Mac and PC network shairing problems!!

[thisissunshine]

alright, so here's my little life story. I recently bought a mac laptop for myself, love it. But I have a desktop PC and laptop PC sharing the network. The problem is that the two laptops (mine and the PC) don't seem to be able to share the internet at the same time... does anyone know what to do about this problem? Also, do any of you know how to share the printer? Thank you!

 

[The_Other_One]

What OS is your mac running. And how do you have the network setup? Is it though a router or what?

 

[thisissunshine]

Yes we have a wireless router my mac is running OS X

 

[The_Other_One]

So you have a router? Hmm...if you have any problems getting online, unless it's a network card problem, it's probably something with the router itself... Regardless of your OS or computer's make, internet sharing should just work...

So this problem only happens between your PC laptop and the Mac?

 

[apj101]

goodf luck with this one too, i can already see this being one of those long winded pain in the arse problems that will turn out to be something random.....

 

[The_Other_One]

Yeah...because my mac has given me no problems getting on the network or even sharing files. Well, sometimes it wouldn't connect to the network, but it turned out to be a lose network cable

 

[thisissunshine]

Oh yes, and so the search for the culprit.. the who done it just techy-style, begins. Thank you all for your opinions!

 

[Rambo]

So you can connect it to the router, but only when the other PC's / Laptops aren't connected? Perhaps it's fighting for an IP address? I would try going to System Preferences => Network => Double click your internet connection => Click the TCP/IP tab => make sure configure IPv4 is set to "Using DHCP".

 

[thisissunshine]

I have new advances on my little problem. I'm not very techy-inclined but I'll try my best. Me and my dad finally got it to work last weekend when we made it a WPA2 Personal instead of a WPA, then both laptops worked. But It seems that both laptops don't like using the same encryption for a period of time. My step mom's was working on WPA2 and then suddenly stopped working so we had to switch it back to WPA, and now mine won't work. Ideas anyone??

 

[madtownidiot]

Interesting problem. What kind of router is it? Some can be set up to use separate encryption keys for each computer. That might solve it for you.

 

[thisissunshine]

Ummm I think it's a dlink one. I'll check into that. Thanks! Oh another thing. This morning neither computers were working so my dad reboot the router and now everything is working fine....