Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Wi-Fi Help!

W

Willie5566

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 10, 2010
187
0
Help!

I am sitting at families place and cannot get any apple products to connect to Wi-Fi. We have iPod Touch, 2 iPads, iPhone, MBP. Nothing connects. The one person with a PC connected right away. Is there something that we need to do to get connection. It is password protected but we have all entered the same password and only the PC is working.
 
What exact router model do you have and what password protection is the router using (WEP, WPA, WPA2)? Can you connect the MBP via ethernet cable? Could it be, that the router limits the access via MAC addresses?
 
The Clue Is

Willie5566 said:
Help!

I am sitting at families place and cannot get any apple products to connect to Wi-Fi. We have iPod Touch, 2 iPads, iPhone, MBP. Nothing connects. The one person with a PC connected right away. Is there something that we need to do to get connection. It is password protected but we have all entered the same password and only the PC is working.
Click to expand...

"I'm sitting at my families place"

To connect, you need their password and to join their network.
 
It is a motorola sbv5220 SURFboard cable modem provided by local cable company. I am really not sure about frequency or the Mac address thing. It was set up by cable provider so they did the settings. Why would you want to limit Mac addresses anyway???? If the person has the network password who cares what device they are using? I am sure this is ignorance on my part but that doesn't make any sense to me.
 
That is modem and not a wireless router. The ISP modem does one Ethernet port with ONE IP. A router (is your case a wireless router) should be connected to from the WAN port to the modem.
 
Nope

Willie5566 said:
It is a motorola sbv5220 SURFboard cable modem provided by local cable company. I am really not sure about frequency or the Mac address thing. It was set up by cable provider so they did the settings. Why would you want to limit Mac addresses anyway???? If the person has the network password who cares what device they are using? I am sure this is ignorance on my part but that doesn't make any sense to me.
Click to expand...

You are doing the right things, do your mac devices "See" the network?
 
I stand corrected it is a Linksys 2.4 ghz wireless router.

----------
Macman45 said:
You are doing the right things, do your mac devices "See" the network?
Click to expand...

Yes the devices see the network.

I am seeing Mac Address and a Access Point MAC address. Does that do anything?
 
Do You See A Network Name?

Willie5566 said:
I stand corrected it is a Linksys 2.4 ghz wireless router.

----------



Yes the devices see the network.

I am seeing Mac Address and a Access Point MAC address. Does that do anything?
Click to expand...

I ask because sometimes, you need to look at the wifi connections on your mac stuff....Make sure that "Ask to join" is ticked on your devices. Off the top of my head I can't think of anything else.
 
Blame it on Microsoft

Willie5566 said:
I stand corrected it is a Linksys 2.4 ghz wireless router.

----------



Yes the devices see the network.

I am seeing Mac Address and a Access Point MAC address. Does that do anything?
Click to expand...

So you see the SSID - and you have the passcode. You need a passcode if there is a "padlock" in Airport next to the network name - SSID.
Your system administrator can use the MAC, and restrict access to just a list of MAC addresses. If this is the case, given the MAC addresses to the administrator, or connect to the router with a CAT5 cable, and access its WEB port and configure it.
You either have WAP or WPE encryption - look for a padlock after the SSID in the Airport drop-down menu.
The system administrator will have given a key, either as a sequence of hexadecimal characters or some insane key with more than 10 characters.

When all is proper, and you are certain that you have provided the correct key - Airport will handle channel, MAC and your routing to the net. A router is fully functional now, but Microsoft "invented" that they need a set of control packets to supply the same information as NETBIOS. So, your computer is waiting for DNS to give it an IP address - that comes now as a DHCP "packet" - just as in WINS. Only one DHCP server can provide the IP address, whereas any DNS could be used for the same. The next is the set-up of the radio connection, and since MS never implemented full tear-down of a connection, the router needs some extra packets that your MacBook does not understand at all. Neither does Androids or Symbian or Linux.

So, leave the Mac waiting,and reboot the router. When it is done in the right order, your Mac iOS, Android, Symbian and Linux will connect and get the IP address. Sometimes using fixed addresses avoids the problem - edit /etc/passwd - enter 10.0.0.47 MyMac, and drop the request for the IP address.

----------
Willie5566 said:
Is that the same as Data Encryption? Where would I find that?
Click to expand...

It is encryption between your Mac and the router.
WPA and WEP is a link encryption that is not more difficult to decipher than that I can hack a WPA network from my mobile that runs Linux. I doubt that Apple will endorse such an App..

Your Internet bank password must be encrypted differently, and so must your secure connection. Consider everything on Airport/WLAN/WiFi to be readable by others.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back