Re: Major wireless broadband connection problem. Help!

In article <1ilgapz.19y48gx19ipw37N%paulfuchs@porkain'tkosher.oink>,
paulfuchs@porkain'tkosher.oink (Paul Fuchs) wrote:

Tim McNamara <timmcn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <e7hc9ub3x0.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Doug Anderson <ethelthelogremovethis@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Tim McNamara <timmcn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

In article
<1iled48.151bmfi10twj9cN%paulfuchs@porkain'tkosher.oink>,
paulfuchs@porkain'tkosher.oink (Paul Fuchs) wrote:

I read the wikipedia article, but I know (obviously) little
about networking, and it read like Greek to me. This ISP
system doesn't seem to have a router. It has the dish on the
roof (which may have some sort of router in the mounting
box). At the other end is a little unlabeled steel box maybe
1 X 3 inches and an electric plug with female EN ports on
each end. I think it is just a signal booster.

Weird.

I don't get it. I just went into the system profiler of my
mini, and I see a ethernent Mac address there with the same
format, but somehat different digit than my friends. Does
each make come with a built in semi-unchangable MAC address?
Do you thing my friend's iMac and mini by some weird chance
might have the same MAC?

MAC addresses are "firmwired" into the Ethernet interface and
are, for the purposes of normal people, not changeable.
However, some routers will let the user spoof a MAC address.

If we can narrow down that this is in fact the issue, what I
would do is buy a wireless router that will allow spoofing of
the Mac address of the computer that works, and then use that
for all the computers in the house to connect to either
wirelessly or by Ethernet.

Thing is, we don't yet know for sure that this is the issue.

It is reasonably likely that this is the issue. I've had both
cable and DSL, and I can't remember which of them, but one of
them exhibited this same behavior. Once it was configured to be
connected to a certain MAC address, it stayed that way unless
you did a long power off.

But I would hope the problem can be solved without spoofing a MAC
address! That seems like overkill. Better to get a router, and
reconfigure the device so that it expects the MAC address of the
router. And it sounds like they already _have_ a router (the
Airport base station).

Which won't spoof MAC addresses. However, you have a good point.
If the system can be made to accept the MAC address of the AirPort
base station, all can be good with what they have on hand. I'd
pull all the connections from the ISP box, whatever that is, and
then turn it off. I'd leave it off for a while, plug the AirPort
in, and power up the ISP's box (whatever that is). If the router
appears to be accepted, then I'd configure it as a DHCP server and
set all the computers to use DHCP in System Preferences > Network.

Tim,

So would it be true that you think that the reason that the Airport
router just blinks yellow is not that it is defective, but rather
because the ISP will not accept it's MAC address either, like the
iMac?

Yes. Whatever hardware that the ISP has provided is only accepting the
computer with the MAC address it is expecting, which is the Mini. The
question is whether you can make the equipment accept a different MAC
address, or whether that has to be done by contacting the ISP to have
them do something.

So here's what to try. Disconnect everything and power down the
Internet connection. Presumably something from the ISP is plugged into
the wall, probably the same box that the computers plug into. Leave
everything off for at least two hours as that's how long DHCP leases
usually last, I'd leave it longer just to be on the safe side. Then
plug the AirPort into the ISP's box; turn on the AirPort and then turn
on the ISP's box. Hopefully it will have forgotten about the Mini and
will accept the MAC address of the AirPort base station. If that works,
then configure the AirPort base station to use DHCP to assign addresses
to the computers, set up the Macs to use DHCP to get their IP addresses,
and then password protect if there's anybody nearby who can poach off
the WiFi connection.

Hope this helps!
.

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