Macbooks and aol wireless routers

shjo558

Hi folks, I am losing the will to live with this so any help will be greatly received!

I have a windows laptop connected up to an aol wireless router and it works fine.

However, my son received a macbook for Christmas and I can't get it to connect up wirelessly. I can only get an ethernet connection via the router.

I have phoned aol and spent 35 minutes in the call centre and achieved nothing except having my router wrecked :mad: and I had to reinstall it...........

Am I able to connect the macbook wirelessly?

Marty_J

You just need to click the Airport icon in the menu bar, and then add your network name and password.

M4RKM

and, just to elaborate, if there is no icon for airport in the menu bar then you have to click on system preferences, network, and then click on airport on the left hand side

then you should be able to choose a network, and type in your password, it is also worth ticking the box to show airport status in menu bar.

You don't explain why you couldn't get it to connect, when it is a simple 2 click process, so if you are having trouble, you could do with letting us know a bit more information. have you even got the mac to find the network? is the router hiding it's SSID (network name), these things can make it a bit more difficult, but still, you should have no problems connecting

any probs, send me an IM

shjo558

Thanks guys, I'll try to give you some more info.

Everything appears to be connected okay, the router has been found and I have installed the all the aol software off the disk that came with the router.

When I click on the airport symbol I can see my router and have selected it. Only thing I did notice is there is a closed padlock next to it in the menu - not sure if that means it's locked?

M4RKM

NOOOOOOOOOOO..

sorry... don't ever ever install software like that. you don't need it.. , but now that you already have, oh well..

the closed padlock means that it is a secure wireless network..

go into system preferences, and airport, and check that you have a normal ip address.. it should start with 192.XXX.XXX.XXX at a guess... if it is starting with 169.XXX.XXX.XXX it is a self assigned ip, and the router isn't giving an ip address out to the computer to let it on the internet.

M

shjo558

OMG, Not actually sure what I've done - I went to check the IP address and had a fiddle around with everthing and then tried Safari again and it works!!!!!

Was so excited had to run into the kids room holding up the google home page:rotfl:

Thanks for all your help:j

345bristoltrain

I have two laptops, daughter was given a old mac g4powerbook. Which I cant get to connect to wireless router. I have rung tiscali 3 times the last time they said i couldn't use both a mac and pcs together on the router as pcs were WAP and the Mac was something else and I would need to get apple to reconfigure the mac. When I click on airport tiscali comes up but needs a password to connect when I give the password its not recognised tiscali assure me its the correct password. apple said to put a dollar symbol in front of password still nothing. As mac old apple don't support anymore. Can anyone please help as daughter needs the internet

Marty_J

Firstly, ignore Tiscali; you can use PCs and Macs together on the same wireless network with no problems, so they are 100% wrong in that regard.

Is your network WEP or WPA? Which one are you choosing on the Mac?

345bristoltrain

using WAP on pc, how do i know what I'm using on the Mac