Originally Posted by
sbm12
Yes it would. I "connect" all the time (associate to the AP) but don't get an IP address. I end up with an APIPA address (169.254.n.n) and zero connectivity, but Windows is blissfully ignorant of that problem. In Vista you'll usually get the yellow exclamation point on the connection icon on the systray.
We're saying the same thing, sort of. Connecting / associating with an AP is entirely different than being connected to a network.
What I said is accurate - If you connect to an AP with MAC filtering enabled, you will not get an IP address from the DHCP server and therefore you will not be connected to the network. And as you said, Windows would alert you that there is a problem via the yellow exclamation point.
On the other hand, the OP's original question was in reference to how you could be successfully connected to a network but not have Internet access. In this scenario MAC filtering could not be involved, because if it was, your computer (his Mac, in this case) would not have network connectivity and would alert you that you have connectivity issues.
Yes I admit that we're probably getting too far down the technical track for this thread, and I'm also going off the assumption that the OP would haven mentioned any errors or warnings that he was seeing. Since he eluded to everything appearing normal on his laptop, I am jumping to the conclusion that MAC filtering can be safely ruled out.