Cannot connect wireless

Dec 08, 2007

- On page 12 of the instructions try to login to the router from the machine that is wired to the router. Then press wireless and tell me what appears in the boxes -- it should look like page 13

Dec 08, 2007

- Do LAN and DHCP too please while you are logged on and give me the answers that match pages 17 and 18.

Dec 08, 2007

- Do not change the data to match just tell me what is there --

Dec 09, 2007

- OK first check the WAN page do page 12 press WAN it should look like pate 15 in the router config my interest here is what is in the Primary and Secondary DNS boxes. If they are 0.0.0.0 we will need to see if we can find them in your mac that is wired to the router.

IF the above DNS addresses are 0.0.0.0 then ---
The following is from memory so be flexible.

Can you find a mac control panel for TCPIP, if so please open it.
try other control panels that sound network related

There are several entries I want to know from it. (please do not change anything)

Is it dynamic or static IP?

What is the IP Address if it is not 0.0.0.0?
What is the gateway address if not 0.0.0.0? (should be 192.168.0.1)
What is the primary DNS Address (better not be 0.0.0.0 if the router is)?
What the secondary DNS address is might be 0.0.0.0?

Please let me know these answers

Dec 09, 2007

- the permanently wired computer would have been better but the then DNS addresses from the web site would be fine.

Dec 09, 2007

- You have dug out a great deal of information for me. I am going try to impart some back in exchange.

Whether you understand this or not I will tell you where you need to start understanding again.

Every thing on the internet works by address traditional addresses consist of 4 numbers in dot notation such as 192.168.0.1

Each machine on the internet has a unique IP address. You may realize that the 192.168.0.1 addresses in your home are not unique because every one with the same router in default mode has the same addresses however those specific addresses are mapped to the ISP supplied address so they remain unique on the internet.

The router is the gateway between your home network and in an extended sense the rest of the internet -- in reality the internet has a large number of smaller networks hooked to gether by routers. The gateway address tells the computer where to send your internet requests to hop to the next network if what you want is not on the current network.

The DNS address are a bit of internet magic. Having to remember a numeric address for everything we want on the internet would make it very unfriendly. The DNS address points to a machine that is either capable of converting a name such as google.com to an address or calling another machine to do the same until the get and answer and tell your machine the numeric address for google.com.

This is where you need to try to follow what I say again. For a computer to successfully interface to the internet with a web browser in needs three addresses and all three had better be working. It needs an address for itself the IP Address a default gateway address to send messages to when the sender cannot directly communicate the receiver onthe same small network. And lastly one or more DNS addresses to convert names to numbers. When there are more than one DNS server any one can answer the request so if one fails the other can back it up.

Dan you have a potential issue working depending on how the issue was resolved == remember the DHCP screen where addresses 192.160.0.100 - 192.168.0.199 can be assigned dynamically. Your Wireless Mac is addressed at 192.168.0.103 (if that was static it is in the range of dymanic addresses and could generate a duplicate address on you network and cause issues randomly in the future. Your machines should either have the DNS addresses in the router WAN window. And both of your machines altered to accept all addresses dymanically. OR I would consider turning off DHCP on the router if you choose to statically address your machines. Right now you appear to be in limbo between the two solutions that may cause you issues down the road.

Dec 09, 2007

- PS good luck with the changes and thanks for the good word.

Dec 20, 2007

- The wireless unit was "handshaking" going thru the steps to connect it apparently had a problem and timed out -- a good sign it was trying.

On re-reading the account I believe all you adapters are using DHCP to dynamically get IP address so what I was worried about does not appear to be an issue. Most adapters are set by default for this mode so it is unlikely that part is now wrong.

Did you try the wired computer and is it working? ( i would assume so at this point or you would have memtioned it)


You may want to request a Quick Start Guide from this link -- they said it was free.

http://afterthemac.com/queries/index.php

There link about the device
http://www.afterthemac.com/product.php?id=G54%20Customer%20Upgrade

If they respond to my request for the quick start guide I will try to get you more detailed instructions as to what to try to get the adapter to connect.

While you were working with your friend was there a process to "connect" the usb adapter to the wireless router? It would be where you did someting then possibly selected a router by name (yours) and clicked a button to connect? Did you try to redo that process to see if the connection could be reestablished?

If give your freind a call it may be faster -- however feel free to respond here and I will try to figure what is next.

Dec 20, 2007

- Open the network system preference on each machine see
http://systemacs.com/OSXCheatSheet.pdf

For the iBook is the USB wireless adapter chosen as the shown network. If not select it.

For all questions below anything having to do with userid and password -- just tell me if the box is filled in or not, I do not want to know what is in the box nor do I want anyone else reading this to know. WEP or WPA passphrases or keys are also considered passwords in this case I only want to know if they are filled in not what the content is. - We will discuss the content and what to compare too later, if necessary.
For the iBook is the USB wireless adapter chosen as the shown network. If not select it.
What is in the boxes on the TCP/IP tab?
for the remaining tabs are there any boxes filled in?
if so excluding UserID's and Passwords (inc WEP and WPA) what is in the boxes?

For the iMac is the built-in ethernet adapter chosen as the shown network. If not select it.
What is in the boxes on the TCP/IP tab?

Report this information back on a comment please.

They have not provided me the documentation on the adapter yet either. So I have no idea the steps to enable it specific to the Mac -- excluding those with the system preference network above.

A couple of items you did not move the iBook too far from the wireless router did you? Just in case try connecting from the same room and let me know what happens.

I would hold off on switching machines with the adapter for now but if you proceed consider the following:

Before switching the wireless to the other machine a good first step would be to get the iBook working on the wire first assuming it has an ethernet port -- then you will have one working machine in case of problems.

If you want to try the wireless on the other computer -- you need to know what software to install, if any. You will need to disconnect the wire -- or else you will not know if the wireless or wire is doing the work. It is doubtful the wireless will break the internet connection if you switch back to using a wire, but having the other machine as a backup is a good idea just in case.