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What is it with Macs and wireless networking ?
Macs are such beautifully engineered computers but I have to say that the wireless networking implementation sucks. I have posted previously on the networking woes I've had with my Macs and a year and a half later, nothing has changed with the brand new Santa Rosa Macbook Pro that I've just bought. Every time that I've had to change some settings on my router or when setting up a new Mac, I have to spend hours to get it to work. A quick search on the Apple support forums shows that I'm not alone with this frustration.
So it was on Friday night when I spent more than 4 hours trying to get my new Macbook Pro to connect to my home wireless router. I knew there were no problems with my router because my other Macbook Pro was connected, so was my iMac. It could see the SSID (which I had to turn on broadcasting) but it just kept repeating an error message of "error joining network". I got so frustrated, I actually strongly contemplated returning the new Mac.
The complicating factor is that the new Macbook Pro ships with the new 802.11n chip which is far from a standard at the moment and I had a sneaky suspicion there was a conflict between that and my router. I couldn't find any instructions on how to turn off the "n" wireless and stick with the "g" speeds as my router is only a "g" router anyway. But just as I was about to throw in the towel, I had a eureka moment. I actually have two wireless routers at home set up using WDS (wireless distribution system).
I have a media centre PC in the living room connected to a Linksys router which in turn is connected via WDS to a Belkin router / modem. The latter maintains the connection to my ISP. My Macbook Pro was just refusing to connect to the Belkin router (even though the other first generation Macbook Pro connects just fine). So I thought, why don't I try and connect to the Linksys router in the living room instead ? Wouldn't you know it, it worked !
Basically it came down to an incompatibility between the Belkin router and the Macbook Pro. This is rather unsettling because who knows what other routers out there the Macbook Pro is not compatible with ? I do travel occasionally with my Macbook Pro and it would be a major pain if the Mac is somehow incompatible with other routers used to provide wifi hotspot services around the world.
For anyone who's interested, the Belkin is a F1PI241EGau 4 port wireless router / ADSL2+ modem and the Linksys is the old workhorse, the WRT54G running a third party firmware to provide the WDS services.
Aside : Who the heck comes up with product names for Belkin ?? It's like using a WEP password to name your product.
Update : Wow, it looks like a lot of people are having wireless issues with their Macs judging by the traffic this post has received.
So it was on Friday night when I spent more than 4 hours trying to get my new Macbook Pro to connect to my home wireless router. I knew there were no problems with my router because my other Macbook Pro was connected, so was my iMac. It could see the SSID (which I had to turn on broadcasting) but it just kept repeating an error message of "error joining network". I got so frustrated, I actually strongly contemplated returning the new Mac.
The complicating factor is that the new Macbook Pro ships with the new 802.11n chip which is far from a standard at the moment and I had a sneaky suspicion there was a conflict between that and my router. I couldn't find any instructions on how to turn off the "n" wireless and stick with the "g" speeds as my router is only a "g" router anyway. But just as I was about to throw in the towel, I had a eureka moment. I actually have two wireless routers at home set up using WDS (wireless distribution system).
I have a media centre PC in the living room connected to a Linksys router which in turn is connected via WDS to a Belkin router / modem. The latter maintains the connection to my ISP. My Macbook Pro was just refusing to connect to the Belkin router (even though the other first generation Macbook Pro connects just fine). So I thought, why don't I try and connect to the Linksys router in the living room instead ? Wouldn't you know it, it worked !
Basically it came down to an incompatibility between the Belkin router and the Macbook Pro. This is rather unsettling because who knows what other routers out there the Macbook Pro is not compatible with ? I do travel occasionally with my Macbook Pro and it would be a major pain if the Mac is somehow incompatible with other routers used to provide wifi hotspot services around the world.
For anyone who's interested, the Belkin is a F1PI241EGau 4 port wireless router / ADSL2+ modem and the Linksys is the old workhorse, the WRT54G running a third party firmware to provide the WDS services.
Aside : Who the heck comes up with product names for Belkin ?? It's like using a WEP password to name your product.
Update : Wow, it looks like a lot of people are having wireless issues with their Macs judging by the traffic this post has received.
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- Posted by:
- Chris at
11.08.2007 / 12:48
Last updated 07.09.2010
- Category:
- Technology
But I agree, the Belkin sucks. But I also believe Apple's implementation of wireless in their computers also suck. Check out the Apple support forum that I've linked into my post above. I'm not the only one having issues with wireless on my Macs.
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