[Natg989]

I'm a first time mac user and it's a beautiful machine, but i'm lost on connecting it. I have a linksys wireless router and i didn't know the password so i restarted it. When i did the macbook recognized the network and it connected. It says Airport is connected to linksys and has the IP address 192.168.1.101. However, the internet of course does not connect. Can someone please walk me through this? I am very slow at computers. Thanks!

[Ω]

Not an expert myself but typically you need to setup your router with some information from your ISP in order for you to connect. Have you given them a call?

[Natg989]

No, i didn't know that. I thought you could just do it manually, so thanks. So i just call Road Runner up and they'll know what to do?

[Ω]

I guess so.

You do set it manually, but you need to know what information to put into your router. They may even have it already posted online.

[ghporter]

Welcome to the MacNN Forums! Let me point out that if you detailed your connection (you obviously have a cable connection, but other details like what Mac you have are also important), then we could help a little better.

Various cable providers (even among the same big company, like TimeWarner) have different requirements. You MAY need to provide a user name and password through the modem's setup or your router's setup. Contact your ISP's tech support and ask what sort of setup you need to do. (Generally the cable guy does that when he connects the modem the first time, or you get a "how to" book with a self-install kit.)

The first step after you get the modem set up is to see if you can connect to the Internet by plugging your Mac directly into the cable modem's Ethernet port.

Let us know what you find out, and again, WELCOME!

[Cold Warrior]

You're using Road Runner, a cable internet service provider. Power down your cable modem (unplug the power) and let it sit for three minutes. While it's unplugged, connect it via ethernet to the linksys router's WAN port. After the three minutes are up, plug the cable modem back in and let it sit for five whole minutes.

You should now have internet service connecting through the linksys wifi router.

I'll add, however, that I've had horrible experiences with current Linksys routers. They seem far less reliable than their older, pre-Cisco days. For example, I have a new BEFSR41 and it drops the connection so often that my internet is unusable. I had to go back to direct connection to my MBP. Updating the firmware didn't help. I also noticed that when it was set to the default subnet, it would randomly and routinely switch itself from .0 to .224. This forces the computer and router, all set to DHCP, to drop the connection and renegotiate for a new IP, subnet, and DNS server information. Even after changing the subnet, it still craps out enough to be unusable. And it can't handle BitTorrent connections of > 100.

[ghporter]

I concur with Cold Warrior that Linksys' track record lately has been poor. They stopped making devices that run some flavor of Linux (for some reason—that used to be a great big selling point) and so users are at the mercy of Linksys' sometimes not so good firmware. I have older Linksys devices that are top notch and running like tops after years and years, but people with newer boxes keep reporting failures and glitches that make me think Cisco has messed up the whole Linksys product line.