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1 month ago, I had the displeasure of debugging a Powerbook that did not wanted to connect to the internet in residence U. My neighbor complained of sudden and recurrent disconnection from the Lan network of the Yamasa Institute. She asked for help at tech guys office but have been told that the problem was with her computer. At that time she was very depressed because it was her only link with her family and friends.
I never found what was the problem. It was my first time doing troubleshooting on a mac, and I was not familiar with the control panel option. Also, I did not want to play with her setting too much, because it was not my own computer. At the end I manage to setup a wireless internet connection with her, so that she could share my internet. Than mysteriously after 2 weeks, she managed to have the computer go on the internet with the Ethernet lan. Yep only the Ethernet interface was having problem. And also I was not very clever at that time because I did not noticed something very important.
I have the same problem today.
Description of the problem.
The computer does not connect to the internet.
There is no Ip address assigned to the Ethernet adapter.
I send a DHCP request for a new Ip.
Got a very stupid ip, at least there is a physical link with the mac and the computer. IP is: 169.154.212.XX
This is not what I want.
Ok I try with my other computer (windoze): I should get: 192.168.XXX.XXX and sub-domain 255.255.255.0 and have a router address such as 192.168.1.1
Very logical this is the usual stuff, So what’s wrong with the Ibook
I decided to have a look at the Mac network panel interface. I created a setting called Yamasa network debug. By default everything is set to default, DHCP and everything. I always have that 169.154.212.XX Not what I want grrr. Clicked on the renew DHCP lease several time, always that local adress.
I solved the problem by using the following setting:
In the network pane-subpanel tcp/ip-Drop down menu: Use DHCP with manual ip address. I entered the ip address from the 192.168.X.X exchange.
I have no idea why it was working before, and now it is not with the default setting.
Even if I am not a big believer of the reboot thing on mac and linux, I did it several times before fooling around my setting. Old habits…
So my big question today to my computer literate friend: what is the cause of this? A crappy Yamasa router who does not like my mac address (not the computer brand but the hex number right?) ?
Macs sucks? Haha love this one…
I’d guess a problem with the DHCP server, so keep letting them know when you have problems, maybe others are having them too. Maybe get them to test with another router?
Probably a crappy DHCP Server..
I just hope they are not on NT4 for this, had many problems with DHCP Server on NT4, since it does not follow the RFCs..
i know this will not be very helpful, but i just have to say it: HA!!!!!!!! so it was not my crappy computer after all. thank god. i can sleep at night knowing that macs are once again superior. LOL!!!! that being said, i hope you can get it all worked out, it sucks to be without.
I wish I could help, but I don’t know too much about networking. Alas.