Dell laptop hides AEBS from other machines
I bought an Airport Extreme Base Station yesterday, to replace an old Linksys WRT54G router which was causing problems with Leopard. The wireless-capable devices involved are
an iMac G5, running Leopard
a MacBook running 10.4
a Dell XPS M1530 laptop with an Intel 4569AGN wireless card, running Vista SP1
an HP pavilion dv6000 laptop with the same wireless card, running XP SP3
an iPod Touch
Airport Express (for music)
The upstream device is a Motorola cable modem.
After disconnecting the Linksys and connecting the AEBS in its place, I ran Airport Utility on the iMac G5 and discovered that I couldn't see it. I rescanned repeatedly, with no success.
I installed Airport Utility on the Dell laptop, and discovered that I could see and configure the AEBS just fine. Nothing I could do would make the Macs or the iPod see the network at all. After a couple of hours of experimenting, I went back to basics and powered off all the devices except the iMac. Suddenly, Airport Utility sprang into life, and I could see the AEBS. I could configure the network from the iMac and the MacBook and the iPod started connecting. However, the moment I powered on the Dell laptop, all the other devices on the network lost contact with the AEBS. I disabled the Dell's wireless card, disconnected the wireless mouse, all to no avail. If the Dell is powered up, it prevents all other systems from seeing the AEBS or the network. Power it off, and all the other systems come back to life.
I've tried disabling 802.11n mode on the AEBS (somewhat confused because the choices in Airport Utility 5.4.1 don't match the help file) with no effect.
I'm at a loss to work out where this problem might lie. You might argue that I should poll the Dell forums (and maybe I'll try that too), but this worked just fine (or mostly fine) with the Linksys router we were using until yesterday. If anyone has any idea about what might be happening, and how to diagnose the problem, I'd love to hear it.
Thanks,
Peter Hornby
Laguna Beach/CA
an iMac G5, running Leopard
a MacBook running 10.4
a Dell XPS M1530 laptop with an Intel 4569AGN wireless card, running Vista SP1
an HP pavilion dv6000 laptop with the same wireless card, running XP SP3
an iPod Touch
Airport Express (for music)
The upstream device is a Motorola cable modem.
After disconnecting the Linksys and connecting the AEBS in its place, I ran Airport Utility on the iMac G5 and discovered that I couldn't see it. I rescanned repeatedly, with no success.
I installed Airport Utility on the Dell laptop, and discovered that I could see and configure the AEBS just fine. Nothing I could do would make the Macs or the iPod see the network at all. After a couple of hours of experimenting, I went back to basics and powered off all the devices except the iMac. Suddenly, Airport Utility sprang into life, and I could see the AEBS. I could configure the network from the iMac and the MacBook and the iPod started connecting. However, the moment I powered on the Dell laptop, all the other devices on the network lost contact with the AEBS. I disabled the Dell's wireless card, disconnected the wireless mouse, all to no avail. If the Dell is powered up, it prevents all other systems from seeing the AEBS or the network. Power it off, and all the other systems come back to life.
I've tried disabling 802.11n mode on the AEBS (somewhat confused because the choices in Airport Utility 5.4.1 don't match the help file) with no effect.
I'm at a loss to work out where this problem might lie. You might argue that I should poll the Dell forums (and maybe I'll try that too), but this worked just fine (or mostly fine) with the Linksys router we were using until yesterday. If anyone has any idea about what might be happening, and how to diagnose the problem, I'd love to hear it.
Thanks,
Peter Hornby
Laguna Beach/CA
iMac G5, Mac OS X (10.5.6), MacBook, iPod Touch, Airport Extreme