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Macbooks can connect to home router but widows devices can't?

gavmcg92

Hi,
My family and I have had an annoying problem for the past couple of months that we have not been able to figure out.
My sister and I have both recently purchased macbook pros where as my mother and father both have windows devices running on Vista. My parents seem to think that the problems started to occur when I got my macbook pro in late june 2010 and connected it to the wireless router in the house.
Currently when either of my parents machines are switched on.. they fail to connect to the internet while my sister and I have no problems what-so-ever. I am unsure as to whether the issue lies with the connection to the router or the internet. Next time I am at home I will look into it further.
Just straight up (with the little information that I have at this time) do you know what the problem could be... ? Should I talk to UPC or to Netgear?

We are on 25mbps down with UPC and we have a Netgear RangeMax router.

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ironclaw

I had the same problem before, but on an Eircom router. This is a hunch by the way, not hard fact

Basically I think the router see's the MacBooks which are wireless N enabled, so the router allocates them the N specification (Be that N band or N protocol). When a Window machine comes along (Non N enabled), the router fails to fall back the common ground of G protocol. Hence the windows machine's can't connect.

The problem I have in work is when my MacBook connects, it effectively boots everything else off the network including itself. However it will happily use the network if its the only machine on it.

My suggestion would be to try update the router firmware.

Mance Rayder

gavmcg92 wrote: »

Hi,
My family and I have had an annoying problem for the past couple of months that we have not been able to figure out.
My sister and I have both recently purchased macbook pros where as my mother and father both have windows devices running on Vista. My parents seem to think that the problems started to occur when I got my macbook pro in late june 2010 and connected it to the wireless router in the house.
Currently when either of my parents machines are switched on.. they fail to connect to the internet while my sister and I have no problems what-so-ever. I am unsure as to whether the issue lies with the connection to the router or the internet. Next time I am at home I will look into it further.
Just straight up (with the little information that I have at this time) do you know what the problem could be... ? Should I talk to UPC or to Netgear?

We are on 25mbps down with UPC and we have a Netgear RangeMax router.

You probably have to go into your routers configuration page on your browser, and change the wireless mode to 'Mixed'. Too many devices operating on the same channel can cause a drop out in services.

If there is an option to turn CSMA/CA on and off, make sure its on.

gavmcg92

CiscoStudent wrote: »

You probably have to go into your routers configuration page on your browser, and change the wireless mode to 'Mixed'. Too many devices operating on the same channel can cause a drop out in services.

If there is an option to turn CSMA/CA on and off, make sure its on.

And that has to be done on a direct connection or can I do it with my macbook pro via wireless.

Mance Rayder

gavmcg92 wrote: »

And that has to be done on a direct connection or can I do it with my macbook pro via wireless.

You can access it wirelessly.

Go to Applications / Utilities / Terminal / then type "ifconfig"

Look for the address of default gateway which is probably 192.168.1.1 .

Whatever it is enter it into your URL address bar of your browser and hit enter.

This is your routers configuration page , it may require a password to access.

gavmcg92

I've gained access to the settings however I can't see either of the objects mentioned above.

Mance Rayder

do you have an additional router or is it the one router providing wireless and wired ?

All modern wireless routers need to have a wireless mode selection.

gavmcg92

CiscoStudent wrote: »

Did you gain access to your UPC router or your wireless router?

It is your wireless router we are interested in here.

If so , are your sure there is no WiFi, Wireless tab to select?

All wireless routers will have a wireless mode selection.

Yes I know. My broadband is coming in to my UPC modem which is hooked up to a Netgear RangeMax G router.

I located the default gateway IP and put it in my address bar. It allowed me to gain access to a Netgear settings page.

However I cannot see a "Wireless mode" or a "CSMA/CA" option to enable.

Mance Rayder

hmm. Is your netgear router configured to act as a DCHP server? should say something like DCHP server enabled/disabled. Should be enabled.

What security mode is selected? make sure its the same on all devices that wish to connect. Make sure all deviced are set to automatically recieve ip configuration from dchp server.

A wireless network requires the following in order to work:

Wireless access point - you have the netgear
wireless clients - you have the various computers
the SSID settings should be the same in all the wireless devices wishing to connect to it.
The security settings need to be the same on all devices. eg the WEP Key should be configured on all devices
The wireless router should be configured to act as a DCHP server
the devices should be set to obtain IP address automatically
All devices need to use compatible 802.11 standards. Your netgear is wireless G and therefore should work with any 2.4 GHz band devices. (Thats why I said set it to mixed .)

If there is a setting on your computers to choose the wireless mode make sure all are set to 2.4 GHz band.

G operates on 2.4 GHz band
N can operate on either 2.4 GHz band and 5 GHz bands.

Other then that there is a possibility that when you try to connect all devices to the wireless network that they are all trying to use the same channels and therefore knocking each other out as each device 'conversation' needs to use a different non overlapping channel on the same frequency. thats what CSMA/CA is for. It should happen automatically.

Maybe its time to consider an 802.11n wireless router to replace the old g you have.

dub45

Is the UPC a router also? If so you would have two routers in your set up and this could be causing your problems.

gavmcg92

dub45 wrote: »

Is the UPC a router also? If so you would have two routers in your set up and this could be causing your problems.

I don't think so. It's a usb modem.

gavmcg92

CiscoStudent wrote: »

hmm. Is your netgear router configured to act as a DCHP server?

...

Maybe its time to consider an 802.11n wireless router to replace the old g you have.

Yeah I will look into those tomorrow when I have more time. Thanks again for the feedback. I'll get back to you tomorrow afternoon.

I have suggested a new router but money is tight at the moment at home so I will wait and see. Unfortunately college is a huge drain on the account.

Thanks again.