Macs usually come with a built-in wireless card called an “AirPort Card.” Airport cards should not need any pre-configuration or setup as they (usually) come installed from the factory. If you have a Mac and feel that you have no wireless/Airport card installed (or it is “missing”) please see us in person.

First, make sure AirPort is on. To do this, go to the AirPort icon in the upper right of your screen. Click the icon and pull down to “Turn AirPort On”:

Next, once AirPort is on and has started up, you should see a network pop up in the second section of this pull down window called “kuawireless.” Select “kuawireless” and let it connect to the network. After you turn on Airport, you may also find a new dialog box pop up asking you if you would like to join the network “kuawireless.” This sometimes happens the first time you ever connect to the network and it is fine to connect through this box too.

Lastly, there is a chance you may not see “kuawireless“ in the list and your computer may not automatically discover kuawireless. If this happens (and you are on campus) you can manually join the network by pulling the same AirPort menu down to “Join Other Network…” After you select that, a new dialog box should open asking you to “Enter the name of the network.” The network SSID is: kuawireless and you should type that where it says “Network Name:” Leave “Security:” as “None.” Then click Join. This should manually join the KUA wireless network.

If none of these methods work, or the process looks dramatically different from what is described here, first try restarting the computer. If all else fails, you may need to come visit us in person to troubleshoot the problem.

We have found that the wireless connection is more reliable if you use the configuration utility that comes with your wireless card instead of letting Windows configure your wireless. If you want to do this yourself, here are some directions. If you’d like the tech center staff to do it, bring your laptop to the tech center. You will probably need to leave it for a day or two. 

First Disable Wireless Zero Configuration. Right click on the My Computer icon on your desktop or Start Menu. Select Manage from the menu that appears. Your screen then should look like the image below:

Next, left click on the plus sign next to Services and Applications and then left lick on the word Services. Scroll down until you find Wireless Zero Configuration.  

Right click on Windows Zero Configuration and select Propertiesfrom the menu. If the service status says it is running, click on the stop button. After you have stopped the service, change the startup type from Automatic to Disabled. The properties for Wireless Zero Configuration should look like the image below when you are done.