PC Wireless 802.11g <--> Airport Extreme: Cannot Connect

What form of security are you using -- WEP or WPA?

pimentoLoaf said:

I had WPA, now WEP -- neither worked on the PC.

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Does it work with security *off*? Also, if you have an AEBS, does it connect if you plug directly into the wired port of the router?

pimentoLoaf said:

Not sure why this would make a difference. I could try it.

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Because that will tell you whether security settings / issues are preventing you from acquiring a connection, or more basic connectivity issues are. For instance, sometimes WEP keys on different cards work differently...so sometimes the alphanumeric passwords don't work reliably, and you have to fall back on the hexadecimal....

I don't understand. AEBS is connected to a phone line for dialup; my mac connects wirelessly via an AE card.

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Your AEBS has a LAN port and a WAN port. You plug the source of your internet (DSL or whatever) into the WAN port. Then computers acquire an internet connection either wirelessly or through the LAN port. It's another ethernet jack on the back of the AEBS that looks just like the WAN port, except it has a different label.

The purpose of trying the PC with a wired connection the AEBS is to see whether there is a conflict between your PC's wireless settings and your AEBS, or your PC's *networking* settings and your AEBS.

So....

If it does not work wired -> Need to change PC network properties.

If it works wired, but not wirelessly -> Need to change PC wireless basic settings

If it works wired and wirelessly w/o security, but not with security -> Need to change PC wireless security settings (probably bad key)

Hi

This is my first post on here.

I have an iMac 20" Intel Core Duo 2 an Airport Extreme and a PC laptop and am experiencing the same problems as pimentoLoaf; Mac works fine (of course, and PC does not 'see' Airport). I have connected the PC directly to the Airport and it works fine, it just refuses to 'see' the Airport. Now according to mkrishnan this means I need to change my PC wireless settings. I am much more in tune with Macs than PCs and don't really know what to change, can someone point me in the right direction?

Cheers, Mat.

Hi, welcome to MR! I can try to help you, at least! Unfortunately, my wireless experience on Windows is limited...

Here are some things to try:

- Open the Airport utility and make sure it is broadcasting its SSID -- the term for this in the utility is something like whether or not your network is "closed" -- it should *NOT* be closed, at least while testing.

- You could try changing the name of the network to make sure it's a short simple name -- for instance, my network name has spaces and dashes and so on in it. Now my Macs connect fine, and my Axim used to connect even with a hidden SSID and WPA.

- Also you should start simple and work your way up -- make a very simple network -- open / broadcast SSID, no security, no MAC filtering. Get connected this way and then try turning your security and so on back on. When you get back to security, use WPA if your Windows notebook supports it; WPA is not only better than WEP, but it also has a very standard way of communicating passwords, whereas sometimes different WEP devices expect the password to be communicated differently and occasionally this trips you up. But the very first thing is to get to a point where the network is SEEN by the PC notebook.

- Somewhere in the options for the Airport utility is the broadcast channel -- you can try different channels on the chance that, for some reason, certain parts of the 802.11 frequency range is being lost to your laptop. I think this is under an "advanced" or "airport settings" button on the first tab of the settings.

- In the same place, there should be an option that discusses whether 802.11b / Airport devices can connect, or only 802.11g / Airport Extreme devices can connect. Choose the setting that *permits* 802.11b, as this increases the chance that your PC will see the network, even if the PC has 802.11g....

So there's a start.

Thanks mate.

I removed the security from the base station, now my PC can see it. However when I double click the base station in the Airport Utility I get an error message saying "An error occurred while trying to access the base station. Make sure your network connection is valid and try again. Error code: -6753"

So I'm a little further along but still encountering problems. Any ideas?

Does the error occur only on the Windows pc or on Macs too? What happens when you just select the airport from the wireless system tray thingie? Are you able to connect to it at all? Hmm... You might try the second thing I listed -- shortening the SSID. It ought to work as is, but you never know....

That problem only occurs on the PC.

Now I can see the connection in the system tray and I can use the internet through the airport, but it's still not working in the Airport Utility.

WPA encryption worked

I could not get any PC laptop to connect to our old airport base station through wireless under WEP encryption. I verified that we could connect under no encryption, and then tried WAP as suggested. Now I'm on "WAP2 Personal" and two different IBM PCs now can connect (with the new password that WAP required).

My Powerbook can also connect with this.

Thanks to mkrishnan!

Same issue with pc

Hello,
We have a mac and a pc in the house and an airport that we use for wireless.
The Mac can connect but the PC cannot connect to the wireless network.
PC can see the network and we type in the PC version of the Mac password. It does not work it takes 5 mins to connect and after that there comes the "limited or no connectivity", can any body help?
I mean I tried almost everything...

I've got a MacBook that connects via an Airport Express. I want to add a PC to my wireless Network, but it doesn't seem to see my Network at all!

Even turning off the security with Airport Utility, the PC still doesn't see my network at all. Might it call it a different name? If so what name would it call it - how would I know that it was my network?

Airport Utility problems

You must have Bonjour installed and running on your computer in order to use Airport Utility to configure the network.

Airport Utility problems

Had same problem after a fresh install of Win XP.

I installed the Airport Utility and no devices showed up, even though they appeared on other PCs. I checked if Bonjour was installed, installed every wireless/network driver under the sun, but still no joy.

Just for the hell of it I installed iTunes as well, and that did the trick!