airport problem

derek gores · #1 December 10th, 2007, 10:36 PM

Hi. I have an old 17" imac, ether-connected to an airport extreme base station, and my macbook connects to the base/internet wirelessly no problem.
I just got a used ibook g3 14" for my kids to use for homework, and got the original airport card installed too. My problem- the g3 airport can't see my wireless network. From what i can tell, the airport card is installed correctly (I looked manually, and also under system profile all 4 of the lines about the airport card are complete). I've tried manually looking for my network by name and entering the password but it says either 'password is invalid' if I try thru the network setup assistant, or it says 'does not support the requested encryption method" if i go thru the airport icon on the menu bar.

I should note I've tried confirming my network password back at the imac/base station. I also find it confusing that in the base station utility on my imac, it lists the WPA/WPA2 pswd on one line, but on the g3 ibook as I try to access the network, I have to choose one or the other, but not both.

I'm only about 20 feet from the base station, and sitting next to the macbook.

I also tried: manually copying the base station IP address and subnet mask from my imac and typing it into the manual fields of the ibook to reach the network. nothing. Also tried trashing network prefs and resetting PRAM as recommended on some sites. I also checked that the antenna is connected to the airport card.
I run OS 10.4 tiger. Not too tech savvy- feel free to spell it out!

Help!! Thanks.

Gnomo · #2 December 11th, 2007, 09:30 AM

Here are a few things to try:

The original airport cards (802.11b) did not support WPA out of the box. This was added via firmware update, so check to see if your card has the latest firmware version.

Check that your airport extreme is configured for a mixed network. If you have it configured for 802.11g clients only, your iBook won't be able to connect.

It has been a while since I set up my wireless, but I vaguely remember that I had problems getting my G3 iBook to connect. If I'm remembering correctly the issue was I had configured the network for WPA2 only and the original airport card can only do WPA, so I had to switch to a WPA/WPA2 setting.

Now before anyone rolls their eyes at me: Yes, I know WPA2 is backwards compatible with WPA. And I'd agree this this doesn't seem make much sense, but since I don't have immediate access to my AEBS to verify, I thought I'd suggest it as it is worth a check.

derek gores · #3 December 11th, 2007, 03:19 PM

thanks. how do i tell if my card needs a firmware update, and how do i update it?
I tried setting the AEBS to WEP since it says it is for older wireless, but that didn't do the trick but I left it on WEP. Then I switched the 'radio mode' to b/g. it had been on g. That made a difference- suddenly the ibook could recognize my wireless network and connect to it. However, much to my surprise, when I go to Safari, still no internet connection.

Any ideas?
Thanks so much.

Gnomo · #4 December 11th, 2007, 05:06 PM

Did you revert your network setting back to DHCP? If it is DHCP are you getting a valid IP address (e.g. not like 169.x.x.x)?

BTW: The latest version of the Airport Firmware is 9.52 you can see this by click on 'Airport Card' in System Profiler (located in /Applications/Utilities). If you need to update, run System Update from System Preferences and it should download the latest version of the Airport software.