IMac G5, Time Capsule No Wifi connection
I'm running 10.5.8 and I actually haven't been able to use my computer on the wireless network for many months, maybe a year. It's been connected via ethernet since then and having a MB that goes everywhere around the house,we weren't too bothered about the Imac in the computer room. Now I'm going out of town for some months (guess I was lucky to get a short sentence) taking the mb with me and I wanted this problem fixed so my wife has a choice where she can move the desktop.
Here's the network and symptoms:
I have a TC in the same room as the Imac. The latter sees the wireless network,although the signal shows up as grey rather lines than black and we get asked for the WPA pasword yet I have my network set up as a WAP2 Personnal. When I type the password it tells me I have typed an invalid pw other times it just says connection time-out. I've tried the Airport Assistant, Diagnostics, re-installed the Airport card software, TC software, did software update on the Imac.
I've checked over and over that I'm typing the PW correctly. The MB works great anywhere around the house on the same network. Is the Airport card going Kaputsky?
> The latter sees the wireless network,although the signal shows up as grey rather lines than black
If the wireless menubar icon shows only grey semi-circles rather than at least some black semi-circles, the signal strength for the selected wireless LAN is not there, and you won't be able to connect until that is resolved.
As to why the signal strength is so low (as to not show any black semi-circles), here are some possibilities (to work through and eliminate). Hold down the option key and click on the wireless menubar icon. You will see a list of parameters that look something like:
PHY Mode: 802.11n
BSSID: 00:1f:5b:12:34:56
Channel 149 (5 GHz)
Security: WPA2 Personal
RSSI: -56
Mode
If your timecapsule were configured, like mine above, to use 802.11n but the wireless receiver in your particular iMac model only supported 802.11b/g, you'd have to reconfigure your timecapsule to use 802.11b/g before it would 'see' the timecapsule's signal.
Channel
If your timecapsule were configured, like mine above, to use 5GHz but the wireless receiver in your particular iMac model only supported 2.4 GHz, you'd have to reconfigure your timescapsule to use 2.4 GHz (or both 2.4 and 5 GHz if you have a newer time capsule), before the iMac would 'see' the timecapsule's signal.
Neighbor's wireless
I just threw this in for completeness. When you click on the wireless menubar icon, do you see more than one wireless LAN? If yes, then those are wireless LANs from your neighbor's spilling over into your house. You'd want to verify that your iMac isn't inadvertently trying to connect to one of your neighbor's LANs rather than to your own, which I'm sure you've already done. I only mention it for completeness. e.g. I once had a neighbor's open wireless LAN that my PowerBook would preferentially connect to over my own pasworded basestation, every time I re-woke my laptop from sleep. I'd then have to manually click my wireless menubar icon and select "Join Other Network..." in order to force my laptop to join my own [hidden] network.
> and we get asked for the WPA pasword yet I have my network set up as a WAP2 Personnal.
When you click on the wireless menubar icon, and select "Join Other Network..." you can specify both the name of your wireless LAN and explicitly the type of security (i.e. WPA2 Personal) that you've configured your wireless LAN to use. If your iMac does not give you the option to select, in your case, "WPA2 Personal" as the type of security, then you need to configure your timecapsule to use a type of security the iMac does support (or possibly update the OS on the iMac so that it supports WPA2 Personal).
> Is the Airport card going Kaputsky?
I wouldn't jump to that conclusion just yet. Fingers crossed.
Wow!
As soon as i pressed on the grey Wireless signal strength icon +Option, the icon turned dark and I regain a wireless signal once more, after all this time. Thanks!
I looked into the TC configurations to see what it was all about. I had it on channel 1.
While we're on the subject:We have a lot of trouble with the MB losing it's connection whenever we use our cordless phone 2.4 ghz Vtech phone.
It is,according to the booklet, a dual band phone,2.4ghz for the base and 900 mhz for the handset. Not sure how that works since the handset only connects to the base,so how or why it has 2 frequencies?
Anyhow, our other Panasonic phone,also 2.4 ghz,doesn't cause that problem. I told my wife if she had to, to get rid of the Vtech and buy some other phone.
Any suggestions?
Quote from: jmlachance on March 11, 2010, 05:19:05 PM
I told my wife if she had to, to get rid of the Vtech and buy some other phone.
Any suggestions?
Any DECT 6.0 cordless phone should be fine. Costco has lots. They operate in the 1.9GHz part of the spectrum which should minimize interference to or from them.
Thanks again. I can't keep up with all of this,so am grateful for all the help.
JM