[killer_735]

I've put together my own whitebox PC before, and I enjoy troubleshooting, enjoy finding the problem and making somehting work. I live with one IT major and one CE major, so I pick up a lot of material about pretty much all things computer. (RIT by the way...any other students around?)

I recently bought a wireless router, (netgear-one that a lot of people on the networking forum recommended) and I'm amazed to find out how much playing with stupid #$*& soulless IP addresses and routing tables is a pain-even with osX.

( I don't want to even talk about PC networking.)

So for you IT people out there...are you just plain ANGRY? Why does this seem to be a technoloogy where something will work, then nothing will change, and suddenly it'll not work anymore....I've never seen software behave like this. Maybe it's just because there's a lot going on behind the scenes that I don't know about, maybe it's because this stuff is really meant to be done in the terminal, where it's easy, not in the networking system prefs. Is networking just like this, or is there a place where it all behaves? I've never ever mad at a mac before, and recently the powerbook has had more than a few choice phrases thrown in its direction.

[ghporter]

I'm sorry (but I'm not sure why) to tell you that I've never had the sorts of problems you describe. My worst problem with networking of any kind was trying to get a Dell Axim handheld with a Linksys WCF12 wireless card to join my wireless network. It turned out to be a configuration problem on the handheld, caused by the owner not reading the instructions properly.

I don't own any Netgear products, but I have been running a small office network for a few years now, and I have not had anything just quit on me. I have, however, had my Internet connection quit from time to time. This turned out to be caused by my ISP, and not my equipment.

In troubleshooting, as in trying to solve any mystery, with multiple unknowns, you try to solve for as many of the unknowns as possible before venturing a guess as to a cause. One way to ensure you have as few unknowns as possible is to do what you can to guarantee certain things. Plug EVERYTHING into UPSs, but don't overload them. I'm running about 1500 volt-amps of battery back up right now, and that's as much for power conditioning as for back up. Make sure all your equipment is well cooled. Use good quality cables that you can count on, and keep a few spares around just in case.

This boils down to not blaming any one part of your setup until you have all the facts. Small networks aren't as complex as really big ones, but they are easy to get into, and easy to complicate. Document everything you do so you know why "that green cable goes from the LAN port to the Uplink port," or "where does that orange wire go?"

[legionare]

OS X maintains a routing table?! That's news to me.

Wasn't NetGear recalling a whole bunch of its el cheapo ($19.99 after rebate) routers (wired or not) not so long ago? Did you check to make sure yours wasn't one of those models?

[kampl]

Originally posted by legionare:
OS X maintains a routing table?! That's news to me.

Wasn't NetGear recalling a whole bunch of its el cheapo ($19.99 after rebate) routers (wired or not) not so long ago? Did you check to make sure yours wasn't one of those models?

netstat -rn in Terminal. Boom, routing table.

As for the wireless networking problem, I have yet to see any details regarding what the issue is/was. Can it elaborated on a bit so that others can hypothsize as to what may be causing soo many headaches, and recommend things to look into or try?