I have an old wireless network that shows up when both the router and the modem are off. It is left from before I installed the new hard drive, etc, and has something to do with Time Warner turning on the wireless part of the modem I have from them that I don't use. I had them turn the wireless part off, but it 'lives' somewhere in my mac and the router is not working right as long as it is there.

I have tried deleting it from the Network Control Panel, and pulling a lot of prefs, but I don't know where it is coming from.

I would question how Time Warner turned off your "wireless part". You might try doing it on your own. It's not that hard.

You should be able to log into your router directly via a web browser. It's address will be something like 192.168.1.xxx; look in the Network Preference pane and it should show the address. Just type this into the browser address field. Your router login and password are probably "admin" and "password" (or "admin" for the latter too).

Once in you will see a normal looking web site and web pages, one of which should allow you to control your wireless network. You can do more than just turn it off from there, you can also delete the offending network.

They disabled it on their end so can't log in. I get my router on that IP. Something is listing that network even when the modem and the router are off...

Have you looked at System Prefs > Network > Advanced > AirPort?

Edit: Or is that what you meant by "Network Control Panel"?

I deleted it from there but it lives on! I deleted the airport, network identification, and network configuration prefs from the system configuration folder in the Library>Preferences Folder on the root. In the user library folder, I deleted the airport utility pref, the internetconfigpriv pref,and the network utility pref. Where does it live???

Zapped the Pram, gave the computer the "four finger salute" on startup and everything else I could thing of. Do I need a Ghostbuster for a Ghost network?

> I have an old wireless network that shows up....

just to be certain that we're all talking the same language, where does your network "show up"?

Do you mean that if you physically disconnect the power from the Time-Warner modem and from your own router, the phantom network still appears as a network option when you click on the Network icon on your menu bar?

Yes.

From what I've heard, Time Warner has always needed to be exorcised.

Is that network positively identifiable by its name as the one you think it is?

Edit: What happens if you try to connect to it?

Yes. I did just do what Ira suggested, accessed the cable modem via its IP address, and, of course, TW did not disable the wireless signal. Great thinking, Ira. ("TrustNo1", Kiefer Southerland's password, I'm told, on the show '24'.) Especially TW. The modem kind of got stuck disabling the wireless, was efforting the reset for about an hour, but the indicator lights for the 2.4 and 5 GHz network on it turned off. Good enough. I was able somehow to add my router to that network but the results were funky. Was afraid of creating yet another phantom network. Had changed the password on the funky network, wherever it was living, using my router to see if the router and the modem were on the same network, luckily the router's IP is myrouter.local so there was no address conflict and was able to do this. The password change worked.

I guess it may be possible for the TW box to maintain the wireless signal even when turned off? Seems weird, may be true. Will follow up tomorrow.

Artie, get some sleep! It's almost 5 am.

I've stayed up all night or as close to it as I've been able since the day (in high school) I discovered that the world didn't end when my parents went to sleep.

I generally crash between 7 and 9 and sleep and/or roll around the bed 'til 4 unless it's a beach day.

And what's your excuse?

(Still need Ghostbusters?)

Beach day. Nice going.

"No real "excuse" for being awake in the middle of the night. Trouble staying asleep.

I am bringing the modem to TW today. I don't think it ever finished turning off the wireless and now I can't access it through an IP. I think it no longer has one. A beach day is sounding better and better.

Note: I connected the computer to the router with an ethernet cable and in the network control panel it claims the address for the ethernet network is a number starting with 69.86... but it cannot connect to that number. "You're call cannot be completed as dialed," I guess.

TW finally had a DOCSIS 3 modem available that does not have wireless capacity. Ghost network went away. No real explanation for why the network was there when the modem and router were off. Paranormal Activity.