Airport just stopped working

Question

Hi Everyone,
I hopw someone has some info that might help.
I have a MacBook and PC (yuck). Both just stopped working with my Airport Extreme, and when I tried plugging the ethernet cable directly into both, nothing happened. No data was transferring.
I called my cable company and they were able to get my PC working, directly connected, but not the MacBook.
When the ethernet cable is plugged directly into the MacBook, nothing happens...no lights showing it's connected to the computer. When I connect the ethernet cable to the Airport, everything lights up, showing a connection, but I can't get the data to transfer from Airport to MacBook (or PC for that matter).
Right now, I'm hijacking someone else's wireless signal in my condo...don't really know who. So, I know my Airport card is working properly.
The tech at Brighthouse cable saod something about earthlink customers having trouble recently because of something that earthlink downloaded to them, where IP addresses wouldn't renew. I never downloaded anything, is this possible?
I'm really stumped, and frustrated because I can't connect, and it's not feasible for me to hardwire in due to the location of my cable modem. Plus, that only works with the crappy PC, and I don't want to use that.
Please, someone help...I'm desperate...and at a loss for what the problem could be!
Thank you!!!!
EDIT: I just powered up my old iBook G4, and it won't connect to my base station either
EDIT X2: I should probably add what I have already tried...I have (several times) unplugged the cable modem and Airport base station. Used Airport set up to re-set it (again, several times).

Answer 1

Ok MCOJerry,
Here's the scoop.
My friend called and gave me the story much like you described. Almost identical in fact.
He had called TimeWarner, who didn't come to any resolution and then referred him to Earthlink, washing their hands in the process.
A over seas tech support then spend a couple of hours, then made a call back with another tech. who also spent significant time on the phone. This time the tech reconfigured OSX a couple of times. Set up alternate location profiles, changed the DNS settings etc.
They re-assigned the IP address and forced the cable modem to init. the MAC address list. They also disconnected the Airport Extreme (the square version) connected the mac directly to the modem and forced a manual set of IP settings.
They got the mac to work with this last configuration, but of course the rest of the machines were out of luck as was the network printer.
All in all he spent six hours on the phone.
When I got 'the call' I had him give me some preliminary network stats and then had him reconnect the Airport Extreme. This yielded a dead internet connection.
So as I wrote earlier, I went over there armed with a boat load of tools & cables.
I reconfigured the mac to a normal & stable automatic type configuration. I also reset the the Airport buy pressing the reset button for 5sec. Then set up a new configuration. I made sure that the latest update was applied to the Airport extreme.
Then I logged on to the cable modem. Don't mis-understand, I did not log on to the internet through the modem. I logged on to the modem's internal web server. checked some logs and ran a couple of tests.
Then I found the problem. The real problem: The signal power level from the point of demarcation (at the pole) was so low as to be useless. Eliminating the Airport Extreme, simply removed a level of complication in the system. It also may have removed some spurious RF that may have been introduced into the network. It did not result in a resolution to the real problem.
The cable line needs to be physically repaired. Either a wet connection or a frayed shield or the line needs a booster. But the problem, which looked like a Airport extreme issue is in fact a bad cable line.
I do have him up and running on the Airport Extreme at this moment by eliminating all extraneous length from his cable line within the house. The cable modem is now located in the basement where the cable enters the house. I have an single ethernet cable running from there to the Airport Extreme. I pulled all the other electrical items from this particular power line branch (This specific circuit.) This is all temporary until the cable guy/gal arrives to fix the problem.
I hope this may help you in your trouble resolution.
-Alan
Specs:
Motorola SB 5100 Cable Modem.
minus (-)5db signal power level
Software Version: SB5100-2.3.2.5-SCM01-NOSH
Hardware Version: 3
MIB Version: II
GUI Version: 1.0
VxWorks Version: 5.4
OSX 10.4.9
Airport Utility 5.1 (510.18)
Airport Extreme Base Station (square model) V7.1
Open DNS
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
AlBook, TiBook, iMac, iBook   Mac OS X (10.4.9)   Corporate / mixed environment / multiple networks.