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Noob wireless question re: apple

post #1 of 6
8/19/04 at 2:11am
Thread Starter 
Hey helpers:

I have a question about wireless connectivity. I recently purchased a CL56 and just set up DSL at my apartment. I'm planning on adding a wireless router to the setup. But my question has to do with apple. My wife is interested in getting an apple notebook. The question is do apple notebooks work with any wireless routers or do they need that apple airport setup? Because if that's the case then I'm going to try and convince her to think about a thin and light pc notebook. Something like the Sentia (but a less expensive version than Alienware).

Thanks

Scott
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post #2 of 6
8/19/04 at 2:17am
http://www.apple.com/powerbook/wireless.html
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post #3 of 6
8/19/04 at 3:30am
i had an ibook with airport extreme for half a year, and used it with a friend's wireles router. It worked just fine. Im not sure about the details of the new airport express, but it seems really cool.
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post #4 of 6
8/19/04 at 5:38am
Well, I have successfully used my 15" AL Powerbook with Linksys, Buffalo Tech, and Apple branded 802.11g access points. These are pretty safe bets as they all are based on the Broadcom chipset.

I never really bothered to buy & test out recent Netgear or SMC equipment...I had REALLY BAD experiences with their tech support people with older 802.11b access points and wireless adapters. This kinda soured me on buying any more of their products. BUT, I would imagine that as long as you don't enable vendor specific "turbo" or "speed enhance" features, 802.11g should work pretty much the same no matter who the chipset vendor is.

If you're really curious on success rates for non-Broadcom equipment with Apple Airport Extreme cards, try taking a look at comments posted in the Wireless Network topic found on sites like Macintouch or Macfixit.

Just a quick tip - If using WPA, make sure that you set it to WPA-PSK TKIP
This setting seems best as the Intel 2200BG card in a number of Windows notebooks and the Airport Extreme card don't seem to support AES encryption.

Good luck & hope you find some of this useful.
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post #5 of 6
8/19/04 at 11:31am
Apple computers with airport or airport extreme cards will work with any 802.11b or g wireless network.
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post #6 of 6
8/19/04 at 1:20pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the input guys. Guess I was overthinking or overcomplicating things. I always worry 'cause it seems like Apple stuff is so Apple-specific software wise that I assumed hardware would be the same.

Scott
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