[coolmemin]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here. I've already learned a lot from reading previous posts but I'm having an issue that I haven't been able to figure out the solution to. I have a macbook and my girlfriend has a PC(I know I know...she's getting a mac soon hopefully) and we have wireless internet at home using a Netgear router. Anyhoot, neither of us has problems connecting but I would like to set up the WEP but every time I do it I can't connect with my macbook. Ok so these are the steps I follow:

1)log into router and go to wireless settings. It asks me for a passphrase and it produces a password.
2)I go and put the password in the PC and it connects fine, but when I try to do the same for the macbook it doesn't work. It doesn't seem to be the same lengths that its asking for.

Does anybody have an idea of why this is happening?

Thanks in advance,
Guillermo

[ibook_steve]

Try putting in a dollar sign ($) before the password:

Mac OS X, AirPort: Connecting to Third-Party Base Stations

Steve

P.S. Try putting networking questions in the Networking forum.

[ghporter]

Welcome! And as a favor to a BRAND NEW user, I'll explain something: we have a whole forum just for networking issues. I'll move this thread there.

The most common issue with WEP and Macs is that everybody but Apple does WEP passwords basically the same way-with hexadecimal inputs and software that expects a hex input. Apple, trying to make things easier for us, goofed. Their software expects plain text and processes it to create a hex value-which is not at all what third party devices expect. The special '$' tells the Apple software to interpret the input as hex and all should be well.

Except... WEP is poo on a shingle. It sucks. It is not good in the most emphatic sense. This is because the underlying encryption for WEP is fatally flawed and is almost trivial to break. If your router supports it, use WiFi Protected Access, of WPA. It IS secure, and (amazingly enough) the passphrase handling is part of the standard so EVERYBODY'S hardware handles passphrases the same way! Yay! (If that Netgear box is way old and doesn't support WPA, start saving your pennies NOW-you NEED a router that that supports WPA!

[coolmemin]

Ok, I'll try the dollar sign thingy. ok, so now I have another question, because I actually did also try to do the WPA thing just to see if that would work and it also seemed like it was expecting something else. My router page has an option that looks like
WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access Pre-Shared Key)

so I set that up and it didn't seem to work either. Is there a dollar sign trick to WPA too?

[G5man]

That is what you get with a Netgear, my question is what about "keylifetime"? What should that be set to?

[coolmemin]

hmmm, ok so I tried the dollar sign before the WEP and same thing happened. It pretty much says I'm connected but I can't open anything.I also tried the quotes as per recommendation of the apple link that you sent me.
Same thing with WPA, just doesn't wanna work with me. Any other ideas?

[ghporter]

What do you mean "can't open anything?" Web pages? Shared files? Since WPA's passphrase handling is standardized, DO NOT USE QUOTES OR A '$' unless they're an actual part of the passphrase.

I also should have asked if you can connect with security turned off. If you can't, then the problem is certainly not the security settings.

Originally Posted by G5man

That is what you get with a Netgear, my question is what about "keylifetime"? What should that be set to?

The term WPA-PSK is basically the same as what Apple calls "WPA-Personal." Set "keylifetime" to whatever you want; the default is fine, but shorter lifetimes increase security. Not that you need to go beyond what the default setting gives you, but you can play with it set to whatever you want to. I leave it at the default setting.

[coolmemin]

so what I mean by "can't open anything" is that my airport tells me I'm connected to the network but I don;t have an internet connection so when I try to open up a webpage it says I dont have an internet connection. Without the security settings everything is ok, and I guess I can just live with that. It just seems a bit odd to me that I can't get this to work since it works fine on the PC on the same exact network. I figured it was just a different way that Mac's and PC's handle the passwords but it doesn't seem to like the password I'm giving it. Either way, thanks for the input

Guillermo

[videochick]

I have been having the same problem, although even an unsecured network does not solve the problem.
I have a motorola cable modem(recently replaced as I thought that was the problem)
I have a linksys which worked fine for 2 months, then it stopped, I reinstalled checked everything, still no good, so I then bought a apple airport base station. This did not work.
I can plug directly into the modem and it will work all the time.
I recently purchased a new Macbook Pro. My friend reset the airport (after I had become too frustrated and had not bothered with it for a couple of months) and it worked fine for 3 weeks. Then one morning it stops working only for me, not for the PC. My friends PC works wireless here on both systems. It shows it is connected, but there is no connection. I looked through all my settings and cannot pin point it.
I take my computer to work everyday, it works fine wirelessly at the office and at hotspots.
I asked at the genius bar and they were not aware of hearing about this problem previously.

I think it has to be something so simple, but I cannot find it. I think there maybe a PC ghost in my house!

any suggestions.... .