yet another mac to linksys question

B

barefootmeg

Registered
i've looked through the most recent two pages of posts reading through all of the threads having to do with linksys and i haven't seen this particular problem listed yet. if i just missed it, feel free to redirect me.

here's the problem. i'm trying to set up my mom's computers to connect to her neighbors linksys WRT54GS. for some reason my laptop (ibook G4) works just fine with it. but i can't get either my mom's mac mini, nor her ibook (not sure of the model name but it's at least 3 years old) to connect.

both computers can "see" the wifi system, but they won't connect. (i type in the password and i just get a general error message in response.) i'm positive that i'm typing the password in correctly both because i can get it to work when i type it into my computer and because i've typed it where i could see it and pasted it in. so it's not that i'm typing the password wrong.

the macmini has the new version of airport card in it and the ibook has the old version, so it's not an issue of which airport card is in use.

both the mac mini and the ibook can connect just fine to my airport at my house. so i know that the airport cards work fine.

i've set up the mac mini and the ibook myself and the preferences/config. are identical to what i have on my ibook G4 (the one that Does connect to the linksys).

and i talked the neighbor into letting me get into his wifi configurations to see if i needed to input my mom's MAC addresses, but he has that section disabled, so i don't think that's the problem.

on another board someone recommended that i make sure the computer's name is less than 20 characters since linksys products apparently don't like longer names. so the computer's name is now 9 characters long with no spaces.

i'm at a complete loss as to what the problem is. there must be some silly little button somewhere that i need to click but i have no clue what it might be.

please help!
 
the owner of the linksys has asked if our mac is on channel 6. where in the world do you set what channel the computer is using?
 
Actually, the access point is what determines what channel is being used. You would have to check the channel on the Linksys.

Make sure you are using the correct encryption method. Your neighbor needs to make sure that he sets it to "Mixed Mode". Otherwise, he might just be catering to .11g clients only (which the new airport card supports). I believe that once it's set to mixed mode however, it will only allow you to use WEP as the encryption method since 802.11b doesn't support WPA encryption. This is something you would have to ask you neighbor to see if he's willing to do this. Otherwise, you're going to need to get a newer airport for the iBook.
 
wouldn't the mac mini have the latest type airport card? we just put it in last month.

it would make sense to me if the ibook G4 and the mac mini connected but the old laptop didn't. but it doesn't make sense to me that the ibook G4 connects and not the mac mini. they're pretty much the same generation aren't they?

i'll check on the mixed mode encryption. thanks.
 
The mixed mode I mentioned was in reference to the speed (.11b or .11g). Mixed mode allows both .11b and .11g devices to connect to an access point that supports both speeds. It really has nothing to do with the encryption.

What does is the encryption method that is used. 802.11b devices only support 48-bit and 128-bit WEP encryption, while 802.11g devices support WPA which allows for stronger encryption.

If the neighbor is using DHCP, how large is the range for the IP addresses to be leased? Could it be that it's set very small to the number of computers that the neighbor has available? If so, then it could be that the Mac mini and the older iBook are not receiving an IP becuase all of the leases are used. This is a hunch at this point because unless this is the case, then they both should be connected.

Post back with the results.
 
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