Okay, there’s got to be a Mac whiz out there somewhere:
I has issues. At home we have a Linksys Wireless-G Router, model WRT54G. Ed’s laptop (runs XP) connects to our mixed WPA network, no questions asked. My MacBook, when Boot Camp’d to XP, connects to the same network just fine. However, since day one, I’ve had to manually input an IP address into my Network settings in order for OS X to connect to the wireless. What gives? This sucks. My home network is the only network I’ve ever encountered this with and it is not good at all. Until now I’ve just been doing what I have to in order to get an internet connection at home, but I have officially Had It and I am Not Going To Take It Anymore.
You can tell I’m serious because I’m using Title Case.
Anyhoo. It appears this problem is present on ALL Macs in my humble abode; a friend’s MacBook Pro would not connect to the network and at the time we did not know this sneaky manual fix. I must fix it, and soon – my iPod Touch is having the same problem, and will not connect to my wireless network. Please help! Why do my Apple products hate me so much?
I know that once upon a time we had a very good reason to be running a WPA network instead of a WEP but I can’t remember that reason. If I switch, will everything be rainbows and lollipops again? Oh please help!
delicious juice dot com 
You want to keep using WEP, not WPA. WEP=bad encryption letting your neighbourz use your intertubes.
Googling ‘wrt54g “os x” dhcp’ turns up a bunch of hits with people having the same issues. Changing firmware revisions on the wrt54g seems to be the fix for them. Perhaps you’ve ended up with that same buggy firmware.
you mean keep using WPA right :D
I’ve monkied with everything short of running a packet sniffer on this to confirm the linksys just isn’t answering DHCP requests from macs. New firmwarez was no help, and switching the OS on the WRT54G wasn’t possible for some reason.. its the non-linux revision of the 54g or something.
I’m amazed this is a common issue yet neither linksys nor apple seem to have any information or a solution.
Errr, i think illie made a slight typo on that one: want to keep using WPA, WEP is the bad! (actually, you really want to use WPA2 but that’s a different rant and to get windows support you need a special service pack so its really more trouble than its worth).
http://www.wifiknight.com/wep-vs-wpa-a-brief-primer-article/
As for the WRT54G – the linksys firmware that comes default is The CRAP. Horrible nasty goblin of a useless firmware; also does NOT play nice with bitTorrents. That being said, the WRT54G has some daaaamn sweet hardware. Replace that there firmware with this 3rd party firmware and BOOM baby! BOOM!
GAH! Forgot to, you know, include the URL to the DD-WRT firmware!
And this is why i never post replies before my morning coffee:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/ddwrt.php
I will second the awesomeimity of DD-WRT.
Haha, that’ll teach me to make posts before going to bed. And yes, dd-wrt is awesome (especially if you have a model which has enough flash for more than the micro or mini version)