Macbook wont connect or detect my wireless internet no matter what i do
Okay i cant get my macbook that i just got today to connect to my wireless internet it will find and connect to my neighbors router but not mine, earlier in the day it would detect mine but not connect. All of the PCs and my iphone in the house connect no problem, also i installed bootcamp doesnt work through their either. The only thing i can think of is during my intial boot my internet was being weird so maybe it setup something wrong because of it
Yes its password protected, i can now see my setup in the macbook my phone was interfering but when i try and connect it either tells me connection timeout or failed but it spends about 3sec trying to connect when it times out no time at all really
Your neighbor has WiFi too...bet your station is using the same channel. Log onto the base station and change the broadcast channel. That may be just the ticket to your happiness.
I've been trying to research this problem for hours as well - as I got a new macbook with Leopard pre-installed yesterday and it cannot logon to my working password protected wireless network. It logs on fine to UNPROTECTED networks - but, just like you, it "times out" when you try to connect to a password protected network. If you try it through other methods - it still doesn't work and you get a "may be using wrong password" error. I have several other macs that connect effortlessly to the same network using the same password. Sadly - I can tell you that I have not seen an answer to this anywhere here or on any forum after hours of searching. The problem seems to be fairly widespread - and there are lots of suggestions for diagnostics and taking the password protection OFF the network temporarily (not possible for me - living in a 400 unit apartment building where I can see 50 locked networks and I'm not volunteering to be the free one!)
Seems like Leopard has a problem logging into password protected networks and, according to what I've read unofficially - (since Apple isn't being official about the issue 🙂 10.5.2 is supposed to fix it...whenever the heck that gets released. Unless someone has a real solution and can post it here - it looks like we are just screwed for now. I've got an ethernet cable strung across the livingroom. Wow! What great portability....NOT.
As i have said my airport is fine its connects to the unprotected wireless networks around me it just wont connect to mine for some reason, its becoming very frusrerating i was on the phone with tech support for an hr. Apple states how easy macs are to use and my first impression doesnt seem to hold that statement true
You're not alone. My nephew just got a new MacBook for Christmas and he can't connect to his wireless router (Westell 327W - with verizon DSL) either. This machine is factory fresh - no 3rd party apps or anything. The problem is the same every time - connection timeout. An older G4 iBook connects to the network fine and so does my iPhone. I took his MacBook to my house to check it with my wireless and it worked fine (Verizon FIOS modem). While I was there, I downloaded and installed all of the latest patches for his system just to make sure it wasn't already fixed in an update - but we get the same behavior with the latest updates applied (also tried fixing disk permissions). Everything else appears to be working normally.
Both wireless signals are WEP 128 encrypted - my network also uses MAC filtering but his didn't. I tried turning off wep on his network and the same symptoms persisted. I tried turning on MAC filtering and added his ethernet id to the filter but still had same exact symptom. The weird thing is the MacBook always sees the SSID of the router and also correctly detects if its encrypted/unencrypted but he can't connect.
Obviously this isn't going over too well as I convinced his mom to get him a mac. I suspect this is a Leopard bug but haven't been able to track down what is going on. Right now I'm feeling really disappointed in Apple - I'm kinda hoping it's a Leopard bug but at the same time, if it is, it is extremely poor form. Wireless internet functionality is a must - especially on a laptop. I've read that a big Leopard update is coming - we'll probably wait a few days to see if that comes and takes care of it but will welcome any other ideas to try.
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I suspect (strongly) that this is a problem with Leopard. His wireless access point has not caused a problem for any other tested devices except his MacBook - including a G4 iBook, an iPhone, and a Ti PB. All connect to this access point fine. Only his MacBook will not connect - the difference is that this is the only machine running Leopard. Did you have suggestions for us to try? I guess you suspect we all must be doing something wrong?
I'm just suggesting tht the problem probably isn't with Leopard. I googled Westell 327 and found this among other complaints....take a look.
http://enrevanche.blogspot.com/2005/07/westell-versalink-327w-problems.html Another suggestion would be to check that the firmware on the router is up to date.....when I used SBC dsl I was constantly updating firmware. I'm on cable now and have no such problems.
Hi Everyone,
I'm having a similar problem with my 1st generation (July 2006) MacBook running OSX 10.5.1 Leopard. Normally it sits on the kitchen desk connected via wired ethernet to our gigabit home network. However I decided to take it to my in-laws before Christmas and discovered I couldn't connect to their Netgear WGR614v6 router (WEP-protected). I kept getting the "connection failed" popup no matter how I tried troubleshooting the password entry. Yes, I tried putting a "$" or "0x" in front of the hex password. I updated the router firmware. I changed the encryption to WPA Personal (TKIP). No luck. Now here's the weird thing: I also had no luck connecting when I booted into Windows XP Pro (via Boot Camp). That's when I got worried it was my MacBook and not the Netgear router.
I did a lot of Google and Apple forum searching and saw that people were reporting spotty connections - not exactly my problem since I could see the SSID, but just not connect.
When I returned home, I discovered I couldn't connect to our home network either (an Actiontec DSL modem/router/wireless combo). iStumbler reports a strong signal. I tried changing the channel on the Actiontec, but of course that didn't work.
Anyway, because this seems to be a problem on both Leopard and Windows XP, I wonder if it might be a firmware issue...
I read the blog but still don't see why I should suspect the modem in this case. The symptoms the blogger was experiencing don't at all match what I am seeing. Again, all other laptops tested connect to this device without this trouble. Only the MacBook running Leopard fails and it just never connects at all. Hopefully my nephew will get the opportunity to try a few more access points in the coming days which may help establish a pattern.
One other piece of info regarding this issue - the DSL service my nephew uses is 700Kb service and his line signal (not wireless signal) quality tends to be poor which results in pretty slow speeds at times. The reason I point this out is because Leopard always reports connection timeout as the problem. Since the modem provides an IP regardless of WAN connectivity issues, this shouldn't matter as far as establishing a LAN connection. But I wonder if Leopard is trying to talk on the WAN and not getting a reply before the network service is fully functioning and the error is somehow preempting the network configuration from finishing? Unfortunately, I don't have much time to work on this until possibly next week.
