AE Works with Ethernet Cable, but not Wirelessly. Please Help!!

Question

I purchased the AE to run music streams via Airtunes from my wireless router/PC upstairs to my stereo downstairs. When I hook everything up upstairs with the ethernet cable, everything works like a charm, but the moment I remove the ethernet cable, the AE is not being picked up by the network. I set everything up for the wireless network (while the ethernet cable was hooked up) and have a green light on the AE, but when I try to use it wirelessly, it is blinking amber and not appearing within AirPort Utlity (only when hooked up with ethernet). I have a Westell 327W Wireless Modem/Router and could use some advice as to what I am doing wrong to get some tunes downstairs.
Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Hi:
I was chasing this very topic for a long while, then took a break.
You are suppose to be able to stream music from your PC to external stereo speakers via iTunes, thru an Airport Express (AE) wirelees connection.
Here's my status:
It is pretty easy to get a wireless connection up & running so that you can play music from your laptop/pc to external wirelss speakers via iTunes, thru AE.
I have that up & running. The problem comes in when trying to add the Airport Express to an already existing Linksys router's wireless network. When setting
the AE up, you'll most likely get 4 error messages that have to be addressed before you go from from a flashing amber LED to a solid green LED. If you are just using Apple's ad-hoc wireless conncetion, you'll need to use Airport Utility to address the 4 issues. Basically, Airport Utility doesn't know how to address AE, since it doesn't have any IP address to a network. The other 3 are simlar problems. If you just tell Aiport Utility to ignore each of these problems, you will get the solid green LED on AE, and you'll be able to stream music directly from your PC to your speakers, wirelessly, once you finish the AE configuartion, and Airport Utility reconfigures the AE.
I have my HP laptop and printer setup with a Linksys 54G Router and Printserver,
so that the laptop and printer communicate wirelssly via the Linksys Router.
Now comes the fun...trying to add the AE to this already existing wireless network. I could get the AE to work when I had an Ethernet cable connected directly from a port on the router to the AE, but when I disconnected the Ethernet cable, the router no longer saw the AE in the network. I followed all of the instructions in the Airport Utility software, went seeking advice on this
newsgroup, the web, etc. Found lots of good information, but a lot of it was outdated.
I have my Linksys wirless network setup with WEP-64 encryption.
From what I have gathered, it is much easeir to add the AE to a WPA/WPA2 network, than to a WEP64/128 network, just because of newer protocols.
The problem that I have is that WPA encryption works much slower for me than
WEP encryption. Example: iTunes is roughly 60 MB is size. Downloading it
using WPA, results is a download time of 22-23 minutes; where a download
using WEP-64 takes 75-80 seconds !
In the past, what I was trying to do was add the AE to my already existing
wireless network. Now, I have a wireless network for the AE. I want to try to add this network to my already existing wireless netowrk for the Linksys router.
I just haven't taken the time to try it yet. From what Apple tells me, Linksys makes this setup messy. The fact that the AE works by itself proves that the
device is OK.
For a history of the problems that I have been chasing in trying to get the AE setup and added to my already existing Linksys router network, visit the following link in the list of "problems" on this Apple newsgroup's web page.
Search for the folowing topic title:
Problems Setting-up Airport Express to Play Music thru External Speakers
Currently, is is at the bottom of page 12 of this discusssion group.
The info in it may be useful to you.
Please let me know if you get yours up & running in the Linksys wireless
network.
Thank you
DaleB ([email protected])