Wireless suddenly stopped working

Hey everyone.

Up until last night, my Macbook has had no problems connecting to my college dorm's wireless network. However, it suddenly stopped working. I kept trying to access the internet and I'd occasionally get a few kb/s downstream, but the connection was very slow. I woke up this morning to find that it didn't work at all. My roommate's laptop running Vista has no problem connecting and as far as I know no one else is having any problems.

I have never had a problem like this until now. Can someone please help me with this problem? I desperately need to access my instructor's site.

Assuming you've not changed any airport settings:

1. Is there an ethernet connection in your dorm room? If so, connect using an ethernet cable and see if you can get on the net again.

2. Take your MacBook to a local Starbucks or someplace that has a free wireless connection and see if you can connect from there.

Post back and let us know.

Regards.

chscag said:

Assuming you've not changed any airport settings:

1. Is there an ethernet connection in your dorm room? If so, connect using an ethernet cable and see if you can get on the net again.

2. Take your MacBook to a local Starbucks or someplace that has a free wireless connection and see if you can connect from there.

Post back and let us know.

Regards.

Click to expand...

1) No, oddly enough.

2) Sadly, no local Starbucks here (this town is DEAD) and I don't believe any local businesses offer wifi; however, I did take it to a friend's dorm and it connected, but I was getting 0 or 1 kb/s downstream.

I might also add that a few seconds ago it was fluctuating between 32, 7, 1, and 0 kb/s here at my dorm. It has seemed to stop, though.

OK, that would seem to eliminate the school's wireless connection.

Before doing anything else, open up system preferences and go into the Network preferences. Verify that all airport settings are correct. The airport connection should be highlighted - check the location (should be Automatic), also check Network Name (should be school's network not something else).

Next, click on the Advanced button. Select Airport from the top menu and again check the network name and the type of security. Verify the security password or hex phrase.

Also click on TCP/IP, DNS, and Proxies (if required) and check that all those settings are correct. If you're not familiar with what they are, have someone from the school who manages the network to help you out.

If everything verifies OK, it may be time to start looking at the hardware. And that means the built in airport card. Really no way to test it other than over the network. That's why I wish there were some way to run an ethernet cable to your machine.

You say the town where your school is located is dead... that probably means no Apple store or authorized repair nearby? Is the machine still under warranty or applecare?

Regards.

Darn, this is discouraging. My warranty is still valid, but I don't believe I have the receipt as it was a gift. Will this be a problem if there is in fact something wrong with the hardware?

Also, I might add that I have no problem connecting to the router to edit settings when I type in my IP address. Is this significant?

(sorry for the double post)

Well, it seems to be working now, if not a tad slower than usual. However, the Activity Monitor is saying I'm only getting a few bytes per second. I'm posting from my Macbook by the way.

How can I speed it up to it's normal speed?