Mac mini loses wifi when an ubuntu computer is on the same network

Someone gave me their mac mini running osx 10.6.

I have a D-Link router at home. I want to connect my mac mini to the home network.

I start by turning off all other computers and wifi devices i have at home so that i make sure nothing else is on the wifi network.

I turn on my mac mini, and it automatically detects my home network. I select the network and enter a password that has wpa2 encryption. Mac mini successfully connects and i can surf the web, watch youtube videos, use skype etc...

I then go to another room and turn on my Dell laptop. It also successfully connects to the home network and can surf the web. But now all of a sudden, my mac mini loses wifi connection because no matter what url i put into safari, it says can not connect to "domain name". I can't even use safari to open up 192.168.0.1 which should show my router user interface.

I then close the lid on my laptop. Now all of a sudden my mac mini has internet connection again. I open the laptop lid, the mac mini loses internet connection.

How do i fix this i problem?

ADDITIONAL NOTES

I just noticed my mac mini loses connection ONLY IF MY LINUX laptop jumps on the same wifi network. In otherwords, if i boot my laptop into windows instead, my mac mini remains on the wifi network. If I boot my laptop into ubuntu linux, then it kicks my mac mini off the wifi network. I have other cmoputers and phones connected to the wifi network and it doesn't affect the mac mini wifi.

So it's only my dell laptop when in Ubuntu Linux that kicks my mac mini off of wifi.

My linux laptop is at IP address 192.168.0.102. My mac mini is on IP address 192.168.0.110. So there's no conflict with IP ...

Does anyone know how to correct this problem?

Solution 1:

Try locking down the MAC address into the router to a specific IP address. MAC address is media access controller not the mac mini. The router will dhcp the same IP each time you connect.