[rsrobbins]

I recently bought an iBook G4 laptop with an AirPort card installed. I have an Buffalo AirStation Wireless LAN Access Point (WHR-HP-G54) but I cannot get the iBook to connect to it. It keeps asking for a password but since my Window clients connect automatically I have no idea what password would be required. Would this be the WEP password or key? It refuses to accept any value for the password and rejected the WEP key. I can get my iBook online using a network cable connected to the Buffalo AirStation and I can exchange files with my Windows XP system. My wireless access point is appearing in the network utility.

My questions are:

1. Should I be able to get my iBook to connect wirelessly to an Buffalo AirStation?
2. What exactly does it mean by a password?

[amazing]

You're just having problems telling the iBook what the security "mode" is and what the password is. The Buffalo Airstation will do WEP or WPA, and then you have to know what the password is. WEP isn't secure, so you'll want to be using WPA. So, you'll use the WinXP to configure the Airstation, and to reset the password to a new value, if you've forgotten what password you used originally.

Get on the WinXP and use a browser to navigate to the Buffalo configuration webpage. It'll be something like 192.168.1.x (go in Network settings, and properties, etc, to see what's listed under router) and from the browser a dialogue will popup asking you for username and password. Username is "root", password is whatever you assigned when you first configured it. Hopefully you didn't leave it blank?

The following instructions assume that you have a 802.11g card in WinXP. If your Windows computer has an 11b card in it, then you'll have to use WEP.

Then, go to Advanced, LAN Settings will open, click on Wireless LAN Security, make sure TKIP button is clicked (not the WEP button) and then enter a WPA-PSK password. Click Apply.

Enter the password in the iBook, after specifying that it's WPA. That should do it, unless the Airstation is also configured to filter the wireless access using MAC address (= machine address, nothing to do with Apple.)

[rsrobbins]

Thanks! That was just enough of a clue to get it working. But for the benefit of anyone else trying to configure their Buffalo AirStation for an iBook, what I did was change the AOSS Settings 802.11g Encryption Type to TKIP and then entered the lengthy encryption key as the password when "TKIP (This is used now)" appears under Current Encryption Information 802.11g. The SSID also changed to a long hexadecimal number which the Network Setup Assistant picked up on.