N00b Windows Mac Neworking Question

Are IP addresses on both the wired and wireless connections distributed in the same range? You have an unusual subnet IP address for the server...See this:

http://ask-leo.com/why_cant_i_connect_with_a_169254xx_ip_address.html

You should normally have a device with an IP address like this on your system.

So the first thing probably to do is figure out how to get all of your devices on normal subnet IP addresses on the same subnet.

 

Per the link above, the 169... IP address means that your server is essentially not acquiring a proper connection to the wifi router. That "connected to the router but not to the internet" error message is sort of a euphemism. It means your network isn't working properly (it doesn't mean what you think -- that you can ignore it if you don't need an internet connection). What is happening is that the router is supposed to lease an IP to the server, and when it doesn't, the server makes one up. But since the router doesn't recognize the address, it doesn't work properly. So whenever you get that error message, you should always fix it.

So, what you should do is eliminate the usual suspects...

- Check if you are using MAC filtering, and if you are, that you have the correct MAC (each network interface has its own, so the wired and wireless MACs for the server are different).

- Check that you are not using any static IP addresses that are in the DHCP range (you may want a static subnet IP for your server, but it should be outside the DHCP range -- you can look at your manual for this, but typically this will mean that the server will end up with an IP like 192.168.2.101 and the DHCP will stop at .100).

- Compare the wireless settings on the server vs. the other XP device and/or try setting up the network all over again using the wizard.

Also if you're using WPA2, you may need SP3. I just recently bought my first Windows XP device (the last Windows PC I owned had 98 on it... I've used Win2k, XP, and 2003, but only at work where I was not the admin) -- my Eee Box had all kinds of trouble connecting to my AEBS on SP2. It could only acquire the connection if I made the SSID visible and allowed WPA1/TKIP connections (although oddly I could re-hide the SSID after I made the first acquisition). But when I upgraded to SP3, WPA2 worked fine.

Also out of curiousity, usually, the subnet IP addresses would be 192.168.1.x... how did it come to be 192.168.2.x? Is the router's IP 192.168.2.1? And if you have four devices on the router (router, server, XP notebook, Mac), then why are you getting IP addresses that end in 6 or 10 -- are there other devices on the network?