WEP problems, again.

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Hello.

Before you burst out with "Use WPA," read this: I just moved into a houseshare and I do not control* the access point, and the landlord, who owns and controll the access point. has to use WEP because of a couple of old computers. The Access point do not allow to run both WPA and WEP, only once at a time. This means that I am stuck with WEP.

My computer is a white MacBook Core 2 Duo 2 GHz, 1 GB ram, bought in December 2006, in Norway (I am now living in London) The router is a D-Link G604T.
And for all the info is worth, about a month ago I dropped the MacBook. It left a nasty dent and I had to change the hard drive. No other problems.

Now to the problem itself, I can´t connect to the WEP protected network which is available in my house. It simply won´t work. (I can connect just fine with no security or WPA.) The password is "09345678AB".
I´ve tried all obvious solutions like putting $ or "" infront of the password and changing the password as seen in the article from Apple presented further down the post, I´ve tried the various options from the drop down-menu when you type in the WEP-password. And I have restarted both the airport card and the router a numerous times.

If I get this article right, http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=108058 , my problem goes a little deeper.
If I understand it right, the problem is that it is no real standard for wep passwords, because WEP came before the Wifi Alliance. Therefore, different manufacturers, may "handle" (format? encrypt? decrypt?) the password differently, meaning that when I type in the password on the MacBook, it will simply turn up wrong for the access point. Am I right?

I made a Genius Bar appointment at the Apple Store at Regent Street (London), and presented the genius with the above Info. However, he just checked my network settings, blamed the access point and said that there was nothing more he could do for me.

So, is it any solution to this problem? Anything at all, or am I just stuck?
Could I, as a secondary solution, buy a usb wifi adapter and use it instead of Airport?

Thanks in advance for all the help and please bear with me for not using all the right terminology.
 
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WEP passwords are a load of nosh, what you need is the HEX key. It's horrible to type in, but once you have it and it's in and on your keychain, it always works.

Get one of the other users to log onto the router and give you the HEX key and then type it in (very carefully) into your WEP control.
 
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WEP passwords are a load of nosh, what you need is the HEX key. It's horrible to type in, but once you have it and it's in and on your keychain, it always works.

Get one of the other users to log onto the router and give you the HEX key and then type it in (very carefully) into your WEP control.

That might be, but when it's only 40-bit password, would'nt the HEX key be "09345678AB"?
 
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Does he have MAC address filtering enabled and hasn't added your Mac's MAC address perhaps?

That means he has to add the MAC address of your Airport (something like 3F:5G:2C:6B:2E:...etc....find it from the About this Mac pane) entered into the router to let you get access.
 

dtravis7


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That might be, but when it's only 40-bit password, would'nt the HEX key be "09345678AB"?

Why are they using 40-Bit hex? That is SO un-secure. ALL the older systems I work with and I mean OLD let me use 128-Bit WEP at least. I know that is not your issue but still bothers me.

I have never had issues with either my PPC or Intel Macs on WEP. Not once. It sounds like you have tried everything I would suggest. Will some more checking around and see what I can find.
 
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No, he doesn't use any MAC filtering. And yeah, and I know that 40-bit HEX is un-secure, but that is what he is using. Anyhow, as a last desperate solution, would I have any luck with using a usb wifi adapter? Or is it up to the OS how it
"handles" the password? Meaning that I still would have the same problems.
 

dtravis7


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No, he doesn't use any MAC filtering. And yeah, and I know that 40-bit HEX is un-secure, but that is what he is using. Anyhow, as a last desperate solution, would I have any luck with using a usb wifi adapter? Or is it up to the OS how it
"handles" the password? Meaning that I still would have the same problems.

Even if you bought a OSX Compatible USB WiFi dongle it would use the same settings in the OS. There has to be something missing somewhere. Like I said I can join anything WEP on any Mac I own. I am still searching around for you.
 
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If you recently switched to a mac... it's a semantics (sort of) issue.

When it asks you for the WEP password it means it needs the 128 hex key (it's the same as your password, simply change WEP Password option to the WEP 40/128-bit hex option and enter the SAME password). I PROMISE YOU IT WILL SOLVE YOUR ISSUE.

I just bought my first mac a few days ago and had the same issue until someone pointed me in the right direction.

Cheers
 

dtravis7


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If you recently switched to a mac... it's a semantics (sort of) issue.

When it asks you for the WEP password it means it needs the 128 hex key (it's the same as your password, simply change WEP Password option to the WEP 40/128-bit hex option and enter the SAME password). I PROMISE YOU IT WILL SOLVE YOUR ISSUE.

I just bought my first mac a few days ago and had the same issue until someone pointed me in the right direction.

Cheers


That has always done it for me when helping people with OSX and WEP connection issues.
 

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