[muglo] Re: PC/internet

On 30-Dec-08, at 3:11 PM, Douglas Feick wrote:
> I have a wireless router beside my computer which has an ethernet
> connection to my computer. I use built in Airport.

<copy & paste>

> I have a wireless receiver on the eavestrough of my house, with a
> cable that comes to my computer room where there is a router which
> joins my computer with a ethernet cable...Doug

<copy & paste>

> I use Airport to share my connection between my desk top Mac and my
> laptop in the other room.I thought my son might be able to do the
> same thing, because I don't think I have another option for him to
> access the internet from his computer while he is here for the
> week...Doug

Doug,

Some questions for you:

1) You said you have a "wireless receiver on the eavestrough of your  
house". Do you mean you have a "wireless" internet connection into  
your home via a Satellite dish or microwave line-of-sight dish on your  
roof?

2) And when you talk about using Airport to share your connection, do  
you mean you have Internet Sharing enabled on your Mac so others can  
can connect to the internet through your Mac? In other words, is your  
Mac acting like an Airport Base Station? That's what it sounds like  
you saying in the 3rd paragraph that I quoted above but maybe I have  
misinterpreted that.

3) You also said you "have a wireless router beside my computer which  
has an ethernet connection to my computer. I use built-in Airport."  
That sounds like you do have a wireless router, but your Mac is  
connected via a wire (ethernet). Is this correct?

4) What brand of wireless router do you have, Linksys, D-Link, Belkin  
etc.?

All of that aside, if your son's PC can "see" your wireless router but  
can't connect then here are some things to consider:

- Check to see if your son is typing the password correctly. This  
gotcha is far more common than you might think. He may be typing the  
first letter of the password as a capital when it should be lower  
case. There are dozens of other scenarios where passwords can be typed  
in wrong so check this first before doing anything else because it's  
the easiest and most common mistake to make.

- If your son has to enter a password to connect to your wireless  
router then you must have wireless encryption enabled. Do you have  
encryption enabled in your wireless router settings (your answer  
should be yes)? If so, what encryption type is being used? Sometimes  
Macs and PCs have incompatibility issues with the various types of  
encryption and you need to find the type that works for both. WPA  
Personal and WPA2 Personal are the standard for Macs and Windows XP &  
Vista computer these days, but depending on the age of the PC and the  
version of Windows it has you may have to fall back to using WEP to  
allow both the PC and Mac to connect. WEP encryption is old and less  
secure but it's better than no encryption at all.

- The MAC address issue that Gerhard mentioned is a valid possibility  
if your son can see your network, tries to connect, gets asked to type  
in a password, but then gets rejected. Check your router's wireless  
security settings and see if "Wireless MAC Filter" or something  
similar to that is enabled or not. If so then you would need to add  
the MAC address from your son's PC to the list of computers that are  
allowed to connect. Most people don't use this feature but it may be  
on and is worth investigating if all else fails.

- You said "his dialoge box says he can't gain access to the internet  
from my system." Can you give us more details? The specifics of what  
happens when your son tries to connect to your wireless router and the  
exact wording of the error message he gets are critical to figuring  
this problem out. Ask him to try connecting one more time and then  
write down exactly what happens and what the error message says and  
post it here.



Andy
-------
www.rainycitynights.com



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