Annoying network trouble

[deckeda]

1) "None of your trusted networks can be found"

Trying to help someone. She's got a Buffalo WHR-G125 router, a B&W connected to it via Ethernet and a recent MacBook.

The router has been setup with a new admin password, to require a WPA Personal password and to broadcast a new SSID (which is unique to the surrounding neighborhood.)

The MacBook, when waking from sleep or restarting won't find her wireless network on its own. Every neighbor with WiFi nearby, it sees. Jumping through the hoops to choose "Other ..." to get to her network gets tiresome. Is there a way to set her network as "preferred" or "trusted" so that it at least TRIES her network instead of offering up the neighbor's?

None of this was a problem yesterday, prior to setting up the security on the router.

2) Whenever the B&W accesses the Internet, the MacBook can no longer do so --- and this includes via Ethernet --- unless the router is rebooted. Then it can see the Internet with either Ethernet or AirPort until the B&W accesses the Internet again.

File sharing between them remains unaffected throughout.

[M A V I C]

What OS?

[ztirffritz]

Does the router have DHCP enabled? If so, how many IP addresses is it configured to lease? You'll need at least 2 for this set up. If you're going to be connecting wireless and wired from the MacBook you'll want at least 3. If both can get an IP addresses from the router then you should both be able to get to the internet on both. Have you checked to see if there are any firmware updates available? I know that Linksys often has a boatload of updates available that fix most of the existing problems and creates an exciting batch of new ones.

[deckeda]

She started with 10.4.10 and we moved her to 10.5.1 --- not because of this, but because we wanted to move her to Leopard anyway. Didn't make any difference yay or nay; it behaved the same under both OSes.

With the exception of the things mentioned, the router's settings are stock. The router by default allows up to 64 DHCP clients. I'll check in a few days about the firmware.

[deckeda]

Correction: This part was mis-remembered:
[quote deckeda] ...
None of this was a problem yesterday, prior to setting up the security on the router.
Yesterday the router was setup with the security settings and all was "OK" --- however I can't confirm that she was actually connecting to HER router wirelessly.

[deckeda]

I may try a dedicated channel; it's currently on Auto.

The Buffalo support site suggested that perhaps there is so much interference nearby (and she lives in an apartment) that the router may be changing channels a lot, causing the client to not be able to see it easily.

[bazookaman]

is there any other kind of network trouble?

[deckeda]

Nope.

Gotta be something simple, although for example the not being able to see the Internet via Ethernet aspect would have nothing to do with the wireless channel, so that's probably a red herring.

Curious that the MacBook has the issue running either Tiger or Leopard, not the B&W running OS9. When I get back there in a few days I'm going to start from scratch.

[MacMagus]

Use a different channel and see what happens. Eliminate it as a suspect before you move on.

[DCrunch]

Do you have Mac filtering? Remember, the wireless Mac address is different from the ethernet address. Mac address filtering does pertain to ethernet connected computers. I had an Airport connected iMac that I wanted to connect via ethernet. The router had Mac filtering, but for the Airport Mac address. I could not get the iMac to connect to the internet until I turned off Mac filtering. If you have Mac filtering, try turning it off.