[augustc]

The airport connection to my DSL modem on my PowerMac desktop computer suddenly stopped working last night. When I try to reconnect it says there's an error joining the network. It worked perfectly until last night and the password is entered correctly.

So I assumed the dsl connection was down, but my Powerbook connects with no problems and operates at full dsl speed, so the problem is clearly with the desktop machine itself, not the dsl service.

I can see all the networks listed (mine and my neighbors), just can't actually connec to mine.

I have tried over and over again to connect the desktop to the wireless network, but it just says "There is an error in connecting to the network."

Is it possible that the airport card in the desktop machine just suddenly went bad? Any suggestions on things to try, or do I need to replace the airport card?

I’ve tried rebooting the computer and restarting/resetting the dsl modem with no luck.

Thank you.

[ghporter]

Can you explain how you're connecting to the PowerMac? Are you using an internal AirPort card in the PowerMac, or an external AirPort Base Station? It makes a big difference.

[augustc]

Thanks ghporter.

I'm using the internal airport card that came pre-installed on the PowerMac, and connecting to the wireless DSL modem that SBC sent (SBC my dsl service provider, the modem brand is 2Wire).

I can occassionally connect, but the connection is extremely slow (slower than dial-up). At the same time the connection on my PowerBook is very fast (like it was on the PowerMac until a day or two ago). Often times I just get the "cannot connect to network" message.

It's really odd, I can't figure out the problem. Any thoughts?

[Neo.cmg]

I have had this issue crop up with a 1.67Ghz G4 PowerBook and more recently with a Black MacBook. I have a DSL modem connected to a Linksys WRT54G wireless router. In the Networking System Preference Pane I have my wireless network as the only preferred network for the computers to connect to, and the wireless network is secured with WPA encryption. I also have several others' networks that both computers can see, but enabling interference robustness hasn't seemed to help matters.

I would say 2 to 3 times a week, the connection will drop, and upon attempting to reconnect I get the same "cannot connect to network" error. I can repeatedly "Try Again" and after 4 or 5 times I will be seemingly reconnected to the network, but it isn't really useable as you also described before the connection drops once again. I've found that if I leave the machine off the network for 10-15 minutes and then try reconnecting, that things will continue working as they should until the next incident. I am convinced at this point that it is a software problem with Apple's AiPort Software implementation. I have seen others post on these forums with similar issues; though, I have yet to see anyone identify a fix.