Does Netgear WGR614 router work with Mac?

[poobah]

Another constraint can be that some ISPs require you to actually tell them the MAC address of the router so they can put it in some kind of access table at their end in order for you to be able to use it to connect.

That would be my first guess. I have experience with time warner and adelphia. They both 'marry' your account the MAC address in the cable "modem".

 

[Taulhag]

I just enabled my Netgear WGR614 v9 router for the first time on my mac and its quite simple.
In case anyone needs help, just ask.

Cheers

 

[AlejandroMoreno]

re: "Netgear solution - add $ to key" - Eureka! Thanks TitusCooker

WOO HOO! I've been struggling for 3 days to get the netgear router at our vacation home in Colombia to get to work (bought it in California at Best Buy too). My mac works like a charm just about anywhere I go in the states, so this was new. It would find the network here no problem, and would even show full signal power on the airport icon. But it would not let me into the net. Finally on mac forums after scrolling through replies and more replies, I found the "$ sign prepend" to your network password solution. Netgear doesn't even mention this on their router login page. Just FYI my Netgear router model is WPN824v3. The network here uses a WEP password and we do not need a password to connect to the internet with the pc desktop and pc laptops we already use here.

Thanks Titus!

-Alejandro

I haven't seen this solution posted anywhere and it's pretty simple. You have to prepend a $ on WEP and WPA keys on your Mac computer when attaching to a non-apple wireless access point.

I first came across this about 10 years ago, when B first came out and the big issue was what level WEP key you needed (56 vs 128). For proprietary reasons, Apple did not want people using industry standard IEEE non-Apple wireless access points, so intentionally made it difficult to attach to them. This is not a slam on Apple, it's an unfortunate fact.

After digging through Apple's support for a few days trying to troubleshoot why all my Mac clients were unable to attach to other manufacturer's WAP's, I finally found this little snippet. It said when you attach to a WAP that is not an Airport, you need to put a $ at the beginning of the string.

Last week, I had a student with a Macbook Pro unable to attach to a Netgear router in his new apartment. We looked at all the obvious things (wireless overlap, etc), and I finally suggested the $ option. Turns out that it worked. The Netgear is configured to WPA PSK encryption, and the Macbook Pro still needed that $ at the beginning of the key in order to make it work. Don't know why it would still be a problem after all these years, but it's still hiding there in the code on the Mac.

Hope that helps if you ever have trouble attaching a Mac to a non-Apple WAP.

titus

 

[Pressure]

Holy thread resurrection Batman!