Can't get iBook to do wpa2.

Question

Hi,
I'm trying to get a mid 2005 iBook (1.42ghz with OSX 10.4.7 and all other current updates) to connect to my wireless network set up to use wpa2.
No matter what I do, the Mac stubbornly refuses to give me anything other than "The wireless network Kitten does not support the requested encryption method."
The AP is a Billion 7401VGP (firmware 5.07RC1 - which Billion sent me to try to help resolve the issue).
I have an Acer notebook with an Intel 2200bg wireless nic that connects just fine to this setup.
Both the AP and the Mac are set to wpa2-personal (pre-shared key).
If I set them both to wpa1-personal, everything works.
Another suggestion I found was to turn on interference robustness on the Mac.
When I do that and try to connect, the Mac waits a few seconds, then beeps, and the Internet Connect application disappears (though nothing gets logged by CrashReporter in the user's log directory).
What am I missing?
I've seen a lot of people who seem to have this issue with WPA2, but I've yet to find anything that gives a definitive solution.
If it helps, both the AP and the Mac (looking at the console messages), are showing constant associate/disassociate messages.
The mac seems to associate then immediately receive a DeAuth from the AP.
If I can provide any logs, messages, etc, or if there's some way to turn on useful debugging, please let me know.
Any help much appreciated.
ibook mid 2005   Mac OS X (10.4.7)  

Answer 1

Let's be sure  you are doing it correctly:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears.  Select the desired boot drive (you will have to wait about 20 seconds before you can make the selection) then click on the large right arrow button.  If this is what you are doing and it does not work, then you may need to re-prep the external drive and re-clone.
1.  Boot from your Tiger DVD. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button, then select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process will take 30 minutes to an hour or more depending upon the drive size.
After the above re-clone as follows:
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder. 
2. Select the startup volume from the left side list. 
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window. 
4. Drag the startup volume to the Source entry field. 
5. Select the backup volume from the leftside list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Check the box to Erase Destination.  Skip this step if you've already formatted the drive.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.