem.

I've had this router for a long time. It has served two windows machines (one direct connected, one wireless) for a long time without incident. Months ago I started using a Powerbook G4 at work with an airport card. I would bring it home and it too would work flawlessly on the wireless network at home. No problem.

I just got an imac G5 and set it up, and that is where the trouble began. I could not get it on the wireless network. So I fired up my work laptop, and it TOO refused to join the network. I worked on this and gor the G5 going on the network somehow, not sure how, and it was fine for a few days. Then it all just stopped working. I cannot get the G4 powerbook or the G5 on the wireless network at all. I upgraded the firmware in the router and everything and it simply does not work.

This is an apple problem, because I have a windows machine working on the wireless network and a direct connected windows machine working on the wireless network right now, no problem. If I direct connect the powerbook to the router with an ethernet cable, it too works fine.

I am at a loss at this point. It appears that the airport cards in both apples are self-assigning IP addresses and I just can't get past that.

- Stephen

[srlee]

Through much searching, I found that others reported the same trouble and set their router to allow UPnP which seemed to work. I did the same and it restored the ability of the two macs to go wireless. It is dog slow, though. I don't know why, but it is. That is why I call this a temporary fix.

Because of the circumstances, I am convinced that the latest Mac OS update included a patch that messed this up. My laptop was working fine with everything set as it was (UPnP disabled in the router) for many months.

I plan on running a direct ethernet connection to the imac g5 so that it does not have to be wireless (I can do this and have it be under 100m no problem). I can live with my laptop being slow on wireless or I can just wire it in too when needed. In other words, I am punting at this point. Maybe at the next osx upgrade I will try again. Too bad, because my windows machines work flawlessly on the network. I got an imac G5 because I was very impressed with my powerbook G4 which replaced an IBM thinkpad. However, this experience has been very disappointing...

Anyway, I posted this here in case someone else has the same problem and searches and finds this information useful.

- Stephen