Replacing Eircom Router

Faith

I have Eircom broadband at home and since I changed to a Macbook, I've been having wireless connectivity problems. The connection is constantly dropping on all Apple devices, but there's no problems with Windows laptops in the house. It can drop once every two days, or once every 2 minutes. I've phoned Apple and changed the channel, updated my wireless security, confirmed that it's just my own network that's the problem etc. Eventually, the Apple guy said it's a problem with the router - that the signal is not transmitting properly to Apple devices or something.

We've had the same router since we got broadband - 5 or 6 years ago. It's a Netopia 3347NWG. Do I need to buy a replacement, or will Eircom provide one? If I need to buy one, can you recommend a suitable replacement? There's not very heavy usage of the internet - mostly browsing, but I'd do a fair bit of streaming and some downloading. Thanks for any help!

dowtchaboy

:eek: you mean the Geniuses couldn't help you?:eek: (I'm a bit biased as I've never ever had help that actually solved a problem from Apple personnel)

We have XP PC and laptops here and a MacBook connected to Eircom Netopia 3347NWG too. I've noticed the MacBook WiFi/Airport is quite good at finding WiFi when out and about - better than my Fujitsu but not as sensitive as my Samsung netbook. However in the house - well the Mac is closest to the router and when it's good it's very very good - but when it's bad......
Most common complaint is that we saw it dropping off skype all the time - all our friends think we are offline - only way we could find to fix this was to tell Airport and skype to never go to sleep (err can't remember what we did for this).
Often though when we go to fire up safari or firefox - it says the internet is not available - only way to get online is to click Airport off and then on again.

Finally - we had serious problems with it at one stage - total refusal to look at the internet/open any web pages - and we had to disable ipv6 (airport - network preferences - advanced - tcp/ip tab - tick the ipv6 "off" box) - that may come back to bite us as ipv6 starts to be used.

Now back to trying to get this bloody MacBook to recognise the Brother MFC printer/scanner it was quite well able to recognise last week - but this week it sees it for 5 or 10 seconds and then turns its nose up at it......

dub45

From a limited enough experience of trying to get macs attached to a wireless network I really do think that there is something fundamentally wrong with the os software where networking is concerned. (Sacrilege I know!)

For example over a period some settings seem to disappear while virtually all the time when you go back to the wireless settings the padlock is unlocked without a password being entered.

More on topic if the netopia has a problem with macs or vice versa is it not strange that this has not surfaced before given the almost ubiquity of the netopia? There must be hundreds of thousands of them out there and surely a significant minority of those must be used with macs at one stage or another?

dowtchaboy

dub45 wrote: »

(Sacrilege I know!)

For example over a period some settings seem to disappear while virtually all the time when you go back to the wireless settings the padlock is unlocked without a password being entered.

I think if you read the fine print on the agreement you have to tick as "read" every week when Apple send yet another 100 MByte update to OSX, or iTunes you will find that Steve has the right to unlock all your folders and look inside for porn, unAmerican thoughts, plans to create apps using non-Apple-sold content, and so on. Obviously he was brought up in a barn and doesn't know to lock the folder on the way out......

Faith

My mac always sees the network, but it just fails to connect regularly. So the network is fine, Airport is fine, but they're just not digging each other. Surely that means a change in router is the next step? So can anyone recommend one? I'm clueless.

guil

i got a netgear dgn1000 in pcworld for €70 a few weeks ago, havent had a problem with the connection since, with the zyxel i used to get disconnect all the time on my W7 laptop on wireless and the PS3 wired

Tenger

I have the Eircom Zyxel router:

3 laptops, PS3 and Xbox use the wireless connections. Not all at once though. Only 1 laptop actually connects everytime.

The new (Xmas) laptop and Xbox have constant problems. Laptop drops every 4-5 mins. Xox drops after 20-30 mins, usually disconnects from current game/party.