02-10-2005, 03:00 PM

Hey everyone. I have a home network here and a PowerBook 12". Under network settings I have it set to automatically connect to my airport network which works fine. I shut down or sleep the computer, turn it back on and it connects np. But the other day I turned on WEP encryption in the router to be more secure than just MAC filtering and now the PowerBook doesn't auto connect. I have to click the airport icon and choose the network. I've saved the WEP key under keychain so when I click the network it connects as though its a network with no WEP but I still have to click my WAN every time I put the PB to sleep. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I just turned off WEP encryption for now because it was so much of a pain. Thanks.

02-26-2005, 03:44 PM

Does no one do this? I can't figure it out at all please help! I hate having to manually select the airport every time I come out of sleep...

02-26-2005, 04:15 PM

Have you tried setting you PowerBook to always connect to a specific WAP rather than use automatic? It won't solve your problem but might narrow it down.

Another possibility is changing the name of your access point and have WEP enabled before you attempt to connect via the PowerBook. Then connect and set up WEP. If you do not get prompted the next time your Laptop awakes I would guess it to be some incorrect data stored somewhere.

02-26-2005, 06:03 PM

No that's how it's set. I have it set to always connect to my specified network "Silver Millenium" which it does no problem. But I turned on WEP in the router and added a key. Now when I turn on PB it obviously doesn't connect so I select Silver Millenium then it asks for wep key so I type it in and it connects. I told it to save the key in keychain which it did. But every time I turn on the PB its not connected to any network. I have to click the airport icon, then choose Silver Millenium from the list and it connects. Doesn't ask for password or wep or anything because it's saved, so I don't know why it has such a problem with automatically connecting to it...

02-26-2005, 06:16 PM

So how about trying it on automatic? I had a similar problem with one of my access points. In my case everytime I came home my PB asked whether I wanted to connect to my AP automatically in the future. I resolved it by changing the AP name. Not the most elegant of solutions but it worked.

In my case I assume he PB has a setting to not connect somewhere that is not getting removed when I click to automatically connect in the future. I suppose I could grep around and find the setting but it did not seem worth the effort.

02-26-2005, 07:09 PM

Hey that worked thanks!!!! Automatic did the trick. I just hope it's smart enough to always connect to MY ap. I live in a condo downtown Toronto and there's like 10 nearby when I view the list. 8 of them are unsecured lol. Handy if mine ever goes down tho lol. Thanks,

02-26-2005, 07:15 PM

Cool beans. Automatic is supposed to go down the list of APs you have told it to always connect to autmoatically. If it does not find any of them it will prompt you to choose. At least that is the way it is supposed to work.

03-01-2005, 04:10 PM

Is there a way to reselect that list? Because it works sometimes others it doesn't. Sometimes it connects to the neighbour and I don't realize and freak out because my internet is so slow then I check and notice it... How do I view or change my list of trusted networks and take those other people off? In windows u can tell it to only connect to one network.

03-01-2005, 10:55 PM

I don't know but I will see if I can find out. Maybe somebody else here has an idea?

I did a little research and Mac OS X wireless configuration seems fine for simple situations but does not have any obvious documentation on more advanced configurations. I would expect there to be some way to set it to connect to access point X or Y exclusively but I can't seem to find a way. This would seem important for those who travel between multiple wireless locations.

03-02-2005, 10:54 AM

Hmm yeah it's really weird. Maybe there's a 3rd party app that will manage networks or something, it's such a pain. Automatic is fine if you live in a house with only one network but when there's like 10 of them it goes wherever it wants half the time.

03-02-2005, 11:35 AM

Hmm yeah it's really weird. Maybe there's a 3rd party app that will manage networks or something, it's such a pain. Automatic is fine if you live in a house with only one network but when there's like 10 of them it goes wherever it wants half the time.