Why the cyclical disconnects?

November 20, 2005 3:10 PM

Help me get this to work! My iBook/SBC DSL/Airport express will not stay online. I'm 99% sure it's just some simple setting issue. I just switched to mac so I really don't know my way around or am really familiar with the terminology...

So I'm connected and surfing. I go to the little < ...> icon at the top of the screen. The "< part of it is black, the ... part of it is grey, yet i can still connect. when i click it the pull down menu shows: ppoe: connecting... (this is grey) disconnect (check mark) built-in ethernet airport open internet connection... after a minute or so of surfing, this dialoge box pops up: no pppoe server has been found for the specified service. please delete the service name option and try again. so i wait a few seconds, pull the menu from the ...> icon. It now looks like this:

PPoE: Idle (this is grey)
Connect
(check mark) Built-in Ethernet
Airport
Open internet connection...

I click "connect" and I can immediately start surfiing again---for about a minute, then that dialoge box pops up again. Rinse. Repeat.

I'm really new to the Mac world so any help in as close to layman's terms would be really loved.

I'll be online for a while so I can answer any questions almost immediately. Thanks, all!

posted by sourwookie to computers & internet (7 comments total)

I don't think you should be using PPPoE if your using an Airport and wireless... I would think you should see the characteristic 4 bar "radio wave" type signal in your menu bar. pulling that down should reveal the available wireless networks.
posted by docgonzo at 3:28 PM on November 20, 2005

That icon is also on my menu bar. When I click on it I see:

Airport On (grey)
Turn Airport Off
(check mark) Apple Network 5cac33 >
Other
Create Network
Use Interface Robustness
Open Internet Connection...
posted by sourwookie at 3:34 PM on November 20, 2005

yeah -- you need to set your PPPOE in your router rather than on your ibook itself.

connect to your airport - then use the airport admin utility (under applications) to go into your airport and set the PPPOE info (given to you by your DSL provider) into the router itself.

Good luck!
posted by k8t at 3:35 PM on November 20, 2005

How odd. I go to airport admin utility and it doesnt see an airport. Yet I am clearly using one. Every time I hit rescan--nada.

But I know I'm sending this via Apple Network 5cac33--or you wouldn't be reading this.
posted by sourwookie at 3:40 PM on November 20, 2005

try not being connected to the network first.. may make a difference since the admin thingy's going to scan for the airport
posted by mrg at 4:06 PM on November 20, 2005

I had this same problem with my earthlink account. PPoE basically sucks. Does it seem like your connection drops just when you want to use it most? Yeah, that's because everyone else in your neighborhood wants to use it at the same time.

I changed service providers to speakeasy, their customer support is awesome. With earthlink I wanted to crawl through the phone line so I could strangle their rep. My cancelation letter to them is epic, though it hardly holds a candle to my letter to the record club people, that haunts the dreams of many, I assure you.
posted by Mr T at 5:29 PM on November 20, 2005

If you go into system prefs > network > configure >pppoe there is a button labeled PPPoe options-- click that and make sure it's not set to disconnect if idle for 30 minutes (the default). My experience is that the pppoe is very dumb about what's 'idle'-- the best results I had was setting the auto disconnect on but with a 900 minute timeout.
posted by miss tea at 5:27 AM on November 21, 2005