3 x Airport Extreme, 50+ users, lots of downtime and LinkSys RV0041

I have two base stations upstairs that have 50+ users on them daily. Every morning when I come in I have to power cycle both base stations in order to get them to work (I have had them both replaced, same problem). I have one Airport downstairs that has the same problem, though not so often. We have no Wireless phones or other wireless devices in the office (Other than Cellular phones and BlackBerry)
Another thing I want to do is have them be able to automatically switch to the closest or best signal airport (As depending where you are upstairs, depends on your signal)
All 3 are connected to our LinkSys RV0041. In the DHCP portion of the router, I have added the MAC addresses (Airport ID) and the Static IP's I have assigned each Base Station. I also have a couple hard wired machines with Static IPs that are added into this list as well.
Each Base Station is setup with Static IP's (192.168.1.2 - 192.168.1.4) with all the proper TCP/IP information (Subnet, Router and DNS).
Under Network, I have it set to Distribute IP addresses, and share a range of IP Addresses with a 16 Hour Lease.
The start and ending IPs that I have setup are:
192.168.1.5 - 192.168.1.120
192.168.1.121 - 162.168.1.214
192.168.1.215 - 192.168.1.254
There is no port mapping, no access control and no WDS setup on any of them. They are all password Protected with 128 WEP.
We have all Apple laptops (Mainly iBooks) and they are setup using DHCP. OS Ranges from 10.3-10.4 (Nothing below 10.3).
Sometimes one of the two base stations upstairs will stop working mid-day, forcing everybody onto one base station which slows everything to a crawl, I need to go up and reset the offending base to clear the jam.
I am looking for a solution to these problems as fast as possible before I start looking for other wireless solutions. This is really starting to make me angry that they cannot stay running for more than 24 hours (My base station at home works fine), but I cannot think of anything that I am doing wrong here (Though I do not claim to be a network specialist by any means.
Any and all input into this is appreciated, especially if you are a network specialist!
G5 1.8GHz DP Mac OS X (10.4.2)
G5 1.8GHz DP Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Sometimes one of the two base stations upstairs will stop working mid-day
When you say "stop working" what stops working:
a) the wireless
b) the IP distribution - can't get an IP address
c) none of the above, but connection fails
I am wondering if it is a IP address lease issue, in that the AEBS runs out of IP addresses to assign and therefore stops assigning IP addresses.
On my networks (which are nowhere as near as big) I leave the IP address assignation to the router and just use the AEBS as access points with Distribute IP addresses UNchecked.
iFelix

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I have an Airport Extreme, 2 laptops with windows 7 and a wireless HP printer. I can connect the laptops to the printer. Any advise?

I have an Airport Extreme, 2 laptops with windows 7 and a wireless HP printer. I am not able to connect the laptops to the printer. Any advise?

The problem is not the router.. the issue is the vpn has put your computer in a different IP range with a different gateway. When you turn off the vpn the computer returns to local lan and can print.
Some vpn software allows you to set gateway to use local net instead of remote gateway or access to other webistes or local lan.
Read up the issue.
http://stevejenkins.com/blog/2010/01/using-the-local-default-gateway-with-a-wind ows-vpn-connection/
Cisco vpn client..
https://supportforums.cisco.com/thread/239113
I did not search much.. just grabbed the first article I could find that explains the issue.
The whole point of the vpn is whilst it is connected your computer is NOT part of the Local Lan .. it is part of the Remote LAN via the vpn tunnel.
It is also a security risk using split tunnelling so often it will not be allowed.
Plug the printer directly into the computer via usb or whatever.. Local connection will work.. not local lan.

Why can't wireless devices connect to my airport extreme? i have 2 macbooks and an iTouch. only 1 macbook will connect. help!

i've had my airport extreme for over a year now. and it works perfectly with my original macbook. however, when other people visit, they can see my network but they can't connect. i also recently purchased a new macbook. and again, my new macbook will see my network but it won't connect. my iTouch has the same problem. help, please!

When only a single device can connect, that typically indicates that there may something not configured properly with the DHCP server service in the AirPort. Is your AirPort Extreme connected directly to a simple broadband modem or to another router upstream of it?
If it is a modem, please try a complete power recycle of all of your networking equipment.

HT3546 So i recently bought an Apple AirPort Extreme BaseStation (the mushroom shaped one) and was wondering if someone could tell me where and how to find a power cord and how to set it up with my Macintosh (2011 edition with 1.7.5) Thankyou! :)

So i recently bought an Apple AirPort Extreme BaseStation (the mushroom shaped one) and was wondering if someone could tell me where and how to find a power cord and how to set it up with my Macintosh (2011 edition with 1.7.5) Thankyou!

Welcome!
Last question first, as we need to know what operating system that the Mac is using.
If you are not sure, click the Apple icon in the upper left corner of the screen, then click About This Mac, and post back with the OS X Version number that you see there.
Two possible solutions on the power cord
ORIGINAL OEM APPLE AIRPORT EXTREME BASE STATION POWER SUPPLY AC ADAPTER A1202 if you want a white power supply and white power cord to match up with the Apple device
AC adapter for Apple AirPort A1034 Extreme B... if you don't care what color the supply and cord might be
If you don't already have a Setup Guide.....look here:
AirPort Extreme Base Station Setup Guide v4.2 (Manual)

My 2nd generation Airport Extreme very slow via wireless (5 and belows mbps) wired over 20. Please help!

My 2nd generation Airport Extreme very slow via wireless (5 and belows mbps) wired over 20. Please help! What could it be?

It is very possible that you may have some form of Wi-Fi interference nearby that is preventing your AEBSn from providing a clean RF signal on the 2.4 GHz band.
I suggest you perform a simple site survey, using utilities like iStumbler, or AirRadar to determine potential areas of interference, and then, try to either eliminate or significantly reduce them where possible.

Is AirPort Extreme Base Station the right device and reliable for my setup?

hey guys,
i got a 2012 13" macbook air, iphone5 and an 2012 appletv
ive also got two external usb3 2tb powered hdd's that i would to setup towards and use on my network.
i have videos/movies/files/music that i would like to access from the network,
so ive been looking at the extreme device and i can share via sb in the back x1 external hdd.
from what ive googled i can share more devices such as my x2 external hdd's via a powered hub, is that correct?
so my main question is..how fast is the read/copy/write going to be via through a hub?
will it lag/skip if i watch videos on my macbook or straight to my appletv, which supposedly i can do access aswell, is that correct?
just say video file will be 1gb only.. and im going to be only not even 5meters from the extreme device(network).
what transfer rate will it copy/write from and to from one device(usb3 external hdd via powered hub via airport extreme) to my mac?
what is the usb port on the back? 2 or 3?
does anyone have a similar setup or use an airport extreme device for this setup?
and my last question is...
how reliable are these extreme device?
from what i read, these devices only last like two yrs and people have had alot of problems issue with faults etc....

Speed of read/write: if you're going by wireless, you're going to be limited by the wireless speeds. Based on my usage, it seems like wireless N at 5 GHz tops out around 5-6 MB/s (40-48 mbps) with this router. That's fine for video streaming, but will feel slow for heavy file transfer activity.
The USB port on the back of the device is USB 2.0. As a reminder, USB 2.0 is rated for theoretical speeds of 480 mbps, although in practice they're much lower; regardless, it's much faster than the wireless protocols are capable of. Your bottleneck will be the wireless.
I only use a printer with my USB port, so I can't give you any real-world experience with sharing hard drives. You can use a USB hub to expand the ports, but it will need to be a self-powered hub: the Airport Extreme won't power devices through the port. It's also worth noting that trying to use a network-shared disk as a Time Machine drive is a bit flakey; I've read a number of reports where people got it working, but then had their backups become corrupt with time. I haven't read any reports of people having issues with using drives for purposes besides Time Machine, though.
As for reliability, it's hard to say. Nothing lasts forever; you'll find people whose devices failed very quickly, and some who are using generation 1 or 2 devices that are still working just fine. I haven't heard any reports of an usually high failure rate with Airport Extremes. Operation-wise, my Airport Extreme (5th gen) is the most stable router that I've used, and I went through four or five other routers before this one. It's the only router that I have not needed to reboot, even after months of uptime and heavy traffic that usually choked up my other routers. I'm very impressed with it.

Airport extreme wired user limit

I understand that the Airport Extreme has a 50 user limit. Is this limited to just the wireless clients, or does this include connections over the lan (wired)?
Thanks in advance.

Good question, because like similar questions, you will probably get more than one answere here.

Airport Extreme Disk works great on OSX and Windows XP but no go on Vista

Just bought the Airport Extreme and attached a Seagate 320GB HDD to the USB port (formatted MAC journaled).
Using the Airport Disk Ultility, I can access the NAS drive and read/write files from a 24" iMac and Windows XP PC.
But on the Vista PC, Airport Disk Ultility recognise there is a drive, but when I try to connect to it and enter the password, I get this error;
AirPort Disk Agent
Unknown user, incorrect password, or login is disabled. Please retype the login information or contact the disk's administrator.
I have tried setting the share to disk password, base station password and user accounts. All with the same error and only in Vista.
Has anyone managed to get the Airport Disk working in Vista?
24" iMac, windows XP/ Vista Mac OS X (10.4.8) Airport Extreme, Windows 2000 + XP + Vista

You may want to try the Airport for Windows discussions:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1014

AirPort Extreme Base Station (g/b): Downtime is increasing this year. Why?

I work in two schools with numerous wireless Macs. We've used AirPort Extreme (802.11g) base stations since 05-06. One school has 22 base stations and the other 18.
As the school year is progressing, the frequency of base station downtime and random falling off the network has increased dramatically. Most days when I walk in the building and check there are at least 20-30% down. I've taught a few teachers how to reset them by unplugging, waiting 30 seconds (or 5 minutes for stubborn ones), and replugging. Some teachers who "babysit" individual base stations have reported that they're down as many as 6-8 times per day!
There have been no significant network changes to cause these problems. (But, I am detecting leaking wireless signals from homes across the street.) I've tried reinstalling firmware (v5.7), but it doesn't help much. I've also repositioned a few... especially those which are near old microwave ovens.
Questions:
- As these things age, does the failure rate increase?
- Is there a network diagnostic tool I should use to find a source of the problem?
- Any other suggestions?
Thanks,
Dick

How reliable is the connexion to the internet itself? I ask because I had many more problems like this - admittedly on a tiny home network - before our ISP replaced our modem after it went on the blink. Some of those problems were resolved by cycling the modem. But many of them were resolved by resetting base stations. I don't know why a jittery modem should have that effect and I don't know that I won't have lots of evidence to undermine my hypothesis tomorrow, but it certainly seems as though I spend less time unplugging base stations now than I did before. Just a thought really.
- cfr

Connecting AirPort Extreme to my Windows desktop PC and MacBook

First I'd like to mention that I'm a brand new user of Macs so please excuse my ignorance. Is it at all possible to hook up my Windows PC and my Macbook Pro to the Airport Extreme so they can both share the same internet connection? I'm also pretty sure my Windows desktop PC is NOT Wifi ready. Help...thanks.
Macbook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Yes you can connect your PC via ethernet and your MBP can connect through ethernet or WiFi.

Is it possible to share a disk on airport extreme for both Time Capsule use and Windows use

Hello
I was hoping to add some better backup capacity to our home. Can I use the same disk attacheded to the USB port of an Airport Extreme for Time Capsule use for our Macbooks, as well as general use by the windows laptops> If not is it possible to add multiple disks to the Airport Extreme and designate one for Mac Laptops, and the other for Windows use.
Regards
Ted

Regardless of the client's OS, you can use the AirPort Disk (USB HDD attached to the AirPort Extreme's USB) port as a 'NAS' device. You also have the option of partitioning it if you actually want separate volumes to be used between Mac or Windows clients. I would recommend partitioning it for Mac OS Extended (Journaled) which would also format it for HFS+. Normally HFS+ volumes are not readable (natively) by Windows, but the Extreme's File Server will share this drive out with both AFP (for Macs) and SMB (for Windows/Linux) clients.
However, one note of caution. Do NOT use this AirPort Disk for Time Machine backups as this is NOT supported by Apple. Although a number of users have done so, a number of them also post here complaining of corrupted backups.

Airport Extreme- "Limited or no connectivity" over and over and over

Ok, our property manager gave us an Apple Extreme router (the old round one) and an Airport Express to use as an access point. I'm not an Apple guy, but hey, it was free. I used the the annoying Admin Utility software to configure the Extreme for security and all that (why can't we just configure it with a web browser??).
For the last two weeks, the Apple network consistently drops me 2-3 times per hour, and I get the "limited or no connectivity" notice on my system tray. This happens every time I leave my computer for more than 10 minutes. Usually when I click "repair connection", the network allows me to reconnect, but occasionally I have to reboot. I checked the utility and my router is using the 5.7 firmware, and I figured that perhaps going with a firmware update may prevent the Airport from dropping me all day long.
I can't seem to find any info on this problem. Searching Apple's support pages is disorienting because they don't always specify whether they're talking about the old Airport Extreme or the new 802.11n version. It's common sense that they should have a separate website for each router, since they are not the same thing, and also because they unfortunately bear the same name "EXTREME". After wandering in the fog for a while, I think that I have this right:
Apple Admin Utility 4.2 is all that is necessary to configure the Airport Extreme "Old Round One", and the Airport Utility 5.0 and later is only supported by the Airport Extreme "802.11n". Think I got that right.
Also, looking at the Admin Utility, there is an option in the top menu to "Upload Software", which I surmise means to flash the BIOS with the latest firmware.
First of all, has anyone here had this problem with the flying saucer Airport? Also, is 5.7 the latest firmware? If not, where is it on Apple's site? Is that the solution to my problem?
EDIT: The Airport Express is using the 6.3 firmware.
Dell Latitiude D610 Windows XP Pro

I have the exact same Issue: windows 7, 64-bit running on a Macbook Air 4gb via Bootcamp.
Internet disconects randomly exactly as described on the post above.
It is really annoying!
Any advice?
Thanks a lot!

How do I configure my Airport Extreme to work in Bridge Mode and provide specific IP addresses to clients

My Airport Extreme is working with an Airport Express to wirelessly extend my wireless network. Both Airports are configured in Bridge Mode per the instructions I found on Apple's support site. I want to assign a specific DHCP address to a wireless camera that is in range of the Extreme, but I understand that the Extreme needs to be in DHCP Only mode to do this. But if I change the mode to DHCP Only, the Extreme will lose contact with the Express. How can I get both functions to work - wireless network extension and specific DHCP addresses?

Then what device is providing DHCP? Only once device per subnet should be the DHCP server. One should be DHCP and NAT and the other in Bridge mode for most home setups. The unit with DHCP and NAT should be the one connected to your cable or DSL and the other set in Bridge mode only extends your network.
On the wireless config page set whichever you're using to extend your network to "Extend a wireless network" and give it the details of the network to which you're attaching it.

I am trying to connect an airport extreme to extend my wifi coverage and it doesn't work

I hope someone can help me.
I have an Apple Airport extreme gen 5. I have a BT router/modem that I connect to my broadband and its signal is OK but not great. I have multiple apple devices, a windows PC, and a Panasonic smart TV.
I also use Belkin poweline adaptors to attach the TV and apple TV to my network - its flaky.
I was trying to attach the airport extreme to a powline adaptor in the lounge to extend my wireless network - it was green for a while but then flashed orange and stopped working.
I have now reattached it directly to my router in the same room with an Ethernet cable and still get the orange light and the airport utility keeps asking to attach to the WAN port but then nothing works - I can still acccess the internet through my existing bt modem/router.
Any ideas please?

Click the Wireless tab just below the row of icons
Make sure that the setting for Wireless Mode is set to Create a wireless network
The Wireless Network name would be the same name as the BT network
The Wireless Security would be the same setting that the BT router is using....should be WPA2 Personal or WPA/WPA Personal
The Wireless Password would be the same password as the BT network
Verify Password
Click the Internet icon
Click the Internet Connection tab just below the icon
The setting for Connect Using should be Ethernet
The setting for Connection Sharing should be Off (Bridge Mode)
Click the Update button at lower right of the window and allow a full minute for the AirPort to restart
Power off both the BT modem/router and the AirPort
Wait a minute
Power up the BT device first for a few minutes
Then, power up the AirPort
Everything above is a "quick fix". If that does not work, we will have to start all over again from scratch.

Apple Airport Extreme Base Station for PPPoE, DHCP and NAT with ActionTec DSL modem

I just spent several hours trying to track down proper instructions for setting up my Apple AEBS to do the PPPoE, DHCP and NAT while connected to an ActionTec M1000 (no wireless module). It turns out my initial set ups on both devices were correct, but that the order for rebooting and reconnecting the two devices is critical. All of the threads I found on this forum and on many others suggested this was not possible, but it is. What I don't yet know is whether it is the best method for running my home network DSL connection to my ISP (CenturyLink).
The instructions I found that worked come courtesy of Brandon Konkle's blog and are both simple and clear: http://brandon.konkle.us/post/19637529637/centurylink-actiontec-q1000-airport-ex treme-bridge
The proper settings for the ActionTec DSL Modem can be found under Advanced Setup/IP Adressing/WAN IP Address
Click RFC 1483 Transparent Bridging then click on Apply.
(see also http://qwest.centurylink.com/internethelp/modems/m1000/pdf/M1000_BRIDGE.pdf )
To reduce time, do this BEFORE you reset your AEBS then set the AEBS so that you don't have to wait for the AEBS to reboot.
In contrast to what Brandon described for the Q1000 modem, my AEBS never reconnected to the modem (he describes his as getting an IP from his ISP, then dropping it then getting another over and over - mine never got an IP). Once you have reset both devices as described, the critical steps I have not found described elsewhere were:
1. Disconnect the power from both the modem and the Airport Extreme.
2. Disconnect the Ethernet cable between the two devices
3. Restore power to the 2 devices and allow them to fully reboot. For the ActionTec M1000, this is indicated when the lights stop blinking. (Note that the Internet light will NOT be lit in this instance since the modem is acting only as a bridge. You will NOT have an Internet connection until the AEBS is reconnected.) The AEBS will be blinking yellow.
4. Reconnect the Ethernet cable between the devices (make sure on the M1000 that you are using the connector with the circle icon over it, not the arrow icon).
Within about 60 seconds, the AEBS light went to steady green and the connection to the Internet was restored.
Now I have to see if this is a more stable configuration than the flaky one I had before while using the AEBS as a bridge and the M1000 to do everything.
Does anyone think or know if it will make a difference?
Message was edited by: Bud Shaw

Now I have to see if this is a more stable configuration than the flaky one I had before while using the AEBS as a bridge and the M1000 to do everything.
Does anyone think or know if it will make a difference?
No one can accurately predict in advance what the actual results might be. I've tried both ways with different products and cannot say that one method is better than the other. What works is best.
In theory, it is preferable to have the modem provide the PPPoE connection service since it is the device connected directly to the Internet.
In practice, results vary depending on the service provider, products used, phase of the moon, alignment of the planets, etc.

3 x Airport Extreme, 50+ users, lots of downtime and LinkSys RV0041

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