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New Macbook, will not simultaneously connect to internet with other laptops in house

1K views 10 replies 4 participants last post by  kb244 
#1 ·
Just brought home a Macbook with Intel processor running Leopard. We already have two PowerBook G4s in the house running Tiger. We have our internet service through Rogers, and we have a wireless Linksys router.

I got the Macbook to connect to the wireless network with no problem. But, then we realized that the two PowerBooks had lost their connections. Tried all of our usual tricks to get it reconnected (including rebooting computers and rebooting router). Nothing worked. Then, we turned off the airport connection on the new Macbook -- and voila, both of the PowerBooks immediately reconnected to internet.

Any ideas what's going on here? Is the Macbook just a wireless hog? We asked the tech person where we bought the new computer, and he's never heard of this before.

Thanks!
Kathy
 
#2 ·
Is there by any chance your router is a Wireless G router with the capability to be wireless B? And if so is it incapable of running both at the same time? Are the airports on the powebooks wireless G or B. I would say log into your router and see if theres a way to force the network to one of them (like some say "B and G", "B Only", "G Only"), for example if the powerbooks are B only, then set the router to B and the newer macbook should fall back to that.

It's weird, but that's the only thing I can think of.
 
#4 ·
There is likely a MAC address conflict. Your ISP will be able to help you resolve it if your router came from them.
Ahh that can be true, open up Network Utilities on all the machines, The first tab should have the MAC ID (aka Hardware Address), see if any of them have matching IDs (which is rare on client machines, but I guess its bound to happen eventually) PS: En1 is the airport on most macbooks where as en0 is the ethernet port, but you'll know which is which cuz it says wireless on the first tab.
 
#6 ·
I guess it really depends on the router's configuration, right. Course I don't know about rogers or how they do things, but never had a IP range limit down here even on a rented router (and most routers by default allow a range well over 50 IPs in the DHCP setup.)

I guess with network utility (or merely network preference) he could actually observe the IP his machine is being assigned, if one of the other machine picks up the old one almost immediately, then you know its probably a limit in the DHCP setting since IPs are usually leased for a period of time before they are given up for another machine, unless there are no free local IPs.
 
#7 ·
Thanks for all of the advice -- here's what we've done so far...

- We went into the router setup and found out that it will accept up to 50 addresses, but as far as we know we don't have static IPs (they are obtained automatically).

- Our router is "B" only. (I assume that's compatible with all three machiens, since we've had all three of them connected successfully -- just not simultaneously.)

- Currently we have the new MacBook running, and one of the two PowerBooks. (I don't know why it suddenly started working, but it is.) The second PowerBook has all of its bars lit up in the upper corner, and when you click on it, it claims to be connected to our network. But, there is no ability to use the web or access email.

Thanks again...
 
#8 ·
IF the router is B only, then both the Powerbooks and the MacBook will hop on in B mode (N/G is backward compatible).

You can give any of your machines a static IP provided the subnet matches the router (ie: if the router is 192.168.0.1 and submask of 255.255.255.0 and the DHCP is 100 to 149, then you can pick any IP between 192.168.0.2 to *.99 and *.150 to *.254 , Gateway would need to be setup to the routers IP (in this case the *.1), and DNS typically pointed to the router, could be instead bypassed and have your ISP's DNS entered directly (in the event the router is not correctly passing on name server information to the machines).

I typically use static IPs at time because it makes it easier foe me to setup rules, as well as connect to machines on the network manually if I must. But it probably doesn't solve why you're having a problem.

I'm basically guessing the macbook isn't getting the DNS server info that it needs to resolve domain names and such. Under the airport setting, what IP was it given? (is it something like 169.* ?)
 
#9 ·
Hey Karl --

The Macbook is one of the two that is working - but its IP is listed as 192.168.1.101.

The PowerBook that is not working doesn't have an IP listed. (I guess because its automatic and not connected?)

I'm not a whiz at network things -- I realized that in paragraph two, I read your message twice and was still only hearing "blah blah blah blah" :) But thank you!
 
#11 · (Edited)
Not sure if this will help, but least we can somewhat safely assume your submask is 255.255.255.0 = 192.168.1.*

And Assuming the Router's IP is 192.168.1.1 since you could log into http://192.168.1.1 on a working machine.

But lets say you want to get all the machines on statically based on the assumptions above, we're going to assume that the DHCP designations start at .100

so under Network Setting, Airport, then Advanced, then TCP/IP
Select "Manually"

All the machines would have Router set to 192.168.1.1
All the machines would have Subnet mask set to 255.255.255.0
Machine 1 would have IP set to 192.168.1.10
Machine 2 would have IP set to 192.168.1.11
Machine 3 would have IP set to 192.168.1.12

Under the DNS tab, if you don't know your ISP's dns use the Router's IP (192.168.1.1) since in most cases the router will forward DNS lookup requests.

The above would be the bare min configuration to get on manually, assuming the router address and submask are correct. And probably a last resort if you just simply can't get DHCP to work on them.
 
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