Does anyone know how to connect an XP machine to a MAC based network?
My sister is telling me that the network shes trying to connect to is set up for Macs and she cant seem to connect to it. Her laptop says there is a full signal and its connected but it wont load up and pages and eventually gives her a troubleshooting error. Any ideas? If it helps, she has a Dell latitude...

 

Does she mean its an Apple Airport router? Is there a password that she's not entering? Has she tried powering off the router and powering back on? What does Mac based network mean? Apple routers are not mac only.

 

Apple server?

 

^ that's what'd you think but he said full signal strength which makes me think Apple Airport router.

 

im also confused because a network simply for internet is the same for every computer system but what shes saying is that the place shes staying at has a net work that is only used by macs. Im thinking that it was configured to work on macs because her computer pics it up, she puts in the network password and gets a connection. But she cant get any pages to load or any program that requires the internet, aim, to work. She called Dell support but they want 150 to change some settings.

 

If she's paying for and it's apart of the agreement for where she is staying tell her to take it to the IT guy/s in the building.. That would probably be a start.

 

I just had a thought (yes, it hurt). Could this just be a "lost in translation" issue where Stanng's sis was actually informed she needs to provide a MAC address?

 

^^^

Yup, it could be as simple as the router only allowing authorized mac addresses to connect to the router. Then again, if the mac address wasn't authorized, why is her computer allowed to connect, get signal, but not view pages. If the mac address isn't allowed to connect, shouldn't it stay "not connected" until the mac address is added to the mac address filter list.

 

well her situation is unique. She needs to be a resident in the city of chicago to work for the chicago public school system but she doesnt have the cash to rent out a new place. So a family she baby sat for when she was in college offered there guest room in lincoln park while she gets going. The family is rich beyond belief and are all hoydi toydi about things so they needed to get like 8 macs in there home and im pretty sure they are all connected to the same network. Im thinking its also a mac address problem. The dell tech guy told her its a settings issue which is very simple to fix...

 

Some routers allow a connection that shows as signal strength, but no network address is assigned due to MAC filtering...