First, for encryption, i turned it off. It’s a pain. Instead, I chose to restrict the mac addresses that the router allows online to those that I own. (wireless settings menu on the router) I also turned off the SSID broadcast so you can’t see the network. Also helps to name your network something other than the default “NETGEAR”. finally, I also went into the LAN settings i the advanced section and assigned permenant IP addresses to each machine so that the networking links would always be accureate from the PC to the macs. So now everything can connect to the web. But the next trick was to network it all together and share printers. My printers are all hooked up the a G4 desktop that’s got a wireless card in it. On both macs, I went into the sharing preferences panel and turned on file sharing so that they could see eachother. I also turned on windows file sharing in the same preference panel so the PC’s could see the macs and visa-versa. Next, to share the printers on the G4 desktop, I went to the print and fax preference panel and shared my printers. Then it was just a matter of setting up all the shares between the machines. My desktop has a couple of extra drives to it, and since the windows sharing only shares the user’s shared folder on the mac, I downloaded sharepoint from the apple site and set up shares on the other drives so that they could be viewed by the PC’s. Then I went on the PC’s(windows xp) and added network sites at the IP address and share locations for each of the macs. Finally, on the second mac, I added the printers that showed up as shared from the desktop G4. All in all, 2 hours of setup and I can see every drive and print from anywhere in my house. Very cool! Most of the info to get it set up came from the airport extreme discussion group on the apple site – query file share pc mac.

Her PC connects fine to the MR814v2 (no idea the firmware). Mac saw the access point but wouldn’t take the password.

I reset the WEP passphrase and copied down the key (pen and paper). Went over to the Mac, System preferences, Networking, switched to Airport settings, Selected the router from the dropdown, and entered the key after first putting in a $.

That is the secret. You need to enter a “Dollar sign” before the key and then it will work fantabulously :)

* Upgrade the router software (don’t know if this contributed, but thought I’d include it!)
* Reset the router to default factory settings
* Make sure the router is set for open access (no WEP or WPA)
* Connect to your wireless on the iBook – which now works as there isn’t a password to enter
* Access the router settings (192.168.0.1) FROM THE IBOOK
* Generate your passkey etc., and set the router up with WEP key
* Enter the password when asked for it on the iBook
* PCs will now connect OK

I figured if the problem was to do with the iBook encoding the password differently than a PC would, then set everything up ON THE MAC and then the less-fussy PCs would be OK…. I even set the router up using remote access and it did the trick.

Just my two-pennorth, and I hope someone finds it useful in the future :)

For the record, I’m currently using a v2 with firmware 5.0.3. I’ve not upgraded to 5.3 because it requires a hard reboot of the router after upgrading, which wipes out all the configuration information, so you have to write down your settings before you do it. I haven’t been sufficiently motivated to do so, although if we discover your friend is on 5.3, that might spur me to take the plunge.

Furthermore, I don’t have any suggestions. I’ve just been flipping the setting from one of my cabled computers, or else pulling the power on the router for a second. Either one seems to work.

I think that the long-term solution may be to replace the router with something better… or else wait for an update to either Airport Extreme or the Netgear firmware to fix it.