Why does Netgear WGT624 wireless router "lose" the PC but keep the Mac?

Paul Soderman · 2006-12-01T01:05:34+00:00

I picked up a Powerbook with a wireless card and felt obligated to gofrom a simple wired router to a wireless one with some wired portsalso. I opted for the Netgear WGT624 after having problems with anotherbrand that simply couldn't handle my DHCP broadband service (Comcast).The router will be used for wired access by a Mac running 10.4.8 and aPC running XP. There never were problems with having these two sharethe old, non-wireless 4 port router.Anyhoo, I got the router working OK last night, although it isfrustrating to have to work with IBM/PCs after being used to the Mac. Iused the "Wizard" from the CD that came with the hardware (it didn'teven have any software for the Mac), laboriously wading through thenumerous steps needed to "teach" the PC how to use or recognize therouter. Did not have to keep resetting the router after DHCP leasechanges, so all seemed OK. Today, though, the Mac worked OK (as well asthe Powerbook),but the PC internet did not.How can this be? If the router had some DHCP problem, I'd think that*both* computers would not get a working signal. I tried to reinstallthe stuff on the PC, but continually got messages that there was not aworking internet connection; this is even while the Mac was getting agood signal (as during my composition of this posting). Is there somepitfall I should know of in having these 2 systems work via awireless/wired router even though they were both happy and gettingalong when on the old wired router?Thanks for any help,PaulPS- of course, as I typed this, the PC started getting an internetsignal, but if anyone can explain what the culprit may be, I'd love tolearn in order to avoid future problems with it.

Dec 01, 2006 23 Replies

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G.T. 19 years ago

I don't know but out of the 3 OSes I have at home, OpenBSD, OS X, and XP, XP is the biggest piece of s*it when it comes to Wifi. I use OpenBSD on this IBM T40 laptop, NEVER lose my connection to my AP, my girlfriend sitting right next to me with her Dell D600 laptop with a variety of 802.11a/b/g cards (built-in Intel; Cardbus Prism 2, Atheros, Ralink chips, and various manufacturers using those chips) loses her connection far too often. I gave up troubleshooting her laptop.

My Mac and my OpenBSD T40 (I have XP on it but rarely boot it, when I do, I suffer the same problems my girlfriend does) work flawlessly. Every time she loses a connection I just point to mine and tell her I'd be happy to install OpenBSD for her.

Greg

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Brent 19 years ago

Wow, I have the opposite problem. My Dell M60 has great WIFI range, basically anywhere in my house or yard and even at the neighbors house from my access point. With my G4 iBook I can only get about 30 feet from the access point and I start dropping the connection.

Also, even when I am in the same room as the access point I can't view movies from my desktop's shared iTunes library to the iBook, frames consistently drop out and the audio and video never sync. But my Dell can view the shared iTunes movies anywhere in the house.

Maybe my iBook has a bad airport card.

Brent

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