Mac works everywhere.. except at home

[Noley]

This is about my daughter's '08 or '09 MacBook, which is running Snow Leopard. In her apartment the Mac will start up run apps like MS Office or play a DVD. But will not connect to the internet. She gets the pinwheel of death. Meanwhile, her roommate's PC laptop works fine.

But, at her local library and when she comes home to my house her Mac works fine.

We're thinking it's the Internet connection at her place or the cable company supplied router, but it is a weird situation. Her computer is old enough (late '08 or early '09) that she has limited upgrade options for the OS and she can't afford a newer model. And this is clearly a local problem.

Her hard drive checks out fine, I've reset all the permissions, but those make no difference. I have a spare Apple Express router but it's 12 hours away at our second home, so not an option.

Ideas? Thoughts?

TIA
Noley

 

[RadDave]

Hello and welcome to the forum! Please provide some additional information: 1) What is the name of the ISP (i.e. cable company); 2) Is the cable coming into a modem first, and then wired to the router or is the device a modem/router combination; and 3) Is there password protection (like WPA2) and has she checked that the correct one is entered? For starters (and if not done), I would suggest that the modem & router (or a single combo machine) be 'power recycled', i.e. pull the AC plugs, wait a few minutes, the re-power the modem followed by the router - finally, reboot the computer - let us know the results. Dave

 

[Noley]

Thanks, Dave. I know most of this, done it already.
DK the cable company, but the cable comes to a modem then the router. There is password protection (she has the correct PW) and she can get to a website, but not any further. For instance, she can get to Facebook or Netflix, but when she tries to do anything she gets the pinwheel. We have tried power recycles on both the Mac and the router. The modem is in a different apartment (another floor of the house) so I'll see if she can recycle that one, too. I have told her to find a phone number for the ISP and give them a call.

She is pretty clueless technically and none of her tech-savvy friends are where she lives. The smartest of these, a software engineer with a coupe of CS degrees, is also a bit baffled by this one. But he's also 2+ hours away from her.

What is interesting is that her iPhone connects to the web via the router with no problem, as does my MBP. I forgot to mention that in my original post. She is 2 hours away so I can't play with this much myself. Her phone is running iOS 9.3.5 and my MBP is running Yosemite.
I'm thinking it's maybe her old OS (Snow Leopard) which is running an older version of Chrome. I don't know if she has tried this while using Safari. Will have to ask, but I think she has the same problem. I don't remember if I tried connecting using Safari on her Macbook.

On the upside, at least we know her Mac is OK and that we don't have to get a newer one. At Christmas I'll upgrade her OS as far as it can go. I think I can get her to 10.10.4, then upgrade the browsers, too.

 

[RadDave]

Hello again - sorry that I could not be of much more help - if possible, a modem power recycle is worth a try; not sure which specific model and year is in question, but if not already done, go to EveryMac, find the correct laptop, then scroll toward the bottom where a discussion of macOS upgrade will be discussed. Good luck and let us know your results. Dave

 

[harryb2448]

Who set up the modem in the apartment? Maybe it is something to do with her operating system being setup as old, unsecure WEP encryption and the modem with WPA or WPA2 Personal.

 

[chscag]

We're thinking it's the Internet connection at her place or the cable company supplied router, but it is a weird situation. Her computer is old enough (late '08 or early '09) that she has limited upgrade options for the OS and she can't afford a newer model. And this is clearly a local problem.

What is interesting is that her iPhone connects to the web via the router with no problem, as does my MBP. I forgot to mention that in my original post. She is 2 hours away so I can't play with this much myself. Her phone is running iOS 9.3.5 and my MBP is running Yosemite. I'm thinking it's maybe her old OS (Snow Leopard) which is running an older version of Chrome. I don't know if she has tried this while using Safari. Will have to ask, but I think she has the same problem. I don't remember if I tried connecting using Safari on her Macbook.

She should be able to connect with Snow Leopard provided the version of Chrome or Safari she's using supports Snow Leopard. The major problem with accessing the internet via Snow Leopard is the lack of security patches that Apple has issued for later versions of OS X. The fact that her iPhone and your MBP can connect using her connection is an indication that the modem/router are working as they should.

But, at her local library and when she comes home to my house her Mac works fine.

If you have the time... the next visit you make to your daughter's apt, remove the connection information that she has on her machine and create a new connection. Another thing you can do is use the built in WiFi diagnostics which are available in Snow Leopard.

 

[bcarteruk]

If as you say she can get to a Netflix/Facebook page then that suggests the basic internet connection is actually working and the problem lies elsewhere.
Apple, System Preferences, Network will show if you are connected over wifi or not and give you your local IP address.