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Airport connection problems - 2006/10/15 08:11I've recently purchased an old 15" 1GHz Powerbook G4 with a Airport card installed. The machine works well although I am having trouble setting up a wireless connection to the internet which runs through a D-Link wireless router (Model DI-524). I can connect when I have NO encryption enabled on both the router and the G4, but as soon as I try to enable some sort of encryption - nothing. My G4 recognises the wireless network, but as I've already stated, it won't let me connect when any sort of encryption is enabled. Even something simple like WEP ASCII encryption and with the key/password set to "apple" (or whatever else you choose) just doesn't work. Can anyone help me out here?
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swordbreaker55
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Posts: 102
Re:Airport connection problems - 2006/10/15 13:36Apple's AirPort software doesn't really allow for passphrases. So, you'll have to do this the hard way.
While in the router's interface, set up your passphrase as normal and click "Generate" or some similar button. You should see up to 4 long strings of characters.
Example: You type "apple" and click Generate Router responds with 0083f9c265ddaa77e40798b1cc
It's this hex key that AirPort (and Windows XP Zero Configuration) want. The above key is only an example. Enter yours when prompted by the Keychain Manager from Airport.
Bear in mind that Mac OS X does not support proprietary extensions to the 802.11g spec; these have names like SpeedBooster (Linksys). If your router has these extensions, turn them off.
Nate
Post edited by: swordbreaker55, at: 2006/10/15 13:38
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javeivanovski
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Posts: 17
Re:Airport connection problems - 2006/10/16 01:40Thanks for the info, but no success in it's implementation I'm afraid. My router's setup pages for wireless encryption doesn't have any sort of "Generate" button. All you can do is select an encryption method and manually set up to 4 keys. It doesn't really matter anyway, as I am thinking very seriously of selling my machine. Anyone wanna buy a 15" 1GHz Powerbook G4? :)
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swordbreaker55
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Posts: 102
Re:Airport connection problems - 2006/10/16 02:24Macs depreciate far less than Windows machines, so you might not want to sell that gigahertz 'Book just yet.
For compatibility purposes, I use a 128-bit WEP key on my Linksys WRT54Gv3. In that interface, the passphrase can set the actual key.
I've just looked up the info pertaining to your router. You indeed do not have the option to generate a key from a phrase, but you can key in a 26-digit hex value instead. Use the values 0-9 and A-F as you conjure up this phrase, amd try to avoid patterns in the key (thus making it more hack-resistant). You're welcome to use the example provided, but it's better to create your own and write it down for safety's sake.
AirPort should work so long as you have the SAME key on both devices.
Nate
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javeivanovski
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Posts: 17
Re:Airport connection problems - 2006/10/16 14:26Thanks for your advice once again, but still no luck!!! :(
On my router, I set the 128-bit hex WEP key to something simple - "0123456789AAAABBBBCCCCDDDD" - just for testing purposes. Note the use of upper-case for the letters. I actually entered the letters as lower-case, but after I applied the changes and waited for the router to reboot, all the letters went to upper-case! (The router does seem to distinguish the difference between upper and lower case characters. It actually states "Enter 26 characters using 0-9, A-F or a-f".) Once that was done I tried to connect to the network using the "WEP 40/128-bit hex" option on my Mac and using the above key as the password. All I keep getting is a pop-up error message telling me that "there was an error connecting to the bigj network" (where bigj is the SSID). Hmm... what do I do now? If I get a chance to sometime today, I'll visit a friend who also has a wireless network going and see if I can connect to it. I'm pretty sure he has a different model wireless router to mine.
BTW, I'm running OS 10.4.8 on my PowerBook.
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