Home Network Connection Issues

[1369]

At my house I have an Apple wireless network that my work laptop used to be able to connect to. I'm running WEP, and changed my password on the home network, and now my laptop won't connect. I've retyped the password in the Windows network connection, got the right encryption selected, but still nada. I know it's probably something real obvious I'm not doing right, but I don't get it.

[ChumpDumper]

Do you have MAC filtering on?

[1369]

Couldn't tell you, what's MAC filtering?

[ChumpDumper]

I'll just cut and paste someone else's article:
While your wireless network is already pretty secure, it doesn't hurt to enable MAC filtering as well. So to answer your question, MAC is an acronym that stands for Media Access Control. The MAC address (also known as the physical address) is your computer's unique hardware number. When you're connected to the Internet from your computer (or host as the Internet protocol thinks of it), a correspondence table relates your IP address to your computer's physical (MAC) address on the LAN. This is how the router knows where to send IP packets destined for your system.

Identifying your MAC address is easy. In most cases, it is physically printed on the adapter itself. On a laptop with a PC Card-based adapter this is easy to see. Just disconnect the card and flip it over. On a PC or a laptop with an integrated network adapter you'll need to find the MAC address using software. The process is almost identical to the utility you use to see your system's IP address. On a Windows 2000 or Windows XP machine that would be IPCONFIG. To see the MAC address you need to add the switch /ALL to the command. For those not familiar with it, the sequence of steps is as follows:

* Click on Start, and then click on Run.
* The Run dialogue box will appear. Type CMD and press Enter.
* A DOS window will appear. This is also commonly called a Command Prompt.
* Now type IPCONFIG /ALL at the command prompt and hit Enter. The window will display the configuration of all of your network adapters. If you have multiple network adapters in your PC you'll see multiple addresses. The MAC Address you're looking for will be listed under the heading "Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection."
* Now look for the Physical Address. It should look something like 00-50-BA-D1-BA-71.
* To close the window when you are finished, type Exit at the command prompt and press the Enter key.

Now that you have the MAC address in hand, just follow your router's documentation for setting up the MAC Filter.http://www.winplanet.com/article/2732-.htm

If you have your MAC filter on -- it may be just a check box in a router status page -- it will keep pretty much every wireless device from accessing the router unless their MAC addresses are added the filter.

[1369]

I don't know that that's the issue. The big glaring problem is that Windows is telling me that my password I'm typing in is too long for WEP security which doesn't make sense to me since that's what I entered to set up my network.

[ChumpDumper]

If it's not too much of a problem, I'd just reset the router and try again.

[1369]

Fixed it, for computers not running Airport software, Apple supplies another Hex password that I entered and now all is well.

[ChumpDumper]

That's inelegant.