[Tolly]

Hello,

I have a WEP protected network set-up at my house through a Linksys WRT54GS, where I share a connection with several other computers (both Macs and PCs). Every once in awhile (every few days or so), if I close my laptop, or let the hard disk sleep, I will get kicked off the network when I wake the computer up. It will usually see the network, but when I try to connect with the WEP password, I get a spinning wheel for awhile and then a failure message. The PCs don't seem to have this problem (not sure about the other Mac in the house, which is the computer that the router was set-up on and the user usually leaves it hard wired I think). I'm guessing this is a problem with the settings on the router? Anyone else experienced this or have any suggestions? Please let me know. Thanks.

[ghporter]

Losing connection to a wireless network on waking a Mac is a fairly common thing. The way WiFi works is at the heart of it: a network "hops" from frequency to frequency in a predictable, set pattern. If a computer goes to sleep and then wakes up again, it will almost certainly not be able to immediately connect because the AirPort card has no information about when it went to sleep, so it doesn't know that it's fallen out of the network.

Sometimes the card figures out that it needs to reacquire the network and does so quickly and efficiently. Other times it doesn't. When PCs "hibernate" or are turned off, they are OFF, so their wireless cards "know" that they need to reacquire the network.

The simplest fix for this is just to manually disconnect and then reconnect when your computer wakes up. It's only a minor hasle.

Now, for my soap box speech. GET RID OF WEP RIGHT AWAY AND MOVE TO WPA!!!! Seriously, WEP is worse than no security because it gives you a nice warm feeling, but it's almost trivial to break. WPA, on the other hand is truly secure and DOES really protect your network. Plus the WPA standard includes how passphrases are converted to keys, so there's none of that annoying "for a Mac you do this to get the key, but on a PC you do that..." nonsense. Seriously, switch to WPA immediately and ditch WEP forever.

[ghporter]

Losing connection to a wireless network on waking a Mac is a fairly common thing. The way WiFi works is at the heart of it: a network "hops" from frequency to frequency in a predictable, set pattern. If a computer goes to sleep and then wakes up again, it will almost certainly not be able to immediately connect because the AirPort card has no information about when it went to sleep, so it doesn't know that it's fallen out of the network.

Sometimes the card figures out that it needs to reacquire the network and does so quickly and efficiently. Other times it doesn't. When PCs "hibernate" or are turned off, they are OFF, so their wireless cards "know" that they need to reacquire the network.

The simplest fix for this is just to manually disconnect and then reconnect when your computer wakes up. It's only a minor hasle.

Now, for my soap box speech. GET RID OF WEP RIGHT AWAY AND MOVE TO WPA!!!! Seriously, WEP is worse than no security because it gives you a nice warm feeling, but it's almost trivial to break. WPA, on the other hand is truly secure and DOES really protect your network. Plus the WPA standard includes how passphrases are converted to keys, so there's none of that annoying "for a Mac you do this to get the key, but on a PC you do that..." nonsense. Seriously, switch to WPA immediately and ditch WEP forever.