problem with friends powerbook G4

[cuestakid]

Ok so heres the deal

My brother called me last night and told me that one of the girls in the place that he is living in is having problems connecting to their wireless network. Here are the facts that I know

1. Their ISP is Verizon Wireless and they have a Versalink gateway/router 327w.
2. She is using a 15 Powerbook G4
3. OS is 10.3.9
4. She has airport extreme
5. She is able to see the network and connect but can not use the internet
6. The probelm persists even if she is right next to the gateway.

He thinks that I know a lot about computers which I do but what I tried to explain to him is that I am very new to dealing with Macs and I am still trying to learn all that I can about my own mac

So I am asking anyone if they can give me any kind of suggestion as to what the problem might be, and what resolutions are there.

I should also mention that my brother is in Washington and I am in California, so I cant really just go over there and take a look at it which is why I need some expert Mac users to help me out


thanks

 

[Eraserhead]

OK so I think there is a problem with the internet connection itself. Is she definitely connected to the router? Can you test plugging in the internet connection to the Powerbook itself? (or use an ethernet cable?)

If it's an internet problem you probably need to contact your ISP, but try removing and blowing on all the cables (to remove dust) first and see if that improves things.

 

[cuestakid]

she is able to connect to it via a hard wire-if she is not able to connect to another wireless network at another location, does that mean that there is a hardware problem?

Dont forget that I cant really go and do anything- all I can do is call and talk to my brother-I think that they have talked with their ISP and they werent much help-how likely is it that the problem is that the computer and OS are old?

 

[Eraserhead]

she is able to connect to it via a hard wire-if she is not able to connect to another wireless network at another location, does that mean that there is a hardware problem?

OK, so that means the computer isn't really connecting to the Airport Extreme or the airport extreme is broken.

how likely is it that the problem is that the computer and OS are old?

I wouldn't have thought that would be a problem...
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Try getting her to connect wirelessly to the Airport Extreme and load up Terminal (in Applications/Utilities) and then type

'ping 10.0.1.1' without quotations and press enter.

You should get something like the following expect that I use a netgear router which has a different IP address to the Airport...

If it doesn't display anything about every second it isn't really connecting to the router.

After a while press Ctrl and C at the same time (same as Copy on Windows), if it says 100% packet loss (or over 10% packet loss) then the computer isn't connecting to the Airport properly.

Report back the results of this.

 

[mklos]

Doing what eraserhead said will also test to see if its getting an IP Address, or at least the correct type. It should be getting a 10.x.x.x IP Address, or depending on how the router is configured, a 192.x.x.x IP Address. Normally if its getting a 169.x.x.x IP Address then its either not really connecting and/or its not acquiring an IP Address. The Router IP (Gateway) should be something like a 10.0.0.1 like eraserhead suggested, or a 192.168.1.1 if its configured for 192.x.x.x IP addresses. Usually wireless routers give out 10.x.x.x IP addresses though. You can get the IP address and Router IP in the Network System Preferences (Apple Menu/System Preferences/Network). Then double click on AirPort, then click on TCP/IP.

Just as another suggestion, use a computer Mac or PC that is working and get the DNS addresses. Verizon does dumb things and for some odd reason may not be browsing because it can't validate DNS without the numbers.

As a last resort, when you're in the Network System Preference, click on the pull down menu where it says Show: and click on Network Port Configurations. Make sure AirPort is on the top. You can click, hold and drag those different network connections around. I believe this gives priority to the network devices depending on how they're listed. This could also be a reason why its not getting an IP address if thats the case, but it does with ethernet if ethernet is on the top of the list of network connections and airport is on the very bottom. I've seen this happen a couple of times with different setups.

 

[cuestakid]

I will let you all know what happens when I talk with my brother again