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Airport WEP Problem?

Lycanthrope

Lycanthrope

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 1, 2005
566
92
Brussels, Belgium, Europe
Hi All

Very pleased with the Mac Pro - even with the paltry 1GB memory it's quite performant - I am getting close to a 1:1 ration of page-out though, I have 4GB from OWC in the post...

Anway, that wasn't the reason of the post, rather I'm unable to connect to wireless with a WEP key - I have read here and there that this was a problem on MBP's but wasn't aware it was a Pro problem.

iMac and several Widows laptops connect just fine using a 24 character HEX key, the Pro just says "There was an error connecting to the wireless network".

If I remove the WEP from the router it's fine but obviously I'm uncomfortable with doing that for any length of time. Any ideas?

Cheers
Dave
 
Can you use WPA instead which is more secure and doesn't suffer these problems?

WPA is only not an option if you are using Windows older than XP or OS X before 10.3.

The problems with MBP's and WEP are inherent problems with WEP keys not being standard and are not the computer themselves, though the fact that the iMac works OK is slightly puzzling.
 
Nope - no good.

This is too weird - I set WPA on the router and then the iMac connects straight away. I try to conenct the Pro and I get the message that 'the router doesn't support this type of encryption'

WTF?
 
Upgrade your routers firmware if available.

Jiggle the cords if that doesn't work.

Finally, try cleaning the gunk out of the mouse, that usually helps.
 
I had the same problem connecting a new mac pro through a WEP key. I switched to a WPA key and that resolved everything. Have you tried that yet?
 
Lycanthrope said:
Nope - no good.

This is too weird - I set WPA on the router and then the iMac connects straight away. I try to conenct the Pro and I get the message that 'the router doesn't support this type of encryption'

WTF?
Click to expand...

With the WPA are you using a pre-shared-key?

Otherwise can you borrow someone else's router and see if that works?
 
Lycanthrope said:
Hi All

Very pleased with the Mac Pro - even with the paltry 1GB memory it's quite performant - I am getting close to a 1:1 ration of page-out though, I have 4GB from OWC in the post...

Anway, that wasn't the reason of the post, rather I'm unable to connect to wireless with a WEP key - I have read here and there that this was a problem on MBP's but wasn't aware it was a Pro problem.

iMac and several Widows laptops connect just fine using a 24 character HEX key, the Pro just says "There was an error connecting to the wireless network".

If I remove the WEP from the router it's fine but obviously I'm uncomfortable with doing that for any length of time. Any ideas?

Cheers
Dave
Click to expand...

Make sure you select the WEP 40/128 hex option under Wireless Security in the AirPort network connection dialog box. The default option (WEP Password) will not work.
 
Well I've tried everey combination and it won't connect with any security at all. Seems Apple are well aware of it though as they've released yet another Airport update for MacIntels today.

Now I'll have to retest it all again :(

Failing that, does my Mac Pro support 802.11n? I would assume so as it's less than a week old?? Maybe I just buy an Airport router - hang-on, maybe that's Apple's strategy here, make Airport only able to connect to Apple routers...
 
Lycanthrope said:
Maybe I should invest in an Airport router...
Click to expand...

That's what I had to do. I used to have a Linksys wireless router that I basically bought because it was cheap. After many hours frustration, including a 20 minute call to their tech support ("Go to the Start Menu" " I'm using a Mac. Do your products support OS X?" "Yes, now go to the Start Menu..." argh.) i gave up and bought an Airport Extreme. It arrived two days later. 90 seconds later and I was up and running.

For a comms ignoramus like me, spending the extra was 100% worth it.

Good luck on solving your problem.
 
I too had the same problem.

Select the wireless icon

Select other

(Make sure you enter the wireless name exactly how you see it)

select the WEP 40/128 hex option

This seems to be an issue on all intel macs that i've used so far.
 
geeman said:
That's what I had to do. I used to have a Linksys wireless router that I basically bought because it was cheap. After many hours frustration, including a 20 minute call to their tech support ("Go to the Start Menu" " I'm using a Mac. Do your products support OS X?" "Yes, now go to the Start Menu..." argh.) i gave up and bought an Airport Extreme. It arrived two days later. 90 seconds later and I was up and running.

For a comms ignoramus like me, spending the extra was 100% worth it.

Good luck on solving your problem.
Click to expand...

Well I've been running wireless at home for 7 years now and considered myself fairly experienced but this one got me. I have a Philips sireless router/DSL modem, I wouldn't consider buying it but got it for free with my DSL/iDTV subscription from my ISP. That being said it has a much better signal strength than the D-Link I was using before which in turn kicked the US Robotics piece of poo that I had before that.

Wireless has always been a pain but at least with OSX it's more straight-forward and now having two Macs in the house networking has almost become a pleasure.

But no security yet, well MAC address filtering, but no WEP or WPA...

Anyone out there know if Airport Extreme cards in Mac Pros are 802.11n compatable? :confused: That would make the purchase or an Apple Airport base station worthwhile IMHO...

^squirrel^ said:
This seems to be an issue on all intel macs that i've used so far.
Click to expand...

Indeed, one of the people I was proud to convert spent a whole evening trying to connect his MacBook Pro using WEP/WPA - I was a bit pissed as I had been telling him for month that Apple computers "just work" :eek:
 
Haven't had any problem hooking up my new Mac Pro to my wireless Linksys WRT54G with WEP. I just selected my network from the Airport symbol at the top right of the screen put the WEP key in, it connected right away.

Not sure what your problem is. Are you getting good reception? I've heard of bad antanae on some of the Mac Pros (an assembly problem). Are you seeing your network? Are you using the right key? I thought the WEP key was 26 alpha-numeric characters? Have to count them when I get home.
 
Kosh66 said:
Haven't had any problem hooking up my new Mac Pro to my wireless Linksys WRT54G with WEP. I just selected my network from the Airport symbol at the top right of the screen put the WEP key in, it connected right away.

Not sure what your problem is. Are you getting good reception? I've heard of bad antanae on some of the Mac Pros (an assembly problem). Are you seeing your network? Are you using the right key? I thought the WEP key was 26 alpha-numeric characters? Have to count them when I get home.
Click to expand...

Yep, WEP is 26 characters - I'm not sure if that's HEX or ASCII but I use a key in HEX anyway to be sure. Works perfectly well on the G5 iMac which, to the uniformed would appear to be and identical operating system :cool:

And with WEP and WPA removed I get a full-strength Aiport signal and immeiate connection.
 
ADSL connection on XP shared via ICS to MBP OSX AirPort with WEP finally works for me

So I have this Asus usb wireless card that I use to share my desktop XP internet connection to my MacBook Pro. It only knows WEP so WPA is no option. I use 128 bit HEX encryption.
In the XP on the MBP (bootcamp) it worked just fine. Asks for the WEP pass and connects. I had to put in manually the IP 192.168.0.2 but that's caused by the lack of features in the Asus card combined with the XP Internet Connection Sharing. The card shows me it's IP(192.168.0.1), Subnet and DNS server it creates so I have to set it's ip as gateway on the MBP.
So in OSX Tiger the net worked without WEP( same manual IP settings made, no DHCP ). I'm not into charity so I had to protect my bandwidth somehow. Still considering a Linksys cheap router so I don't have to keep my desktop running to have net on the laptop.
I got it working by doing this:
- airport icon > disconnect from current network
- other
- insert network name (mine is a computer to computer but I don't think it matters here)
- select wep 40/128 HEX
- paste key ( without the $ in front. Actually if i explicitly select 40/128 you can't put the $ in the field )
- connect

The first time I tried it worked. Strangely, the second time it didn't and at Edit in the pass field was some default 128 bit hex pass with the $ sign in front. At retry it kept complaining about a problem connecting. Third time and after that it worked every time.

Good luck,
cosmin
 
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