Thanks so much for this clear advice, it really helped me set up my Wii with my Airport Express.

thanks for the useful and helpful information. was able to configure everything in a matter of a few minutes. thanks again

And a note for young players, what Apple refers to as “40-bit” WEP *is* just the same thing as what everyone else calls 64-bit WEP. Just to add to the confusion

– Dave

Hey there. My friend uses a Mac with OS X, and I’ve got a windows based computer. He also uses two Airport Expresses, one upstairs connected to his modem, and another downstairs in order to increase the range of the wireless internet. His Wii doesn’t see the access point, so it won’t connect. He keeps getting the error codes 52030 and 52031, but the nintendo site advice doens’t help much.

I’m about to explode with frustration, my Wii connected immediately with my Belkin wireless router. I tried to add his MAC address incase that was the problem..but I’m not sure how. This is so frustrating, I’m not sure what to do.

I need help!

Did you add the Wii’s MAC address to both Airport Express using the admin tool in OS X?

No, I didn’t try that. Next time I’m there I’ll give that a try. Thanks

Thanks for posting this!

Thanks for posting this. You did a great job explaining it really clearly!

I have been trying to set up my airport express connection with my wii since November. I called and talked to tech support a few times and they told me that wii doesn’t work with macs, because nobody uses macs anymore. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

I found the most important part was to use exactly the right length of WEP password. If your using 128-bit make sure your wireless password is 13 characters.

I have an iMac, it’s my first mac. So I am still new to things. I still haven’t figure this out yet. Where is the admin tool so I can add the Wii’s MAC address?

Hey Justan, you should find the airport admin utility in your Utilities folder. You can also find it using spotlight by searching for “airport admin utility”. If you can’t find it then you may need to install it using the disk that came packaged with your airport express.

So where does one get a 13 char hex password from their Mac? I cant get my Wii on our 128bit WEP network at all. I’ve converted the passwd to HEX and no dice. Im thinking of just changing the security on all my airports or WPA2 AES tho I have no idea which is aes looking what apple calls them.

Simon, why do you have to convert your 13 character password to hex? Why not use ASCII?

Is the Wii 802.11g or only 802.11b?

The Wii has a Mitsumi DWM-W004 WiFi 802.11b/g wireless module, so it supports both 802.11b and 802.11g.

Your info was quite helpful! I don’t suppose you could explain to me why the Wii is completely befuddled by my AirPort’s password?

I’ve been trying to get my Wii to connect via Airport Express all day with no luck, my iMac and iPhone are both connected, although I did have to set fixed ip addresses to them as fro some reason the Airport Express kept giving them the same ones. With the Wii it sees my network I enter the WEP password (13 characters) and it tests the connection then gives me the 52030 error. It’s driving me mad, any suggestions?

You could try removing security from your Airport Express so that no password is required. This will allow you to verify that it is in fact a problem with your WEP password. Then enable security again after your testing is complete, and report back on your findings.

fra, did you configure your Airport Express to use Channel 1? These channels have different WEP key slots, and the Wii is only compatible with the WEP key in Channel 1.

For a more secure wifi network you should really be using WPA2 with a passphrase between 8 and 63 ASCII characters.

I just checked my Airport Express is using Channel 1 (Automatic)

No how do I configure it to use Channel 1? I am using OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

No how do I configure it to use Channel 1? I am using OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

Ive changed my airport to channel 1, added my wii to my mac address, and have successfully browsed operah and used the wifi message board. yet when i attempt to play brawl online, it has to much lagg to do anything other than sending stages/pics and spectator mode.
friend battles have too much lagg
and random battles never find an opponent before i am dumped saying: connection to opponent was lost, returning to menu or something of the like.

can anyone help me?

I came upon this site looking to help my son connect his new Wii to our home wireless network (Mac’s running 10.4 connected via an Airport Extreme). I might suggest a relatively easy approach that I have found works. The main problem I found was in getting the correct password to allow the Wii to login to the Airport system. This password is in the Airport configuration file. Open the Airport Admin Utility in the Utility folder in Applications. Click on Configure and enter your password to open the menu. Go to the “Airport” page and click on the lock icon to open the box with the password. This box will say “to connect to the airport network created by this base station from a computer not using the airport software,” (this is the Wii) “you should use the following: Hex equivalent password (WEP key)” There will be an ~26 character password. You do not have to change security (128 WEP), channel (leave on automatic), or mode (leave on 802.11b/g). When connecting the Wii to the wireless network go to Wii settings, select “internet”, select “connection settings”, select a connection that says “none”, select “wireless connection” (this assumes you system is on), select “search for access point”, from the next page select your Airport system, it will then ask for the password. Enter the ~26 character WEP key password here. This should allow the Wii to access the Airport network like any other computer. From there on everything has seemed to work for us. Hope this helps any other first timers who are trying to sort out the Mac - Wii wireless connection.

Thanks so much for the help on this page! I kept wondering why it wouldn’t accept what I thought was the password…

Hello.
I live in a college dorm room. and Ive got horrible lag… but i really cant fool around with any settings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WfMjm6JFes

Will an airport express help me?

Hey Zenjamin, that is bad lag! I haven’t got a copy of Smash Bros to test for myself, so I don’t think I could be of much help at this point in time.

This might be a bad question! I have a new imac with a regular hi speed cable modem box for (Brighthouse Network). I’m looking at getting a Airport Express to connect to the Wii. Will this work? Or will I need a wireless router?

I can’t seem to get my Wii connected to the Internet.

I have a Apple Base Station (Graphite) and have disabled all security.

I don’t know how to add a MAC Address to my router. It that the problem??

I figured out how to add the Wii’s MAC Address, but that was not the problem.

Frustrating.

Scott, your setup sounds similar to mine. I connect my adsl modem to my Airport Express via USB, and use the Airport Express as a wireless router for my home network. So, yes it should work, and no you don’t need a wireless router.

Russell, I am not sure how to help you out with your problem. More details on your setup may help with diagnosing the problem though.

Okay, where should I start?

I am looking for a solution. I would like all of the items listed below to seamlessly connect to the internet (using minimal devices):

1) Desktop: Mac OS X, Intel Core Duo
2) Laptop: Mac Book Pro, Intel Core 2 Duo
3) Wii
4) Modem: DSL high speed

Before making any purchases, I would like to hear what would work. Than from there I would need to know how to setup all applications as well as security settings and updates etc…

Any suggestion to where I should start?

Hello???

I would buy an Apple Airport Express and connect it to your DSL high speed modem. This will be your wireless network for which you can connect your Desktop, Laptop and Wii to. That is assuming you have a wireless card in your Desktop mac. Otherwise you will need a hub to connect to your Airport Express so that you can connect your modem and Desktop to.

thank you soooo much for the detailed info on wireless passwords and the Wii. saved me lots of frustration!!

Thanks so much for posting this info! You saved my night and you rock!

Ah! I hope this gets it sorted! Gonna fiddle with settings when I get home…

Thank you, Roger! My 15-yr old has been bent out of shape getting his Wii to work with our Airport Extreme wi-fi network. I never really noticed the lock icon in Airport Utility. It works with OS 10.3.9 also.

A few months ago I tried connecting my Wii to our Airport Extreme (802.11g). The only setting I changed was the WEP from 40 to 128. The channel was (and is still) set to 1 (Automatic). For some reason, the day after I connected my Wii our wireless network just stopped working and we basically had to reboot the entire network. Ultimately what fixed the whole problem was switching back to the WEP-40.

Now I wanted to try it again, with the WEP 40 settings, however I am worried about this all happening again since the network was down for over a day. What can I do to avoid it? Has problems like this been reported before?

Ok i had my internet connected to my wii but one day my internet dropped with comcast annd my dad got on the phone and the guy on the phone told him to chaange some numbers so he did but now i have the new ip adress and everything it wont work please help i had it connected through airport