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iamnotmad · Jan 22, 2008, 06:33 PM

I just installed XP on my new macbook and it sees but will not connect to my airport express wireless N network. If I try to connect to my wireless b/g it is fine. Also the airport setup util will not see the base station, but if I go wired it will see it.

This should work right? I assume the wireless network card in the mac when used in window is not artificially limited to b/g, right?

I'll keep troubleshooting, any help is appreciated.
thanks.

ghporter · Jan 22, 2008, 08:25 PM

XP doesn't care if you connect it with kite string and empty soup cans. Seriously, if there is a driver for the card you're using, XP should work properly with it. The fact that draft n wireless in the 5GHz band is new territory for most users means that it's possible that drivers for that card are not particularly great. On the other hand, are you sure that the 5GHz band in your location is empty? Maybe you have some sort of interference that's keeping your MacBook from working on that band. I don't have that card nor the N AirPort base, so I can't check it out, but can you change channels in the 5GHz band? I'd do it NOW and see if it changes anything.

iamnotmad · Jan 22, 2008, 08:31 PM

I don't think its interference, the 5GHz works great in OSX when I bootcamp into windows is where it sees the network but will not prompt for a WPA2 (personal) password. Maybe it's the (crappy!?) bootcamp windows drivers for the wireless card in the macbook?

Cadaver · Jan 22, 2008, 08:42 PM

Might be the WPA password itself. Windows would give me an error every time I tried to connect to an AirPort network that had a "!" in the (ASCII) password. Took out the exclamation point and it connected fine.

iamnotmad · Jan 22, 2008, 09:12 PM

oddly it won't even prompt for the WPA pw. it will for my G network.

iamnotmad · Jan 22, 2008, 09:28 PM

Found something: Boot Camp Beta 1.2: Windows XP (SP2) unable to connect to 802.11n wireless router or AirPort Extreme (802.11n) Base Station

This article links to a windows hotfix that seems to help, at least I can enter a pw, but it gets stuck in acquiring address. Also found some discussion on the subject on apple forums with other people having this problem. Looks like if you have the hotfix and you still have this issue, it could be the 5GHz only setting. I've not tried that yet. But at least I'm getting somewhere.

iamnotmad · Jan 22, 2008, 09:39 PM

I got it to work. not sure what it was, I went back through and removed all the networks in the network properties for the wireless network, and reset all my stuff to what it should be on the airport and rebooted it, then it connected!

Bottom line, see my prior post, get the windows XP hotfix and that should solve the problem!

ghporter · Jan 22, 2008, 10:57 PM

Assuming your XP installation is up to date, it should work. Obviously you found that getting up to date was pretty crucial for you.

iamnotmad · Jan 22, 2008, 10:58 PM

I discovered what I changed (besides adding the windows hotfix). For me at least, the multicast rate had to be set to 6 on the AEBS. Even the very next setting (9) would not allow an IP address to be acquired in windows xp.

So to sum up:

1) Get hot fix from here.
2) Set your multicast rate to 6 (mine, AEBS GB, does not go lower). Anything above I tried 9, 12, will allow you to connect but you will be stuck on acquired address.

Thanks and I hope this helps others.

ghporter · Jan 23, 2008, 09:58 AM

Multicasting is generally useful only when streaming media content from the computer you're configuring. I'll bet that if you disabled multicast you'd connect too-and maybe more reliably.

iamnotmad · Jan 23, 2008, 10:37 AM

Originally Posted by ghporter

Multicasting is generally useful only when streaming media content from the computer you're configuring. I'll bet that if you disabled multicast you'd connect too-and maybe more reliably.

You're not able to turn it off, not on my AEBS-GB at least. the setting I noted (6) is the lowest it goes. My understanding is all that it does is prevent connections from machines that are not within a signal strength enough to support whatever the setting is. So the higher this setting the better your signal needs to be in order to connect.

In my case OSX would connect fine at 12 or more. XP would not on the same machine. For XP I don't think it was the signal strength that was preventing connection with the MC rate high, I think it was something else that I do not know about related to this setting - that's just a guess, but it definitely was not strength since I was practically right next to the AEBS when doing this.