Only Macs can connect to WIFI with WPA-Personal security on

Question

I have an odd issue with a Netgear WIFI router, 4 computers, 2 pc laptops with XP and 7 installed, one MacBook Pro and one older Mac mini.

With security off everything can connect to the wifi.

With WPA-Security on only the Macs can connect to the wifi.

I've reset the Netgear router, done everything again from scratch, no deal. The PCs just can't connect. One of the laptops can connect to another Netgear router in a different location. The PCs can connect to other wifi networks just fine so the laptop PC hardware is fine.

Solution

if the router has same ssid as your previous wep settings then windows might remeber the old settings for the network. also u might want to change security settings under windows from actual wep to wpa and then tkip option.

Comments

[Peter Choi]

Are you using WPS to configure the network?

[Spiff]

Is the Netgear 802.11 router actually Wi-Fi certified? Do you have up-to-date firmware on it? Are the PC laptops' 802.11 cards Wi-Fi certified? Do you have up-to-date drivers on them? Also, please "name and shame" the exact AP and client card makes/models and firmware/driver versions you're having trouble with.

[prayagupa]

@Fred, What is wps?

[Spiff]

@jfar WPS is "Wi-Fi Protected Setup", which is a scheme the Wi-Fi Alliance came up with to try to make it easier to get new devices onto a WPA-protected Wi-Fi network, for people who aren't good at entering WPA passphrases correctly on their clients (or for client devices that don't have good screens and keyboards for entering WPA passphrases with). Even if you have a WPS-enabled Wi-Fi router, you can still use the traditional method (i.e. select WPA-PSK, enter passphrase) for getting your Windows laptops onto the network. But WPS might save you a step.

[Tim]

Elaborating on this: in addition to resetting your router, try resetting your Windows' WiFi configuration by renaming the SSID as said above and deleting any configuration on your Windows machines.