MBA WiFi blues...

[warragul]

Girlfriend’s 2011 MBA refused to connect to her NetGear access point. She hadn’t used the MBA for a few months and we needed to test it with a new printer.
Previously, the MBA was OK on the WiFi network.
Not only wouldn’t it pick up an IP address from the DHCP function, but it wouldn’t see anything when equipped with a manual IP. Even though it was “connected” to the AP.
In all cases it would see the access point but the WiFi symbol stayed flicking up and down. No error messages. So I reserved an IP address against the MBA’s MAC address. It picked that up OK but still didn’t work.
I ran IP Scanner on the MBA and only its IP showed up. IP Scanner on another Mac couldn’t see the MBA. Couldn’t Ping the AP. Somewhere along the way I reset the PRAM. Made no difference.
So I turned on Hot Spot on my iPhone and the MBA worked as expected.
Other devices could connect to the NetGear with no problems.
I feel I’m missing something, but what?

 

[lambertjohn]

Maybe it's time to upgrade an eight-year old computer? I'm just saying...

 

[lowendlinux]

My Telekom router at home will only take so many connections before I need to go in and clean out old computers and phones then reconnect everything that is current.

What is your log file saying?

 

[ghanwani]

It sounds like it wasn’t even making a WiFi connection (flashing WiFi symbol) so it would not even be able to run DHCP.

@lowendlinux might be on to something. There may be a limit on the number of devices the Netgear will accept. You could try shutting down one or more other devices and perhaps rebooting the Netgear.

 

[warragul]

It sounds like it wasn’t even making a WiFi connection (flashing WiFi symbol) so it would not even be able to run DHCP.

@lowendlinux might be on to something. There may be a limit on the number of devices the Netgear will accept. You could try shutting down one or more other devices and perhaps rebooting the Netgear.

Thank you both, guys.
The MBA is now at my place and working just fine. So it's prolly the router. Since I'm not at her place I can't look at the logs etc. But I'll certainly take a look next time I visit.
Thanks again.

 

[lowendlinux]

I meant look at the logs in the Mac