Ticket Options

Question Profile

Question Details

TICKET ARCHIVE -> Cant connect PC laptop to Mac network

kari07 - Feb 19, 2007 - 6:14 pm

I am pulling my hair out. My fiance and I recently purchased a netgear router to create a wireless network from his desktop mac. We went through the steps from the setup disk and created and configured a network. My computer (a PC running on Windows XP) will not connect to the network (or any in range for that matter).

This is all the junk I have tried:
1. We set the wireless security settings to disable. We turned off the firewall on my laptop.
2. I called the Netgear and they were USELESS. They had me get on the Lynksys website (manufacturer of the wireless card my computer is using) and find any new downloads for my card. I did this and I think that I updated the driver correctly (but who really knows).
3. I tried to go into my fiance's mac and find where a 'wireless network setup wizard-like thing would be so that I could save the settings on a jump drive and save them onto my laptop, but I cannot find it on his computer. The closest thing I could find was something in his network settings that said that other computers were not allowed on his network and that if I changed the setting to allow others, our internet service provider might automatically drop our service. (Charter- no luck finding out if this is true or not from them)

Here are my questions.
1. Do I need to change that setting to allow other computers?
2. Will it drop my service if I do this?
3. Do I have a bald spot in the back of my head from pulling out all this hair?
4. Does anyone care? Netgear doesn't.

Any help or general words of encouragement would be appreciated. Please keep in mind that I do not understand mac computers as well as PCs.
---Karolyn

gsahli - Feb 20, 2007 - 3:16 pm

I need to understand a little better what you are trying to do. You are describing this as a Mac network - but there really isn't such a thing. Macs and PCs use TCP/IP networking whether over ethernet or wireless. So, is it true that the line into the house goes to a DSL or cable modem? Then an ethernet cable goes to the router? Then the router can have either wireless or ethernet clients? And your fiance' is just using a web browser to administer the router?

Usually the "other computers not allowed" refers to no more than one computer OR router obtaining an ISP IP address -- in other words, if you have a router, it looks just the same as one computer directly connected to the modem, and it only requires one IP address.

So you see, the answers to your questions require more info from you.

kari07 - Feb 21, 2007 - 3:12 am

Okay, thanks for clearing that up about the PCs and Macs. I just didn't know if there was a certain button I had to click to translate communication between the two or somthing weird like that.
Answers to your questions. Yes, the internet uses a cable modem. and an ethernet cable goes into the router. I suppose the router can have either wireless or ethernet clients--it is a wireless router. and we are using a webpage that netgear set up for us to administer the router.

I don't really understand what you are saying in the second paragraph. But it seems like it wouldn't matter because his computer just needs to recognize the router and its IP address and it is doing that as far as I can tell. and his computer wouln't need to aknowledge mine because mine is dealing only with the router. (is my thinking right on this?)

But I still can't connect and I am still pulling hair.

Thanks for getting back to me, please tell me what to do next. I can't spend 150 dollars to have the geek squad come to my house.

gsahli - Feb 21, 2007 - 8:31 am

Your ISP doesn't know or care if you have more than one computer connected through a router. I don't know what setting you are referring to in the first post/first question, but if it is a setting in the router, yes, you can turn it on.

I believe a disk came with the netgear, specifically for PCs. Why don't you use that to connect to the router? (On Windows they often call these drivers, but mostly they're just wizards.)

Although this guide refers to using an Airport Base Station (router), all the steps on a Windows PC are the same:
http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/1011.html
http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/2001.html