Airport Base station (g) and Express (g) - Which is better?

I have both from an older wireless system in the house. Both were replaced by a new Time Capsule, which is an (n) system, of course. I currently use the older base station for my printer so all computers can use it wirelessly. The Express is at the other end of the house supplying wireless to my entertainment center.
The Q: would it be better to move the base station to the entertainment center, or would it even make a difference. It seems it wouldn't matter, but I thought I would ask anyway.

The Q: would it be better to move the base station to the entertainment center, or would it even make a difference. It seems it wouldn't matter, but I thought I would ask anyway.
Let's review the absolute best way to connect and then work back from there so you can make a decision based on your requirements.
The "best" connection in terms of performance (speed and network bandwidth) is always a wired ethernet connection. Newer routers and computers will allow Gigabit speeds between devices up to 300+ feet away. In terms of numbers, that's 1000 Mbps.
The very best 802.11n 5 GHz wireless systems will allow up to 300 Mbps bandwidth. Most "n" wireless systems are operating at 2.4 GHz, which will allow up to 130 Mbps. I think you may already be seeing where this is going.
Now, the bandwidth (speed capability) on any wireless system falls off in proportion to the distance from the main router to the device receiving the signal. It's not exactly accurate, but safe to say that a device at 50 feet from the main router is only going to get about half of the signal that a device at 25 feet will get.
So, with wireless, the rules are always the same. The closer a device is to the broadcast source, the better the performance. Any obstructions like walls or ceiling that absorb the signal come into play as well.
I think you have your answer.

Similar Messages

Airport Base station or Airport express to use wirelessly for dial up ?

I have an Ibook G4 1.33 with a Airport extreme card.
I currently have it set it up to the wireless modem that my phone company provided for me for my DSL service.
Unfortunately I am moving to an area that does not have DSL service. I would like to know if I can set up my Ibook to use it wirelessly and have it connected to an Airport base station or Airport express in order to have my dial up service to work wirelessly???? So Airport base station or Aiport Express?? Many Thanks in advance- Geof
IBook G4 1.33 12 1.5GB, Vintage Imac , Ipod with video, Ipod Nano Mac OS X (10.4.3)

The only base station with dial-up capability (in addition to traditional ethernet equipped modem capability) is the AirPort Extreme Base Station w/modem. Check the Apple Store to look over the details, and make sure you are looking at the AEBS with the modem (there is also a version without a dial-up modem which will not work in your application).

Airport Base Station Agent with Windows 7 and 8.1

I am running an older HP desktop with Windows 7 and installed/set up Airport Base Station Agent successfully. I am in the process of transferring primary network control over to a newer HP Laptop with 8.1. The older computer will be retired eventually.
Can both computers be running the Airport Base Station Agent and not disturb the Airport Base Station Agent setup?
Or, to avoid potential Windows 7/8 conflicts, should I install the Airport Base Station Agent on the Windows 8.1 and delete/uninstall it on the Windows 7 computer (and would that require setting up again?). I am using an Airport Extreme with an Airport Express (802.11n) as an extension. Both Windows systems are fully up to date with Microsoft and HP support.

I probably can go ahead and download/install Airport Utility on the new HP Envy Windows 8.1 (AirPort Utility 5.6.1 for Windows) and not be worried about conflicts with the 2 computers and different Windows?
There is no conflict.
http://www.starwars.com/video/there-is-no-conflict
But the evil empire is still not 100% overwhelmed by the dark side.
You might need some apple stuff in there eventually.

Ipad Bluetooth airport base station hack

Is it possible for someone to hack into iPad2 via Bluetooth to access airport base station app and get onto my wifi connection? I had iPhone 5 and iPad 2 connected. Suddenly airport utility show disconnected and the name of iPhone device is changed. I turned off wifi on the phone and still shows 2 devices connected. Also I noticed Bluetooth was on for the iPad which I always keep off.

No, not possible. You're clutching at straws...

My Airport Base Station does not appear in the Airport Admin Utility

I cannot see my airport extreme base station in the Airport Admin Utility nor in Airport Setup Assistant via Airport. It worked yesterday but when I was trying to set up a network something must have changed but I don't know what it is. (The setup didn't work so I am only using one base station right now.) The only way I can configure/reconfigure the base station is by physically connecting via an ethernet cable. Then no problem. I have two computers and neither can access the base station with Airport Admin Utility via Airport. I have installed the latest Airport Update but nothing has changed. What happened?

You should be able to use the second Airport Extreme
Base Station as a wireless print server. What I
suggest you do is:
1. run the Airport Admin Utility and clean up
settings on your existing Base Station:
- under the Airport tab, make sure you have not
selected to "create a closed network"
- under the Access Control tab, clear out all
settings
- under the WDS tab, clear out all settings
- under the Network tab, make sure the box is checked
to "Distribute IP addresses" and "Share a single IP
address using DHCP and NAT".
- update settings to the Base Station if you changed
anything.
2. do a hard reset of your second base station per:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107451
3. for now, put both base stations and the Mac in the
same room. Run the Airport Setup Assistant, and use
its guidance to configure the second base station as
a new base station that "extends" the wireless
network of your main base station.
That should do it.
Thanks very much. The printer works great from both computers via my second airport base station. And I can see both my base stations in the Airport Admin Utility.

How can i use an airport base station and multiple airport expresses with U-verse and still use wireless tv boxes?

I just got uverse, and when I put my Airport Base Station in Bridge mode I lose access to the 4 airport express stations I have. Can anyone tell me how to turn off the u-verse wireless, set up a network with all the apple stations and still have wireless u-verse tv boxes work? Thanks!

Can I relocate the airport base station to downstairs and connect it to the Sawtooth there for receiving wireless from the Verizon router and broadcast further to its wireless network?
Sorry but no the AirPort Extreme base station (AEBS) will not wirelessly connect to the network provided by the Verizon FiOS router.
What you could do is get another AEBS, an AX, or a Time Capsule and place that downstairs. Then use that device to wirelessly connect to the wireless network provided by your current AEBS. If your current AEBS is not 802.11n capable then you would need to use WDS to make this happen. One bad thing about WDS is that each WDS link cuts your affective wireless bandwidth in half.

HT4145 I have an Airport Extreme bas station now and I want to know if I can use an Airport Express to extend my network or do I have to use another Airport Extreme base.

I have an Airport Extreme Base Station now and I would like to know if I can use an Airport Express to extend my wifi network or do I have to use another Airport Extreme Base Station.

This AirPort Express:
http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/
It is the only Express with 2 Ethernet ports. All others are "old"
Apple does not specify a model number in their product information, but it is A1392 in the U.S. I do not know if Apple uses different model numbers in other countries.

AirPort Utility not detecting Airport Base Station nor Airport Express

Earlier today, we were listening to music on multiple speakers (computer and airtunes / airport express) as we always do. Nothing new here. Stereo speakers stopped and computer lost connection with Airport Express. Couldn't get it to reconnect. Unplugged airport express and plugged it back in - no dice. Hard restart.....AirPort Utility detected it once and I tried to reconfigure. Got an error message at the end of configuration.....
Now.....
Airport Utility doesn't even pick up the Airport Express. Not only that, it doesn't pick up the Airport base station, which we use for our internet connection (and I'm using right now). Both are old - Airport base station is the round small anthill looking one (probably about 6 or 7 years old) and airport express is about 5 years old. Never had a problem with either. Airport Utility is 5.4.2.
For now, Airport base station is working, but I don't have access to it via Airport Utility. Airport express just flashes amber......

Welcome to the discussions!
Not sure what to suggest that you may have not already tried. I would recommend that you start with the base station first to see if you can access the settings in AirPort Utility.
Have you tried connecting an ethernet cable from your computer directly to one of the LAN ports on your base station to see if that will help? Power down your base station and computer before you hook up the ethernet cable. If no luck at first, leave the ethernet cable connected as sometimes the base station will simply "appear" after a few minutes.
If still no luck after several tries, your only alternative is to hard reset the router back to factory defaults and try to reconfigure it.
Once you get the base station back, you can use the same procedure on the Express to see if you can reconfigure it.

"No configured AirPort base stations have been found." I can see the content of the TimeCapsule's drive in finder and Time Machine but it no longer is making backups. Ideas?

Bought new TimeCapsule March 2013. Worked fine. Now get "No configured AirPort base stations have been found." I can see the content of the TimeCapsule's drive in finder and Time Machine but it no longer is making backups. Ideas?

Make sure that you have AirPort Utility 6.3.1 installed on your Mac.
AirPort Utility 6.3.1 for Mac - Support - Apple
Then, power off the entire network...all devices...in any order that you want
Wait a minute, then start the modem first and let it run a full minute
Start the next device connected to the modem, which may be your Time Capsule and let it run a minute
Keep starting devices one at a time the same way until the entire network is back up
See if AirPort Utility can "see" the Time Capsule now.
If yes, try another backup. If you encounter an error message, post back with the exact message.

AirPort Base Station disk username and password not working

I got a new AirPort Base Station the other day and everything worked fine until I started to set up the networked disk. On my mac it works fine, it just pops up when I connect to the network ( woot for macs ). On my windows it asks for the username and password. After I enter it it comes up with "Unknown user, incorrect password, or login is disabled. Please retype the login information or contact the disk's administrator." I have tried to log into the disk on 2 other computers running windows xp with the same problem. What is wrong with it and how do I fix it?

Specifically, I had the typical problem connecting when using Windows Live OneCare, despite allowing AirPort Disk Agent in its firewall pop-up.
This is the procedure which unlocked access via AirPort Disk Agent:
Double Click Windows Live OneCare icon in system tray. Or use your own means to get its main window open.
Click the "Change OneCare Settings" topic listed along the left edge column. This will open a new dialog box.
Click the "Firewall" tab of this new dialog box.
Click the "Firewall connection tool" button shown right under the protection level slider. This will open yet another dialog box.
At the top of the list in this "Set up connections" dialog box will be a checkbox (probably unchecked) next to the words "Network Discovery: Browse your network to find printers, computers and other devices."
CHECK THAT BOX.
Close all the dialog boxes using an OK button where available, else the usual [X].
Left-click the AirPort Disk Agent icon in your system tray. From the menu that pops up, select the disk you were having trouble with. Enter its password (the one you know works from a Mac, if appropriate).
After a delay, your "My Computer" window should show a new drive. If you have window settings appropriate to this display, the drive should appear under the "Network Drives" category. In my case, it became drive Z:.

New modem and router. Now my airport base stations don't work

New moden and router and now I've been unable to get the two airport base stations to work for transmitting the Wi-Fi to other areas of the house

Ok, if your goal is to use the two AirPort base stations to extend the wireless network provided by the Netgear router using a wireless connection between them, then this won't work as the two are incompatible for this feature.
However, if you can use wired connections then the three can be reconfigured for a roaming network which basically provides the same thing.

Sky and Airport Base Station setup

Hi,
I seem to be having all kinds of issues with my Wireless network setup. So much so that I'm going insane with it all.
Now I don't pretend to be an expert in networking issues, I'm a consumer and I am a designer - I don't do technical stuff. Hence why I am asking the question here.
But I am a good listener, and I'm hoping to learn how to do this the right way.
Ok.
I have a router that came with my Sky Broadband, and I have an Airport Base Station which I connect to my Sky Router and broadcast a network from the Airport.
Problem is I think I've messed up settings and it's just on an unbelievable go-slow.
Rather than me try and detail all my settings, what are the ideal settings for something like this?
I'm getting less than 1mb download speeds, when I should be getting closer to 7.
I've got iStumbler installed and i've got like 40% signal with 12% noise.
Now I've just noticed my Airport Base Station is showing a warning icon and that the device is not found.
Help.

Timothy, you're right... the change to 10.4.8 has had us in "Airport ****" ever since the update. Whenever the PB can't find the Airport Extreme (more than 1/2 the time), we open "Network" in "System Preferences" and it's trying to use a 10.xxx address, instead of the 192.xxx or 168.xxx that it should be using.
Our work-around has been to click the "Configure" Button in the "Network" window and then click the "Renew DHCP Lease" button. This results in a change to the address... to a 192.xxx address, as it should be.
Your post got me to thinking, so I went into the "Airport Admin Utility", selected our Airport Extreme Base Station, and clicked on the "Configure" icon. When I went to the third tab (Network) I saw the "Share a single IP address" was set to use a 10.xxx address! What? So, I changed it to use a 192.xxx since there is no 168.xxx option. I have a feeling this may solve our problem...

Airport base station and connectivity problems

Hi all,
Heres what I know about my internet connectivity issues. I have a cable broadband (Motorola Surfboard) modem and I'm fine getting a connection when I am hooked directly from the modem into the back of my G4.
The wierd thing is that when I have my Airport (old school flying saucer shaped one) hooked up between my G4 and the modem I don't even get a signal on my tower any longer let alone my laptop. I have an ethernet cable running from the port on the base station with the circle of dots to my modem. I have a ethernet cable running from the ethernet looking port (arrows and dots) on the base station to the G4 tower.
What I don't get is why I wouldn't at least be still getting a signal to my tower? All of the appropriate lights on my modem are still lit up. I took it in a few days ago to an Apple store and the guy at the Genius Bar confirmed the Base Station is working fine. Why does my computer now not like being hooked up thru my base station? I've checked all of the network settings and all seems to be fine.
Any help or ideas will be appreciated. This is driving me nuts.
Thanks,
Vance

I may have misunderstood your original question. If you want to use both your older Airport as well as the newer dual band one, you certainly can, but first describe which model your older Airport is and what specifically you wish to accomplish by using both.
There's no advantage of keeping the older one in service unless one Airport base station is unable to create a wireless network with sufficient range for your needs. There are as many as three different ways of doing that depending on which older one you have: a Wireless Distribution System (WDS) which can only use 802.11b/g, an "extended" network, which can only be accomplished with an 802.11n network, or a "roaming" network in which the Airports are connected to each other using their Ethernet LAN ports. This last method is the most preferable, but obviously requires that you run a cable between them.
Use Airport Utility to configure the Extreme. Read about designing networks in the Apple AirPort Networks manual.
In any event you don't need to use both Airport base stations if all you want to do is have a wireless network that can serve both your iMac and your Powerbook. Any Airport base station Apple ever built can serve both. The newest Extreme just adds more features.

Airport Base Station and Toshiba Notebook

I've got a Powerbook G4 and an HP Pavillion which both work just fine with the base station. However, we acquired a Toshiba Notebook and cannot connect to the internet. Signal Strength is excellent, internet connection is nonexistent. I'm wondering if there is an update that's designed to fix a compatability problem....?
I've had two extensive phone calls with Toshiba's tech support already...and they both thought that the problem was with the ip address (assigned by Apple). They suggested also, trying to find a wi-fi hot spot to see if we can connect. The problem is stated below:
- Caller advised that she cannot connect to the internet wirelessly.
- Asked the caller to turn ON wireless switch : its already turned ON
- Asked the caller to access wireless zero configuration : it is already started
- Asked the caller to look at available wireless networks
- Computer is connected but it does not have a valid ipaddress and default gateway.
- Asked the caller to do a power reset on the computer, router and dsl modem.
- Asked the caller to key in the network key to the network.
- Configured a static ipaddress : nogo
- Asked the caller to do an ipconfig : nogo
- Customer does not have another access point.
- Advised the customer to try to access a hot spot.
- Gave SR Number
Having the same problem with her Toshiba notebook that is dedicated to a wireless airport.
Verified call log history.
Do the diagnosis by checking the wireless network setup; signal is good;
Verified the ip, set to static; redo dynamic mode then repaired. But still unable to pull up a valid ip address even the signal is good.
Tried settin up a static ip came from the host but still no reply. Decided to redo the configuration including the ping test but still no reply.
Verified the firewall configurations, still off.
We are suspecting that the problem is concerning upon mac address registration for this notebook to your gateway.
Airport Base Station Mac OS X (10.3.9)

I am using WEP (haven't a clue what that means).
It means that you are using a password to secure your wireless network from unauthorised use.
I
found that info under my Wireless Security: 128 bit
WEP, My choices to Change Wireless Security do not
include something called HEX.
If you read the guides it will tell you how to find the HEx key for your 128bit WEP encryption.
One of the problems with WEP is that the actual standard relies on a 10 character HEX key for 40bit WEP and a 26 character HEX key for 128bit WEP.
In order to make things easier for people, vendors use certain algorithms to convert simple alphanumeric passwords (or passphrases) into HEX keys, thus enabling people to use simple memorable WEP password rather than lengthy HEX keys.
The problem is that different vendors use different algorithms to generate the HEX key and therefore a ASCII password on an AEBS will be hashed differently on a Netgear client and vice versa.
One thing is a 13 character 128 bit WEP password will be hashed by all vendors in the same way (if you use 40bit WEP then a 5 character password is required).
Though sometimes not even that works and the HEX key must be used regardless.
I have 3 choices:
Not Enabled
WPA Personal
WPA Enterprise
If your Toshiba supports WPA then I would recommend using WPA Personal in order to avoid the problems with the WEP HEX key. However your Macs must be running 10.3 or later to use WPA.
The Toshiba still won't recognize the
internet....but shows "excellent signal strength"
with my network.
Generally what this means that your Toshiab can see the wireless network, but is not connected to it.
At this point, I'm a little gun shy to try a change
to WPA Personal or WPA Enterprise....what is a HEX
Key, anyway?
The HEX key is the hexadecimal password of the plain text password you created for the Airport network.
iFelix

Airport base station and Fios

I just got FiOS put in at my house. I used to have a cable modem and my airport base station worked fine with my G4 ibook. Well, I just got the fios installed and I hooked up my airport to it and I can't get it to work. The verizon provided modem/wireless router will work for my G4 ibook for a wireless signal. I was planning on getting a airport express for air tunes but if the extreme base station won't work I'm wondering if the express will work. Has anyone else had this problem? I'm not the saviest with computers and I'm fairly new to Mac but committed to Mac now. Any help would be appreciated.
G5 - G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Will the AX setup by easy to do with the airport utillity setup?
Yes, just follow the directions in KB 302153, AirPort Express: How to join an existing wireless network in client mode.

Airport Base station (g) and Express (g) - Which is better?

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