Yellow Static Light Next to Airport

Hi. I have a 2007 macbookpro, OS X 10.5. When I go to connect wirelessly to our Internet it says "connection failed." sometimes it says "see administrator". Everyone in my building can connect to the Internet, so I don't think it is the router or anything. I've turned airport on and off, restarted my computer, etc and still nothing.

When I go into system prefs and then network, the bubble/light next to airport is yellow. Initially I thought that I needed to have the computer fixed, but I took it into work one day to see if it would connect to the Internet wirelessly and it did immediately. Right now I'm on my iPad and the Internet is working fine.

I'm sorry if this question has been asked before, but I can't find any answers. Also I'm pretty computer illiterate, so any help you can give me will have to be dumbed-down pretty thoroughly. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Is the connection in your building encrypted? In other words, do you have to enter the correct pass phrase to log on? From your description, it sounds like a security problem.

If no password or phrase is required, make sure the location and other settings in the network setup are correct. Take a look at our blog post and networking FAQ for more information. LINK

Yes it is password protected. I think it's called WPA. We all use the same password, and hasn't changed. I have been using the same Internet, router, password, etc for 8 months now.

What could have changed?

It's hard to say what happened. It's possible that your password has become corrupted in the Keychain.

Open the Keychain Access.app from Applications, Utilities. Find the connection name, and then double click it. Another box will open with the connection name. Check off the small box at the bottom that says "show password".

If the password is corrupt, just delete that entire entry. Then log on the connection and enter the good password again.

If the password was OK in the Keychain, it's probably best to remove the connection in network preferences and enter it again as a new connection.