I’ve got a strange – and now recurring – wifi issue I can’t quite figure out.
I’ve got several Macs at home, running wifi via an Airport Extreme. No problems.
I’ve also got a Ceiva digital photo frame with a wifi adaptor hooked into the same wireless broadband. No problem. And I’ve got an Xbox 360 also wirelessly connected.
Everything was working fine, until one day it wasn’t. The computers and my iphone all connected as normal, but my Ceiva AND xbox both stopped working with the wifi connection. This was late January. I was swamped at work and didn’t have time to deal with it.
Then, in late Feb, the Ceiva and Xbox both started working with the wifi again. No idea why, but I’m not gonna start complaining.
All was well, until a big blackout hit our neighborhood a few nights ago. Downed powerlines, arcing transformers, the works. I shut everything down (the UPS backups worked as they should), but my Ceiva is not on a UPS, and neither is my broadband router (cable modem).
When the power comes back on and I plug the router back in, my computers and iphone all connect again without a hitch.
But once again, the Ceiva and Xbox both stopped working with the wifi! Ugh. WTF? I’ve tried resetting the cable modem and the airport, to no avail.
Are you sure everything is running on your own network? Maybe the Macs have glommed onto your neighbor’s WiFi but the other devices are waiting for your network to come back up.
Has someone moved in recently? Or, have you gotten a new cordless phone in the 2.4GHz range?
The reason why I ask is that a lot of wireless routers are set to be on channel 6 by default. So, if some guy moves in next door, and, your Ceiva and XBOX are close to them then they will be getting interference. They may even be able to find your network and your network may be even be able to see them but data transmission will not be possible.
Something you can do is scan for available networks and then look at their properties. I assume you have a Mac so I can not help you in that as I run Vista. Any ways, in Vitsa you can find out what channel any given network is on. And, just move to another channel.
An airport will be like any other router so you should be able to login to it and change it’s channel over to whatever. If you see that it is on 6, try 1 or 11. If you are on 1 then try 6 or 11. On 11, try 1 or 6. Your other equipments should switch over as they will search for your SSID --the name of your network-- and connect.
I had this issue with a condo I had in Virginia Beach. I was OK at first and then a bunch of new people moved in and it was tough. Or, everyone decided to go wireless all of a sudden.
Thanks. FYI I got the Xbox to work. Apparently the dozen times I reseated the wifi adaptor didn’t do the trick… I had to actually do it with the system powered on, and THEN when I reseated the USB cable it finally worked. At least I figured that one out.
Same thing didn’t work with the Ceiva, that’s still offline. I’ll try the channels…