[lazyscience]

I've had this Macbook for about a year and a half, and for the past few months, it hasn't been connecting automatically to wireless. It's frustrating because every time I want to connect when I turn it on or wake it up, I have to go through a series of steps in "System Preferences." When I want to connect, I always have to use Network Diagnostics, select the Wireless I want to join, and type in the WEP password. Sometimes it doesn't work, and it says that System Preferences can't find out what the problem is, and it is unable to fix anything. When this happens, I have to keep going back to Network Diagnostics and repeating the same steps over and over. Does anyone know why this is? It's very frustrating and I wish my Mac would connect automatically every time

Other information...I have a wireless router connected to another computer in the house, and it's a private wireless connection that I pay for. Thanks in advance!

[ibook_steve]

Assuming Leopard (10.5) here. First, put the wireless menu in the menu bar so you don't have to keep going to System Preferences. In Network preferences, select the Airport interface and turn on Show Airport status in menu bar.

Next, click the Advanced button. On the Airport tab, make sure the network you want to join all the time is listed. You can drag it to the top to give it the highest priority if you want to. Make sure "Remember any network this computer has joined" is turned on.

With this setup, the worst you should have to do is select the network from the Airport menu in the menubar and enter a password.

Also, if you are administering the router, you should be using WPA2, not WEP, which is useless.

Steve