# Problem with Airport card and D-Link router



## boss hoggue (Sep 6, 2002)

I'm running a wireless home network with a D-link 713P wireless router, a PowerBook 667, and an iBook 366 (both running 10.2).  I live in a densely populated area, so I want to have MAC address control enabled, basically to restrict access to the router to only these two computers, or whatever other computers I specify.  This works fine with the iBook.  I simply plug in the Airport card's MAC address and a fixed IP address into the router setup; the iBook has access.  However, when I plug in the PowerBook's Airport card MAC address and a fixed IP address into the router setup, the PowerBook can no longer connect.  With MAC address control disabled, the PowerBook has access.  Is it possible that the MAC address of my PowerBook's Airport card is different from what's indicated in the Network pane?  Could it be a hardware defect in the card?


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## keyizm (Sep 7, 2002)

i've got a G4 450Mhz AGP with an airport card and a D-Link 614+ wireless router and i've had no problems enabling MAC address filtering. you might want to try running plain DHCP 1st with no MAC address filtering . if that works, add both notebooks MAC addresses and then enable MAC address filtering. if that works, then i'd try it with static ips. personally, there is no clean interface way to specify specific static IPs on the 614+ so i've just stuck with DHCP. you could limit your DHCP range down to 2 ips (or the exact number of machines you have and this would pretty much do the same thing because the machines would probably get assigned the same ip address). i hope this helps and keep me posted ...


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## DeltaMac (Sep 7, 2002)

How about just swapping the Airport cards? A couple of minutes and you'll quickly see if the problem is in one Airport card. If problem stays with PowerBook, then try the various configs.


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## boss hoggue (Sep 7, 2002)

thanks for the advice.  i realized after posting my problem that swapping the cards would be the relevant experiment.  i don't really look forward to unscrewing the base of my new powerbook again, but it's easy enough i guess.  i'll first try configuring the router to serve DHCP with MAC address control, and see if that does anything first.  i'll post the results.


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## boss hoggue (Sep 7, 2002)

well it seems to be a fluke with the router...switching to DHCP worked!  MAC address control now works.  strange...


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## keyizm (Sep 8, 2002)

glad to hear everything worked out for you?! actually, i ran into a similar problem trying to configure multiple static ips with MAC address filtering enabled on my D-Link 614+. when i switched to DHCP, everything seemed to work fine. if you ever figure out how to get static ip addresses working with MAC addresses, drop me a line ...


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## boss hoggue (Sep 9, 2002)

keyizm,

i think i figured out the configuration problem that was causing the connection problems with static IPs and MAC address filtering.  in the router console, i had entered two MAC addresses for one computer:  one for the airport card and one for ethernet, figuring if i ever need to connect via ethernet, i wouldn't need to disable MAC address control, and i wouldn't have to go into my network settings and play around with different IPs.  that's the problem: that i specified the same static IP address for both MAC addresses.  this seems to confuse the router.  so for each MAC address, you need to assign a different IP address, even if only one of the two MAC addresses are ever being used at one time (since they're both from the same computer).  so...   so far i've got MAC address filtering working, and DHCP disabled--two security features.  now if only i could get only REAL security feature--WEP--to work properly with this damn router...it's not a key problem...the router seems to drop the signal after a few minutes with WEP, requiring a router reboot.  i'm working with D-Link tech support to fix it, but it's looking like a hardware problem.

good luck!


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## twister (Sep 30, 2002)

Since you all sound like smart people, is the D-Link 614+ my only choice (besides AirPort) for wireless internet?  I have a PowerBook 667 w/AirPort Card and I will be, hopefully, getting DSL soon. It will have to be shared with a PC but i think it would be awesome if i could be wireless.

Any suggestions on what to buy (think cheap but reliable) would be awesome.

Thanks
Thomas


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## keyizm (Sep 30, 2002)

i have the D-Link614+ and it's been ROCK SOLID for me. i've got a TimeWarner cable modem running through the wireless router and i get consistent 125k-250k download speeds.i've got a 4pc 1 mac enviornment and it works great. it's got great features (pretty much all the one's you'd want) and you can purchase the D-Link+ corresponding cards for you PC and bump up the speed to 22MB/sec (this doesn't mean anything because you'll never really see that kinda bandwidth). it also offically supports Mac OS (both 9 & X) so you can call and get tech support when needed. hmmmm, can you tell i'm biased 
besides that, i've got quite a few friends that have the Linksys EtherFast wireless AP router. they're rock solid performers as well however, they lack offical Mac OS support (they work great under OS 9 & X but the moment you call in for tech support and let them know you have a mac, the conversation ends). their admin gui isn't as nice or feature rich as the D-Link614+ either.
these are the two wireless routers i've had experiene with. they are plenty more on the market and i'd recommend checking out online sites that due reviews of such products (like www.cnet.com or www.zdnet.com). i hope this helps ...

www.cnet.com Networking & Wireless reviews ...
URL: http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-1037.html?tag=dir


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