Not all computers will connect to dual-band station

Picked up one of the dual-band AirPort Extreme routers to replace an aging, ailing Belkin router. Essentially, we've got a lot of internet-enabled devices and using an eight-port hub, the entire building has wired Ethernet. Anyway.

We've got:

- A Power Mac G5 (wired)
- A Power Mac G4 (wired)
- A cheap XP PC for backup purposes (wired)
- A Vista PC designed for gaming (wired)
- A TiVo (wireless)
- An original MacBook Pro (wireless)
- A 2007 17" MacBook Pro (wired, usually)
- An original iPod touch (wireless)
- An iPhone 3G (wireless)
- A Nintendo Wii. (wireless)

All this went through the poor old Belkin router and the wireless signal or the router itself would just randomly shut off. The cable modem has always been fine, otherwise, but the Belkin router always shared one external IP address with all of our devices.

We figured that if we got an Apple router, all our troubles would be solved; that everything would "just work."

However, the only way to get online is by using the bridged mode, but then, neither Windows PC can get online, they sit there trying to get a network address but nothing happens. Earlier they had no trouble with this configuration. Now they do, even after several powercycles of all hardware involved, nothing works.

In sharing mode, only the Power Mac G4, the original MacBook Pro, and the Tivo seem to be able to connect to the router at all. I am not sure why this is or why the other devices seem to be able to see the AirPort base station with the AirPort utility (even the Windows machines) when they are not even assigned an IP address, or have a self-assigned address. Firewalls and sharing are all open and set up to where they ought to be to allow the single external IP address.

It's just bizarre to the extreme (no pun intended.) I must be doing something wrong, but I am not sure what. Either that or we got a defective router -- I really hope we didn't.

Message was edited by: upbeatpenguin

Message was edited by: upbeatpenguin