Airport - no signal

[clockworks]

I've been using my core solo mini on a wired connection for a long time. The airport has been turned off.
I've just moved the mini to a new location, where using the wireless connection would be more convenient. Problem is, I can't connect. The signal bars on the airport icon are pale grey. There is no signal showing in the preferences/network/airport pane.

My iMac and windows laptop are further away from my Netgear wireless router, and both have excellent signals.

The mini connects fine if I run a long cable to the router.

I've tried turning airport off and on, run network diagnostics, rebooted the mini and the router, all without success.

Looks like the airport adaptor has failed. but it shows up OK in "about this Mac".

Any ideas?

[clockworks]

Now working OK. I just remembered that I changed the WEP password last week while I was trying to get my new iMac to work on the wireless network.

I still find Apple's way of doing things a bit dodgy, despite switching over 2 years ago. Seems crazy that the "signal strength meter" can show zero bars when you've got a perfectly good signal, but a password mismatch is what's really causing the problem. All you get is a message saying that there's a problem, no clues about what the problem might be.

I fixed it by selecting "other" as the network to join, then calling it by the same network name as my existing wireless network. This then prompted me for the new password that I'd set up on the router last week.

Oh, and last week's problem was caused by me forgetting that I'd set up a "trusted wireless stations" list on the router. My new iMac couldn't join the network because it wasn't on the list. Again, OSX gave me no clues......