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AdvocateUK · Dec 10, 2003, 06:10 AM

Hi everyone.

I'm looking to go wireless between my Mac and PC so that I can put the PC upstairs (for the kids and wife etc

), however I'mnot sure of the best way to do this?

Can I simply buy an airport extreme card for the G5 and a 802.11g compatible card for the PC and have them work that way or do I need to buy an Airport Extreme Base Station?

If I buy the Airport Extreme Base Station can I connect the Mac to this via the LAN connector and only have the PC using wireless?

TIA

Alistair

ghporter · Dec 11, 2003, 10:24 AM

What you realy should do is buy a third party wireless router. These usually have 4 wired LAN ports, and can support numerous wireless clients at the same time. You appear to want the PC to be wireless, so you'll need some sort of wireless adapter for it. PC wireless cards are usually cheaper than Mac cards-we pay a premium for Mac OS support.

The brand of router you select is up to you, but you can get a Netgear 814 wireless (802.11g) router for about $30 through some online outlets. This seems to be a pretty decent choice, especially since it's so inexpensive.

si_lance · Dec 12, 2003, 11:08 PM

there is an alternate to what GH has suggested, although his is prolly the best solution (and the one I use even the same brand), but if you wanted to be a little cheaper OR control when the PC can venture out to the internet you could just get the extreme card for the Mac and a 802.11g for the PC and turn internet connection sharing on the Mac when you want the PC to connect to the net. Also you have to run the wireless cards in ad-hoc mode so they can "see" each other. This is just an alternate method, but I'd pay the $35 (after rebate) and get the wireless router.

Langdon · 09:16 AM

Just get the wireless router. It may cost a little more than the last solution but you can skip the cost of having to get an airport card for your Mac. Just hardwire the router to the Mac and use a wireless card for the PC. Then should you ever get a laptop you already have a setup to surf from anywhere with it.

An airport extreme BS is not really worth the money IMHO. Your DSL is capped well below the added transfer rate and I doubt you'll find yourself sending gigs of data from computer to computer on a home network. A 802.11b router will be secure enough for home uses and if you ahve your Mac wired to it you can do your online purchases through that. Credit card and personal banking info are usually the most sensitive data most people have at home and if you use the wired computer for that you can end 97% of the risk.
You can control when the PC is online just as easily with the router as you can turn off the wireless signal through a web browser with the Mac attached to it via ethernet.

AdvocateUK · Dec 16, 2003, 02:15 PM

To be honest I most probably WILL be transferring gigs of data between the Mac and PC (as I type I'm transferring 1.8 gigs to the PC), though the most common use will be for internet acces on the pc via the Mac.

What I HADN'T realised until now is that either the Mac or PC would "forget" how to connect to one another when the PC has been switched off....I had to reconfigure both the Mac and PC tonight before I could connect them over wireless (AE in the Mac standard 802.11g Linksys in the PC).

So it looks like I may need the AEBS or similar after all....

si_lance · Dec 16, 2003, 04:54 PM

wow, that kinda sucks... wireless router wins again I suppose.

ghporter · Dec 18, 2003, 03:01 PM

For both the Mac and the PC, the wireless connection should act just like a different kind of cable. That means that neither one should "forget" that it was shared. For example, when you share a resource on a PC (procedure varies depending on Windows version-all bets off if you're running Linux) that resource is "marked" as shared by the OS. This includes whether users can only browse or alter files, whether there's a password required, etc. The process is much more consistent through more recent Mac OS versions, but the result is the same.

What OS version are you running on each computer?

AdvocateUK · Dec 21, 2003, 06:35 PM

Windows XP SP1 on the PC and OS X 10.3.2 on the Mac....

ghporter · Dec 21, 2003, 07:01 PM

I've had XP forget some programs that were installed, but never whether or not a resource was shared. I haven't gotten up to 10.3.2 yet, but my experience with OS X is basically the same... HMMMM. Very puzzling...unless...

Since you're connecting computer-to-computer, your network is an "ad hoc" structure. This is exactly what it says-as needed. It's possible that neither Mac OS nor XP consider anything done for an ad hoc connection to really be permanent, and thus they intentionally 'forget' sharing settings.

Current AirPort software includes "share Internet via AirPort," which is just the old Software Base Station. I don't know if you can use that to just share files via AirPort... It may make these connections more permanent, and eliminate your 'forgetful' problems.

AdvocateUK · Dec 22, 2003, 06:35 AM

I've been playing about with this again today (sigh), and perhaps I should have been a little more specific as to the setup and what I'm trying to achieve etc.

The Mac is connected to my cable modem via the onboard LAN downstairs. The PC has a wireless network card upstairs.

I want to be able to have the WindowsXP machine connect to the Mac via wireless and share the Macs internet connection.

I have had this working once or twice but the problem seems to be random and very frustrating.

I can get the Mac to create a network and connect to it but the PC sometimes doesn't acquire an IP address (more often than not I should say) it either self assigns a 169...blah blah address or comes up with 0.0.0.0 invalid IP.

When this happens to the PC and the internet connection is shared on the Mac the Mac says the Airport card isn't connected to the internet and hasn't got an IP address.

Please help.

TIA
Alistair

ghporter · Dec 22, 2003, 03:36 PM

I see-you are already sharing your Internet connection through AirPort.

Have you checked the antenna connections on the card in the G5? It sounds like either the antenna or card connection itself is giving you a problem. If the Mac is complaining that the AirPort card doesn't have a connection, then something is losing it; either the AirPort card or the built in NIC are the most likely suspects to me.