new mac user having wireless problems

[chucktown]

Hello all,
I'm a new mac user as of january and have a beautiful new aluminum macbook. I tried searching for an answer to this problem and have yet to find one, hoping yall can help. I am a college student and cannot connect to my schools wireless network, my airport says i have a self assigned IP address and may not be able to connect to the internet...this also happens when i plug into their network via ethernet...is there any solution? i cannot do anything to the router as i have no clue where they are in the library

I would greatly appreciate any help yall can give

 

[Tomorrow]

Open System Preferences and click Network. Is your AirPort adapter turned on (green light)?

If so, check your menu bar on the right side and look for the AirPort icon, and click it. See if you can get a list of available networks. If you can click on one that isn't security-enabled, you should be able to connect to it.

 

[Consultant]

Schcools usually require some kind of authentication for network access. Ask your school's IT department (check their web site).

 

[chucktown]

yea the airport is on and it says i'm connected to the network...consultant, the browser should go to an authentication page where i log in but i can't get that far because the authentication page won't load, it says address can't be found or something to that effect

 

[wbeasley]

Running any applications?

I run a mixed Windows & Mac network (wired and wireless).

Most days it runs just fine.

One thing I have noticed is the wireless (and sometimes ADSL connection) just drops out.

Seems to happen mostly when running Transmission, a torrent program.

Have looked all over the net and seen a few others have noted this problem too but have not seen any reasons why or solutions.

If you are running anything that might be causing your problems, I'd close them down first to limit the number of variables.

Good luck!

 

[MooneyFlyer]

Hello all,
I'm a new mac user as of january and have a beautiful new aluminum macbook. I tried searching for an answer to this problem and have yet to find one, hoping yall can help. I am a college student and cannot connect to my schools wireless network, my airport says i have a self assigned IP address and may not be able to connect to the internet...this also happens when i plug into their network via ethernet...is there any solution? i cannot do anything to the router as i have no clue where they are in the library

I would greatly appreciate any help yall can give

I had this problem for a while and the 10.5.6 release seemed to clear it up (or a firmware release that came out around the same time, I'm not entirely sure). Do you have the latest of everything installed?

Also, sorry for the obvious question, but under Network Prefs -> Advanced -> TCPIP are you set to "Using DHCP"? Does the Renew button help at all?

 

[chucktown]

yea everything is up to date...i tried to renew DHCP but nothing happens, the number doesn't change...this is extremely frustrating, went to the apple store and they did not find any problems either

 

[marbles]

yea everything is up to date...i tried to renew DHCP but nothing happens, the number doesn't change...this is extremely frustrating, went to the apple store and they did not find any problems either

I'm presuming by that you mean they connected your Mac to the store network ?

 

[chucktown]

yea, i originally thought the problem was a bad airport card or something, but because they connected to the store network fine they told me there was nothing they could do

 

[Consultant]

Ask your school's IT department. Jeez.

I bet you a dollar that they require authentication and you don't have it set up.
There ARE other forms of authentication that do not involve browser login.

 

[MooneyFlyer]

Ask your school's IT department. Jeez.

I bet you a dollar that they require authentication and you don't have it set up.
There ARE other forms of authentication that do not involve browser login.

Fair enough -- but shouldn't he at least get an IP address from the router?

Here's another thing to try: Get a look at someone else's configuration and set yours up to be manual. You will have to fill in a bunch of stuff and you will have to grab an IP address (this might cause a conflict -- but this is only temporary anyway). Once you get it to connect, then switch back to DHCP.
** Before I get flamed ** I know this is not the right thing to be doing but you will be on it for a few mins. Usually I take an IP from the very top end because it's less likely to be assigned.

I had this exact same problem and that was one of the things that I did. I don't know exactly what fixed it -- I thought it was the 10.5.6 update but that might be wrong.

 

[anubis]

Yeah... I'll have to echo the suggestions that you just CALL YOUR SCHOOL'S IT DEPARTMENT and ask them to walk you through the required network settings. There might be one or two special settings that you have to set in order for Macs to work, which the IT department can probably help you with in 10 seconds.

 

[anubis]

Also, it could be the case where, depending on what network you're trying to connect to at your school, the MAC address of your wireless adapter has to be pre-added to an "allowed clients" list before any of the routers will assign you a network address. Again, something that a quick call to your IT department will fix

 

[chucktown]

alright cool, thanks for the suggestions, i'm going to talk to the IT people next week

 

[chucktown]

actually one more question about the mac being up to date...i know how to check for software updates but, and this is a noob question, does this include "firmware" or do i need to download firmware updates from the apple site? according to the apple downloads site the latest firmware update is Macbook EFI Firmware Update 1.3...i bought the computer in january so is this update already taken care of?

Thanks

 

[wetrix]

Firmware is included in the Apple Software Update.

Sometimes when you can't get the wireless authentication page to load, you can try entering the URL of the library/provider and this will wake it up. I do this at uni when the cisco authentication page doesn't load.