WiFi connection problems

[Joey Cupcakes]

Please forgive the duplicate post from about 2 weeks ago- got no response, thought I'd try again.

I generally like the D-Link wireless routers, but I'm on my second one with this problem. Maybe somebody has a workaround?

I am setup with a D-Link WBR-1310 at my studio. The SSID is not hidden, and I am using 128-bit WEP. It seems that whenever I try to let somebody new in on my network at my studio, I'll connect them, put in the password, and they will have a strong connection yet the D-Link will not supply them with an IP via the enabled DHCP. (If I connect them via Ethernet, the DHCP works fine.)

Often- but not always- if I turn the password protection off, I can get them DHCP service, and then turn the WEP back on and it will work and be solid. But at least half the time I cannot get them DHCP service over WiFi with the password, even though there is a strong wireless signal and I can see the computer's MAC address in the D-Link's browser control pages.

This has happened with more than a few Macs, all on Tiger, some (but not all) updated to 10.4.8- but it's happend with many levels of Tiger & some Panther machines. It does seem to happen less with Windows. None of these computers seem to have problems on other networks.

My previous D-Link that did a similar thing- which is why I replaced it- was a D-524. I have a 524 at home (and at several clients' homes) which does not have this problem. Dlink tech support said to update the firmware (which was already up-to-date), which I did but no improvement.

Any ideas at all?

And if the idea is to replace the router with another brand, can you suggest one that has an unlimited number (or at least 20-30) slots in it's MAC filtering list? The D-524 was unlimited, the 1310 was (unexpectedly) limited to 10 addresses.

Thanks!

[Frank Pardue]

You don't mention in your early info that you have MAC filtering enabled, but then you ask about MAC filtering at the end of your post. If you actually do have MAC filtering enabled then what you describe it exactly what should be happening. You select the wireless network name and establish a connection, then the WEP security setting kicks in and you need the password, after you correctly enter the password the router compares the MAC address of the computer to the approved list of MAC addresses, and if the computers MAC address is isn't in the list then it will not assign an IP address to the computer. So to solve the problem you have to get the MAC address of the computer you want to add and enter that MAC address in the router's approved MAC address list before you establish a connection.

[Carm]

Is the DHCP Server running on the Wireless Router(D-Link WBR-1310) or the Main modem (cable or DSL) or Both? How about the IP address of the router? I had a problem with my Linksys router because it had the same IP address as the DSL modem.
Once I changed the IP address and turned off DHCP in the wireless router (Linksys), I havent had any problems.

Carm

[Joey Cupcakes]

MAC filtering is NOT enabled. I HAVE used it in the past (with the D-524) but had this same problem even when the MAC filtering was used correctly. However, I have NOT enabled it with the new router due to the limited slots.

[Joey Cupcakes]

The modem is a SpeedStream 5500 (SBC). It does not have DHCP enabled, as far as I can tell. It's subnet is 192.168.0.xxx, my network LAN is running on 192.168.3.xxx. Besides, as I mentioned, wired networking works fine, has no trouble getting DHCP, just the wireless part of the router is affected by this.