I have an Imac G5 1.8, running Tiger, an Emac running Panther, both with Airport Extreme cards. My ethernet+wireless modem-router is a Speedtouch 585. Initially only the EMac was wireless and the network was fine. I installed an Airport card in the Imac and things have been downhill since.
The signal strength is at times good but mostly very weak. I'm even picking up 2 of my neighbours networks and did find one of them had a better signal that my own, which is just a room away. Right now, my own SpeedTouch wireless network doesn't even show up in the list of available networks although my neighbour's does
I can only guess that I've changed some setting in the internal configuration of the SpeedTouch or my network configuration.
It seems to have gotten worse when I tried to set up encryption for the network. I had it working like that for a while but since the problems began I've put it back to no encryption but that hasn't helped.
I'll be trying to get it going and reading documentations but in the meantime, if anyone has any help to offer on this it would be appreciated.
Also, If I can pick up my neighbour's network, is encryption the best way to avoid getting my network picked up by someone else? What's the biggest danger as far as someone using my wireless network? What's the usual range of the 802.11g network?
In the OS X Network set up, it gives me many choices for encryption, more than what I have in the modem config menu. OS X gives me the choice of 40 bit or 128 bits hex or ASCII, if I recall correctly, while the modem gives me the choice of 64 or 128. What would be an example of 64 or 128 bit ASCII or HEX? I'm guessing here they are referring to 8 bits to a byte, so 64 bits would be an 8 character password?
Quote from: jmlachance on April 14, 2007, 12:48:47 PM
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The signal strength is at times good but mostly very weak. I'm even picking up 2 of my neighbours networks and did find one of them had a better signal that my own, which is just a room away. Right now, my own SpeedTouch wireless network doesn't even show up in the list of available networks although my neighbour's does
...snip...
Also, If I can pick up my neighbour's network, is encryption the best way to avoid getting my network picked up by someone else? What's the biggest danger as far as someone using my wireless network?
For reasons that are unclear to me, having a wireless receiver too close to the transmitter seriously degrades the performance. One counter-intuitive thing to try is to move the transmitter farther away from the receiver and see if things improve.
A second possibility is that even though the transmitter and receiver are in adjacent rooms, they may be at diagonally opposite ends of the common wall. In this case, the signal is degraded because it effectively has to pass through the length of the wall - not the width. Again, try moving the transmitter and receiver relative to each other and see what happens.
As for wireless security, anything that is not "WPA" is useless. Many people seem quite unconcerned that someone could piggyback on their wireless. They think they have plenty of bandwidth and so it won't make a big difference.
However, to the outside world, you and your bandwidth "sharers" are indistinguishable. So if they start uploading or downloading porn, or sending out spam messages in the thousands, or just downloading masses of material, you could find yourself getting unwanted attention from the police or your ISP or both.
Does using WDS (making it active) affect the strength of the signal? What's your recommendations on WDS? If I understand correctly, Does it help connect my machines to the network?
Sorry, questions keep coming up as I work on this problem: Can the modem's radio wave travel through a shelf full of books? That's what I have between the modem and the Imac. My "office" is set up in a way that my modem is either right next to the my any Mac that I've moved into it, or else, if I move the modem around, because of the location of the phone jack, it could sit either above the Mac or with a lot of telephone and power cord extensions, high in front. I did notice that when I had the modem right next to the computer the signal strength wasn't reliable either..
Well, I must have some of the settings and position of the router OK because it's working and the signal strength is good. I'd still like some answers, if anyone has them to some of my earlier questions...
If the online info about the Speedtouch modems is correct, yours should have 4 wired ports in addition to the wireless connection. If one of the Macs is right beside the modem, use a wired connection and get rid of all problems - including security concerns.
Also, to answer your question about WDS, do not enable it - you do not need to use it. For more info see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Distribution_System
Quote from: AdminMan on April 14, 2007, 11:27:08 PM
If the online info about the Speedtouch modems is correct, yours should have 4 wired ports in addition to the wireless connection. If one of the Macs is right beside the modem, use a wired connection and get rid of all problems - including security concerns.
That's what Ive resorted to at times but the Mac in the office is only a temporary thing. Generally it's elsewhere. Also there's a pc inthe same room that's on the same network and it's convenient not to have to run all these cables, seeing as the router does have wireless capability..
http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=b8355b0a8fee2f54e496855847df7851ac073776
Interesting results
As Colombo always used to say - there's just one more thing. 48-bit, 128-bit,etc. when used to describe encryption refers to the depth of the encryption, not the length of your password - the two are exclusive of each other. Each "bit" of encryption renders the password harder to guess by a factor of two, so 40-bit encryption is "weaker" than 128, but still beyond the patience/computing power of most hackers - 128-bit - fugeddaboutit! That's all folks!
Dan
Thanks all once more
Just a bit more if possible:
Here's an update on what I've been trying to do with my set up that I need help on.Right now my aim is to set up my network so that all 3 computers(2 Macs and a pc) can print via a DLink dl 704 up router (plugged into the SpeedTouch gateway) which has a usb port for the printer. The DLink's adress is 192.168.1.64, the Speedtouch 192.168.1.254.
How do I configure everything so that I can print. This is until, or if, I go for the Airport Extreme or Express
I should mention that all my machines are on the wireless network.
The modem's IP address doesn't matter. The firewall/router/print-server's address is what you need to know.
For each OS, follow its steps to set up an IP printer. You'll need to install the printer driver (PPD file) for each OS; the OS will ask you to select or provide the driver at some point.
Thanks all. My network is working good and I'm printing wirelessly...