All my base stations belong to someone else

February 15, 2014 7:21 AM

Lately when I turn on my Mac, it detects an Airport Extreme base station. I don't know where the station is; I don't have one and I don't know the password to the one being detected. The Airport Extreme is chosen instead of my home network for internet access, and even when I manually cancel it and choose my own network, I sometimes lose connectivity as the computer returns to the Airport Extreme as a default connection. Lately, this is also happening with a PC and a Kindle, making it hard on all devices to choose my home network and keep it as a default.
posted by layceepee to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

Best answer: On your Mac:

- Open up System Preferences, select Network
- Click on the Lock on the lower left to authenticate
- Select your Wifi from the list, then click "Advanced" in the lower right
- Highlight the network you want to remove, then click the minus button below the list

I don't know the exact process on Windows/Kindle, but there's some similar way to tell it not to connect to a certain network.
posted by mkultra at 7:58 AM on February 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

No devices should connect automatically unless they've previously used that connection before. Your computer, maybe, I can see accidentally connecting, but the Kindle and a second computer? Something is weird there. Are you the only user?
posted by caution live frogs at 8:01 AM on February 15, 2014 [1 favorite]