Wireless router, two Macs, only one connects by wireless

[allen]

Odd problem.

I HAD a Belkin wireless router. From it I ran a Mac Powerbook, wireless, and an iMac, ethernet.

Router clapped out. Only a cheapo (£12 ish) so no tears, chucked it.

Bought a new 'expensive' Netscape router, Wireless + 4 ethernet ports. (£45).

Now, I can make the iMac wireless, by putting in the appropriate Network name, and the appropriate supplied password, and it works fine. Or I can run the iMac via ethernet, and fine.

But EITHER way, I can't make the laptop work on wireless. (The only way I can make it connect is using another Ethernet cable, which is okay, but odd).

I do precisely the same on the Macbook as on the iMac - go to Network, put in the appropriate Network name, then the appropriate supplied password, and after trying to connect for a minute or so it fails. The machines are where they were under the old Belkin set up - the laptop is 2 or 3 metres from the router, the iMac is a metre away.

Does this sound like a fault in the new router, and if not, any other ideas most welcomed - it's all running, with a Wireless iMac connection and an Ethernet Macbook connection, but that of course is back to front! It's the laptop that I want wireless...

Thanks for thinking about it.

Allen.

[Julieandrewslin]

Go for high bandwidth modem that will help you a lot

[allen]

The answer ended up in the chosen 'channel' - I had left the Netgear to do all that automatically, thinking It Knew Best.

Turned out it didn't know best. I had a look at what other local networks were using (I used iStumbler to do a local search) and then chose a channel that nobody else was using, and that was it. Curious thing was, that Netgear had chosen Channel 1 as its automatic channel, and nobody else was using Channel 1. Anyway, I plumped for another spare channel, at random, and its been fine ever since.

The owners' manual, needless to say, wasn't much use in that regard - it did have a 'troubleshooting' section, but didn't mention trying another channel!

A.