# MacBook Pro AirPort to Netgear RangeMax 240?



## Hippo Man (Apr 28, 2007)

I have a MacBook Pro running macosx 10.4, and I have an AirPort card which supports 802.11g.

I'm trying to establish a wireless connection to a Netgear RangeMax 240 (WPNT834) which also supports 802.11g, but I'm having problems, even though the specs for that piece of hardware specify that it does indeed work with macosx machines.  I have seen other threads here concerning similar problems, but unless I overlooked something, none of them seem to be addressing the issues that I am having.

First of all, some background: I have DSL service with three static IP addresses. Before hooking up that wireless router, I have been connecting to the internet with no problem through this DSL connection via a wired network. By means of a router and a switch (both non-wireless), I've been able to use my static IP's in wired mode with a Linux box, a Windows box, and my MacBook Pro. I have not been using IP masquerading ... _i.e._, each of the three machines is assigned one of those static IP's that I'm getting from my DSL provider. This setup has worked for years with two machines, and for the past 4-5 months with the MacBook Pro as the third one.

I decided to try a wireless connection from my MacBook Pro to the Netgear router. The Netgear instructions say that with a non-Windows machine I can't use any of the drivers on the supplied installation CD, and that I should just set up the router by connecting to it from my macosx box via a specific URL and going through the setup procedure described in their documentation. Unfortunately, I can't get the MacBook Pro to connect to the router in setup mode, even though the router does show up when I select AirPort under the Network System Preferences.

Even though I specify a no-password connection, I am being prompted for a WEP password when I try to create an AirPort network connection to the wireless router, and I have no idea what that password is.  I presume that I need to go into the wireless router's setup mode in order to find out this password or to set it to the value that I want, but I can't get into setup mode when I try to do this, following the instructions in the wireless router docs.

I'm guessing that this might have something to do with the fact that I am being supplied with static IP's from my DSL provider, but that the router is trying to use DHCP.

This seems to be a catch-22 for me:  unless I can get into the wireless router's setup mode, I can't find out or set its password, and I can't change how it deals with the DSL network with regard to the static IP's being supplied.  And unless I can determine a password for the router and/or manage its IP policies, I can't seem to get into setup mode in the first place.

Have any of you been able to get a MacBook Pro (or any macosx system with an AirPort card) to connect to this Netgear wireless router (or perhaps a similar one) under these conditions?

Thanks in advance for any pointers you can give me.


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## Hippo Man (Apr 28, 2007)

Never mind: I figured out the problem.  I overlooked a key instruction in the documentation: to set up the router, I have to do it via a wired connection.  Duh!

Once I did that, I could configure all the password and IP parameters.

I'm sorry for the bandwidth.


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