Getting a wireless internet connection up and running with OSX

Question

I am a long time PC user and programmer. I have very little experience of using macs. I have been given the task of getting a mac (Osx 10.6.2) laptop working on wireless networks, one at home one at an office. Currently it works on neither. The laptop was purchased in the US and we are attempting to get it working in the UK. We have a belkin router which is up and running for different PC's and mac's without problem. On the laptop I can see a kind of radio wave icon on the top line. If I click on it I get a drop down menu which includes the name of my belkin network with a tick to the left of it. This is giving me the impression that I have made a good connection already. But things go downhill from this point. If I bring up a browser then whatever URL I type, I get a time out message. I have also brought up a terminal window and typed "ping 192.168.2.1" (the address of the router) and just get "Request timeout...".

I remember that on a different US-purchased mac there was an issue with a "channel?" setting that was different between the US and UK, but have no idea what it means or how to set this. Maybe this is a red herring anyway.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

This may be a stupid question, but have you checked the network settings to see if a static IP has been assigned on the mac? While you're there, check to make sure an IP is being assigned if one is not statically set.