I have a weird issue with the WiFi on my MacBook.  At home I use an Airport Extreme 802.11N Network (5Ghz N-Only, not the newer dual-band model) with WPA2 enabled that I connect to and use with Time Machine. Works great.  If you’re looking for an access point and don’t mind the premium price, I highly recommend the Airport Extreme.

Anyway, back to the problem.  Sometimes when I leave my house and travel other places, like my office, I can’t connect to the local Wifi. At work they have an 802.11B/G with WEP-128 that I connect to, but my laptop simply refuses to obtain an IP address.  It connects up successfully, but I can’t get an IP address until I completely reboot the system.

I’ve tried deleting/re-adding my WiFi device, no luck.  I’ve tried turning Airport Off and On, no luck.  I’ve tried tinkering with various settings, no luck.  And the problem isn’t isolated to work, I see similar behavior at hotels and airports, where sometimes the WiFi simply fails to obtain an IP address and a reboot fixes the problem.

Anyone else experience this?  Is there a more elegant solution that rebooting?

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