halp!

[lotesse]

Urg, flist, I am having wireless unhappy. I share internet with the girl next door, and sometimes it does this thing where the network connection vanishes for a second and then comes right back. My boyfriend's pc is never phased by this, but my mac gets all fussy, and the system has to be turned off and on again. Which wouldn't be a big deal, except that it did that last night and my neighbor hasn't been home since, and I have a worried that she'd gone home for the holiday.

Do any of you have the slightest idea what this glitch is, and if there's anything I can do to repair it? Because the network is running - I can see it in the Airport menu - and the Biy's machine works fine, but mine won't. hook. up. And I hate using his system. /whine

Comments

[brightfame]

When you hit Network Diagnostics, does it tell you that everything's greenlit, or is that when it asks you to restart the router?

Sometimes a reboot of the mac works, sometimes punching through a cycle of Network Diagnostics will do it. Tech support for the ISP should also be able to reset it, if your need is dire.

(I admit that when it happens to me, I try all manner of things before going to restart the routers. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't!)

[lotesse]

I've rebooted multiple times, to no avail. Alas. How do I get to Network Diagnostics? It's not the same as Internet Connect, I'm guessing?

[brightfame]

Go to your Airport menu (do you have it available in the top bar, next to your sound and battery icons?) Click 'Open Network Preferences'. You can also get to that by opening System Preferences and selecting Network.

Click on the button saying 'Assist me'. It'll give you a little slide-out menu asking you to choose from three buttons. The middle one is Diagnostics. Click that. Follow the instructions as far as you can, and let me know what happens.

You should begin to see what I mean when I speak of everything being greenlit (or not).

[lotesse]

okay, so when I opened the System Preferences Airport had a red light, said it was turned on but not connected. I made it through to PPoE setup, entered the network name and password, had internet connect pop up and ask me for the password again, and then got this error message: Internet Connect could not find a PPoE server.

I don't have a whole lot of relevant info - frex, I don't know the name of the ISP. this has been a hand-the-password-through-the-door kind of arrangement. I did email my neighbor to see if she could send me that info.

[brightfame]

oooh, here's where my geek fu gets really really shaky.

Did you actually get into Network Diagnostics, not just Network Preferences? Does it scan for wireless networks, give you a list and ask you which one you want to join?

(I'm trying to remember if/when Internet Connect pops up for me, but I'm drawing a blank)

It sounds as if you've done all you can, though. When you do find out about the ISP, give them a call and ask them if they can see anything amiss.

I've sometimes had the problem (though it may be caused by something else entirely) where I'm not connected, but the system at the ISP says I'm still connected. They fix it by doing some kind of restart or disconnect/reconnect at their end. But my ISP is dodgy to the point where they're coming to do maintenance on my antenna, so take that with a grain of salt.

Best of luck to you :)

[lotesse]

(Thank you so much for the advice; I really appreciate it.)

Yeah, I went all the way through the diagnistic, so I think I'mma have to wait and contact the ISP.