I have a new iPod Touch, and an old(er) Mac. To connect my iPod Touch to the internet at home, I set up my Mac to share its internet connection (ethernet) over wifi.
I'm running Mac OS X 10.5.8 on an Intel (Core 2 Duo) Mac. For completeness, the "sharing" control panel says:
Share your connections from: Built-in Ethernet
To computers using: (X) Airport
and the Airport Options say:
Network Name: (some name)
Channel: Automatic
[X] Enable encryption (using WEP)
Password: (some 5-letter word)
Confirm password: (again)
WEP Key Length: 40-bit (more compatible)
I used this setup for a couple weeks with no problem at all. A day or two ago, sometime in the afternoon, it got funny: the connection would work for a few seconds just fine, and then cut out for a few seconds, then come back, etc. Sometimes I can sit here with my iPod and watch the network status icon at the top of the display come and go.
It's not a strength issue: I'm right next to it, and it always shows max bars in the iPod control panel. It's not a WEP issue, because it accepts my password, and if I turn off WEP entirely it does the same thing. If I'm in the iPod control panel, it always shows max signal strength for my network -- it just disconnects me regularly, and frequently. (This is especially annoying if I go into an app like Safari, because it asks me to pick a network and retype my password every 10 seconds.) It's not an iPod issue, because the wifi still works perfectly on all other wireless networks I use.
Has anyone seen this before? I haven't tried rebooting yet because I have a ton of things open. Is there some way to restart the networking subsystem on Mac OS that might help this?