Windows 7 can't connect via ethernet to Airport Extreme

Question

I have an Airport Extreme router, and everything works beautifully on the Mac, but my Windows 7 computer, which is connected via a regular ethernet cable, can't see any network.

The Windows computer says there's no cable connected.

Any ideas? Is there some kind of setting you have to enable with the Airport utility? I looked everywhere but can't find anything. Or do I need to install that Airport utility something on the PC just to connect to the router? (Haven't tried because the PC has no CD drive)

Solution 1

No, you don't need to do anything to enable this. AirPort Extreme by default has all 3 of its LAN Ethernet ports set to autonegotiate 10/100/1000, duplex, flow-control, and auto-MDI-X (auto-crossover). I don't think there's even a way to override that to force a particular speed/duplex setting on a particular LAN port (unless you have one of the ancient UFO-shaped 802.11g models that were sold from 2003-2006 and had only a single LAN port).

You can set speed and duplex (or even "Ethernet disabled") for the WAN port on any of the models, but it's enabled and set to autonegotiate by default, and besides, you've probably got that port plugged into your upstream Internet connection.

Does the AirPort Extreme show a link light for the Ethernet port you're plugged into? (The link lights are built into the ports connectors)

When you say your Mac works, is the Mac wireless? What happens when you turn off the Mac's AirPort card and hook the Mac up to the Ethernet cable? (i.e. Any chance you just have a bad Ethernet cable, or it's not plugged into the base station all the way?)

Solution 2

I have spent about 6 hours trying to figure out why my Windows 7 laptop wouldn't connect to our Airport Extreme Base. My MAC was having no issue at all but the laptop couldn't acquire a network address. In adapter settings on the laptop, I switched the channel to 11, did the same via the Mac with the AE-settings (2.4Ghz to channel 11) and rebooted the laptop and it worked!

Comments

[Ye Lin Aung]

how you tried Win7 ? with bootcamp ? if so, it should work

[andjelko]

It's a netbook with a regular NIC. It worked before with previous router with the same setup

[andjelko]

My macbook is connected via Wifi. Let me try to connect via ethernet cable and see what happens. Thx!

[andjelko]

Unbelievable... I tried 2 different cables, no dice. Then I found anther one, tried that and all works. Seems like the Airport is extremely picky about it's cables, because all these cables worked with the Netgear I had.

[andjelko]

In this case I was connecting the PC via regular ethernet cable, but this is good to know too!

[Spiff]

Why were you manually setting the channel on your laptop wireless adapter in the first place? The AP is what sets the channel, the clients are supposed to scan for it and join it on whatever channel they find it.