Help me decide if Airport Extreme needs to be replaced or if it is a setting

I have a wireless network consisting of Airport Extreme 802.11n set up as "create a wireless network" that goes to two Airport Expresses. One is connected via ethernet because we have a stucco house and it is in the room above the garage. The other is connected to the network wirelessly and brings a better signal to the upstairs.
When I connect directly to my DSL modem wirelessly (it has that capability) I have speeds of 2.8 Mbps. When I connect thur my Airport, it's all over the map, but never above 1.5 Mbps. Randomly it will drop to .2 or .5 and stay there for hours.
Here are my settings:
I tried changing the channel. I have not reset it because I am unclear if a hard reset is necessary and, frankly, I can't remember all the steps I would need to perform to get it all up and running again.
My DSL guy who knows nothing of apple said it sounds like it's dying. Other info you may need is that DSL come in thru Netgear 7550 modem that has wireless capabilities. It used to be turned off until today, so interference with that is unlikely since it was turned off.

Should I just hard reset them all and start over and see if that helps? If so, how long would it take to get it all set up the right way again. I remember when I did this a year or two ago it took a LONG time to get it right.
I read in other airport posts that having it in Bridge Mode can "flood" something or rather (no idea what it meant). But can I change that setting and still have my express function they way they are now to create my wireless network all around our house? I'm afraid to try it, lest I screw everything up.
Please help!
thanks

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Where do I download drivers for airport extreme.....my iPad can not be set up by he current software

where do I download drivers for airport extreme.....my iPad can not be set up by he current software

I have an airport extreme with updated software(latest) and I setup an Ipad 3 on it with ios6(wirelessly). You can access the airport to update it with the utitlity app on an ios device, mac, or pc. I dont think it has anything to do with the airport software. Did you try rebooting the airport, then trying again?
Like james said, maybe more detail would help someone help you.

Have Pixus and 3rd gen Airport extreme. Unable to replace with 5th gen airport extreme

I have Pixus and a 3rd generation Airport extreme . Unable to replace with 5th generation airport extreme. Problem?

Ok, thanks for the clarification. I assume that Pixus has provided you with a modem that provided an Ethernet connection to your 3rd Gen AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBSn) ... correct? If so, then anytime you change networking hardware, it is a good idea to completely recycle power on all of the networking components.
Please try the following:
Power-down the Pixus modem, AEBSn, and computer(s); leave them powered off for at least 10-15 minutes.
Power-up the modem; wait at least 10-15 minutes to allow it sufficient time to initialize.
Power-up the AEBSn; wait at least 5-10 minutes or until its status light is a solid green. (Note: It may continue to flash amber. This is ok, as it may just require some additional configuration settings, like wireless security to attend to.)
Power-up the computer(s).
Network clients connected to the AEBSn, either by wire or wireless, should now be able to access the Internet through the Pixus modem. Please post back your results.

External Drive connected to Airport Extreme, need Time Machine 3 Mac's Help

I own an Airport Extreme and just recently added two new Macs with the Time Machine feature to our household. I would like to use Time Machine to backup to my Airport Extreme that has a 500 GB hard drive connected. It seems Apple has this blocked since they have released the Time Capsule version of the router. Is there a work around this feature so I don't have to go out an purchase what I basically have already got? Please help. We would like to upgrade our older macs to Leopard and us the same system to back them up as well. Please advise. Thank you.

I had my USB drive on my APE working with Time Machine under 10.5.1 very reliably. A few days ago however, I needed to suspend a backup operation, and when I came back to restart it, time machine refused to mount the disk image on the drive. After several attempts to get it to connect with no luck I decided to delete the image (the sparce image file) and start over. Now TM refuses to create a new image.
BTW, on the Mac OSX hints site there have been suggestions to start a backup with the drive directly connected, then stop the backup, move the sparce image file to the root of the drive, reconnect the drive to the APE base station to get it working. I tried this again, but I think Apple has changed something in 10.5.2, because when directly connected TM no longer creates a sparce image file.
Anybody else seen this behavior after upgrading to 10.5.2?

Problem with lacie HD and airport extreme need help!!

Let me first off tell you what my set up is powerbook with the latest 10.4 os, airport extreme software up to date, a Lacie 500gb usb hard disk connected to the airport extreme, i've got an apple TV connected to the extreme via ethernet, I also have a macbook pro using the airport.
The problem i've got is the powerbook is the main hub between the external hard disk and the apple tv but it's started to not hold a connection to the lacie i keep having to tell the powerbook to connect then ok it with a password and as a result i have to keep re syncing things like movies and photos to the apple tv.
Is there a way to automatically connect the powerbook to the hard disk with out it needing a password if not can anyone come up with an explanation as to why the disk has started to unmount after being fine for weeks?
My macbook pro has no problems keeping a connection.
Thanks in advance

I just found out something today which might help you Daniel, but that doesn't solve our problem in a "classic" way...
So I was very obsessed by the fact that Windows Vista could actually access the shared HD with Bonjour and with a lot of testing I found this : let's say my macbook pro was off, if I would access the HD with Vista and then open up the MacBook Pro, then there would be no problem.
Eventually I found out that the problem really came from the fact that my WD MyBook 1Tb external drive was putting itself on standby after a while (which is a good thing actualy). When I was trying to connect to the drive while it was on standby with Finder, it would try to connect forever... however, it would physically wake up the external drive (I could tell by the sound)... but too late for Finder, and no way to access it other than rebooting the Mac... OR crashing Finder (Apple Menu - Force to quit). Then the Finder restarts automatically and the drive works.
I really don't like this solution (having to crash finder) but it works.
PLEASE if someone has a better way, let me know !!!

Airport Extreme, need old firmware, help

I have an airport extreme and I need to revert back to an older version of the firmware. Specifically I need the 7.2.1 firmware.
A link is here, http://support.apple.com/kb/DL218 And it does not work...
Where can I find a copy of that specific firmware?

The reason:
I have jailbroke my apple tv and I an using the extreme as a hub to pass through my hard drives so I can see them on XBMC (XBMC is the media center program I am running on the apple tv box)... I need the old firmware so I can make it work...
When I recieved the extreme this morning it had 7.2.1 installed on it... But I am a retard and upgraded because I did not know it woudl be a problem... Then to make things worse, I was not aware that upgrading the firmware was the problem, I thought it was the utility settings I had changed, so I removed the utility and reinstalled it... So now I do not have the option to fall back on 7.2.1, which was installed this morning...
So I am hoping to find a copy somehow so I can restore it and make this all work the way I want it to... It sure would be cool if the apple link worked, so I could restore it that way...

Setup Guest Network with OS X Server and Airport Extreme - NEED HELP!

Hi All,
So I have a small business with a Mac Mini Server (10.6.5) and an Airport Extreme. The Airport is handling the routing and DHCP duties, while the Server is handling the DNS. The Airport is pointed to pull DNS from the Server. All internal systems work great accessing the internet and folders on the Server.
I need to setup a Guest network for internet access, so I turned this function on in the Airport Extreme. It sets up fine, but if you connect to that new Guest Network the system hangs trying to open a web page. My thinking is since the Server is the one handling the DNS it is not working for Guest computers since they are not part of our internal network. At least that is my theory, I could be wrong.
With this type of setup what do I need to modify to get this working? Anyone have any ideas?

After trying for days to figure this out I was finally able to get a working solution and I now have my APE providing a guest and main network while using my lion server as the Dsn server for the main network.
The setup is a bit of a hack and does require you to have at least two devices with staticly assigned ip information on the main network but it does allow you to serve dhcp for both networks from the server and make some services available to the guest network such as iTunes remote for parties.
1) delete your custom Dns entries from the Internet settings in the APE and set two dhcp reservations for .2 and .3 (in this case my Mac mini server and my airport express)
2) reduce the dhcp range to only have 2 available IPs (10.0.1.2-10.0.1.3) and save settings
3) on a computer connected to the main network install wireshark and begin sniffing for packets. Connect at least one device to your guest network and look for any packets that have an ip from your guest network (usually 172.16.42.x) once you capture one of these packets expand the vlan information. This should list a vlan ID ( in my case this was 1003. I would suspect this is universal but do not know)
4) on your server open network preferences, click the gear at the bottom and click "manage virtual interfaces", add a vlan that matches the vlan ID from above. Click ok and apply your settings. The vlan interface should get an ip in the guest network range from your APE.
* if you are running lion you will need to install server admin tools before proceeding*
5) open server admin and add the dhcp service. Create an entry for your primary network (ex: 10.0.1.x) make the dhcp range one higher than the settings in step 2 ( ie: 10.0.1.4 to 10.0.1.253) assign this to the physical interface. Make sure this entry has your internal DNA servers
6) add another entry for the guest networks ip range (ex: 172.16.42.x) again set it one ip higher than step 2 ( 172.16.42.4 to 172.16.42.253) save and activate both ranges. Assign this range to the vlan interface. Make sure this entry either contains your isps dns servers or another public dns server. Turn on dhcp.
Because you have now assigned the only two addresses in the APEs pool for your primary network to static entries there will not be any addresses to assign and the APE will not respond to requests. This will allow your server to pick up the work of assigning IPs. As for your guest network, the APE will assign IPs for two host and then stop. Your clients may either get an IP from the APE or the osx server so both should have the same info. Just make sure the two static clients on your main network have the local DNA servers entered manually.

Airport Extreme needs to be set-up in "Bridge mode" ??

I am trying to set-up a new intel iMac to a dsl service for my elderly uncle. The dsl people said that their system was compatable with OS 10.4.7 (which is installed) but that the Airport Extreme modem will need to be set-up in "bridge-mode." Can I do that? Where can I find instructions or help with that? When I queried "bridge mode" on this site I get lots of stuff with acronyms I don't understand and stuff about routers and wireless bridges and other stuff I don't understand... I really need help!
Flat-panel iMac, G4 tower Mac OS X (10.4) Setting up intel iMac
Flat-panel iMac, G4 tower Mac OS X (10.4)

Hi Buzz0432,
I think, "yes" - and i think i saw it in the booklet which you get with the AE. However, i'm slightly unsure about this at this instant since i'm not at home where my mac-stuff is.
i'll check on it and will report back lateron...
thomas

PLEASE HELP!!! Airport Extreme's Driving me CRAZY:)

I need HELP.......... I have Mac OS X (10.5.1) just went today to Best Buy and bought the Airport Extreme. Here comes the problem. I have internet service with Alltel (the Franklin wireless CDU 550) that plugs into the USB. So, I ran my installation cd plug in the Airport device and NOTHING. Says that it cannot connect to the internet. I have my Alltel usb plugged into the back of the Airport and the Imac with the "Y" usb cable. I can connect using just the alltel connection but not the Airport. Just keeps blinking orange on the front. In the network list, it's showing the Airport is ON. ++PLEASE HELP IF YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW TO FIX THIS PROBLEM. I need the Airport to connect my laptop and my childrens PSP's.++
++**If you do know what to do, please list the steps! I've read SO many blogs that I need SIMPLE HELP NOW! Thank you so much in advance!++

Solution for this is a router designed to work specifically for that purpose. There are several that will work. The average price seems to be around $120 or more.
Here is a router that works from cradlepoint. It is an evdo router. You can plug the usb franklin card right into it and it broadcasts the wifi signal. The router part number is CTR-350. They also have one that is battery powered as well for on the road (which also has a power adapter for plugging in if the battery is dead.) That model is a bit more expensive.
Check out evdoinfo.com or the 3gstore.com...they have a lot of good information on this stuff.
Good luck.

Airport Extreme Needs Daily Reboot to re-enable Wifi

All,
I bought an Airport Extreme in Nov 2014, firmware 7.7.3 in Bridge mode acting as an AP, my network consists of a 24port gig dell switch a Sonicwall TZ-210W (wireless off) and a windows 2008R2 file server also used for DHCP, DNS etc.
I have issues where my airport will stop letting certain devices on the network via wifi. I will get on my phone and it will be connected (iphone 6), get on the wifes macbook air, it will be working (sometimes), have my laptop from work that was connected fine 12hrs ago not get connected, my ipad (3rd gen) will not connect to the network, but my imac that is hardwired (connected directly to the airport (using as a switch for my imac) ) will connect just fine, but i can reboot any of the devices it seems like the ones that had a connection continue working but new ones will not or even if they were new in the past 12 hrs... All i have to do to get all of them online is to restart the base station (airport) I typically do that from my mac using the airport utility once it comes back up all of the devices previously working or not reconnect automatically and start working fine.
What I have tried...
1. Reset to defaults and re-setup Still fails
2. tried setting the channels static after using the wifi utility in my imac to see what channels would work best. still fails
3. i have tried moving it to different locations in my house - no luck still fails
4. i would try different firmware, but haven't seen any others avail.
5. searched forums saw posts of people a couple years ago with the previous version had similar issues and it was firmware related - No Luck
6. thought about sending home with a co-worker let them run it for a while, but number of devices etc. could be a cause. I probably have 40ish devices max on my network wired/wireless.
Do I have a lemmon? Can anyone give me other options? or do I need to have this replaced..

So just an update to anyone with similar issues. After posting my initial issue here and seeing John's reply I contacted Apple, and here is what they had me do and I have not had to restart my AirPort in a week now.
So I called them explained what I had going on at first the tech was a bit puzzled at why I would be having these odd symptoms, but we walked through each page in the Airport Utility on from my iMac and the only setting that he thought looked a little odd was that I had WPA/WPA2 Personal enabled as my wireless preference. He asked why I responded and told him because I had some family members that had older devices that were not compatible with WPA2 so I enabled rev 1 as well. So seeing that this was the only setting that looked odd he had me do a full factory reset, now I thought I had done this via software, but it turns out there are a couple different ways and the software way doesn't do it completely.
Doing a Factory Reset.
1. Unplug and disable wireless on any Mac that had used the airport utility to connect to the airport. (we did this because we wanted to make sure nothing pushed old settings into the airport.)
2. unplug power from the device. ( i found it was much easier todo this at the wall as you will need two hands in the next step.)
3. Find a paperclip or a tack that you can push the little button on the back of the airport in.
4. Push the tack or paperclip into the reset hole in the back of the device. (right next to the power connector, it was easier to jack into the wall than plug power at the airport while holding the reset button next to the power connector.)
5. Continue to hold the button until the unit boots and starts flashing orange, let it flash orange for 5-10sec then let go, it should continue to flash orange for a bit then go solid.
6. Once the light stops blinking you should be able to see this in an iOS device, he recommended doing the setup via an iPad or iPhone as it is a very streamlined and simple setup.
7. I then set my password and my wireless name etc. let it do the security on its own and that was that.
Like I said after doing that I have had no issues. Seems a bit strange to me that it would be the WPA option as if the option is there in my mind it should work fine or it should be removed. Anyway if this helps you out please post it, kinda wonder how many others have a similar issue...

Help please with new airport extreme

hello,
my mother is using comcast internet and she wanted to add a wireless router. all the had before i went and got her a ae was the comcast modem with a ethernet wire coming out of it and going right into her laptop. i then installed the software for the router and have it wired up witch was the easy part. now i have the solid green light on the ae and my laptop (macbook pro) and her dell laptop both say we have wireless signal but nether computer can connect to the internet. both computers have full signal and they are even placed next to the ae so its not a long distance problem. what might be wrong here. again the green light is steadly on and the airport says full signal and so does the dell laptop. please help

On the MBP, open Airport Utility, select the Airport Extreme from the left and press the manual select button. Once the Summery screen appears check the last line. If the IP address begins with 169, select the Internet tab from the top of the Airport utility window, and make sure the Connect Using is set to Ethernet and the IPv4 setting is Using DHCP. If those are the settings unplug the power from the modem and make sure all the lights go out (if you have a digital phone package with the cable company the power light may stay on in which case you'll need to remove the batteries from the modem) let that sit for 2 min and then power back on. That should reset the cache of the modem and solve you problem.

Airport Utility for my Airport Extreme needs to be changed to a different computer, because the current computer is down permanently.. How do I do this? Do I have to reset the Airport Extreme and start from scratch?

The computer (Win XP) on which the Airport Utility has been set up for the past few years is no longer accessible, so I need to set it up on a different computer. Can I do that with my exisitng wireless network, or will I have to set up a new network from scratch, once I have installed Airport Utility on the new machine?

You can install AirPort Utility on either a Mac or PC, but there would be no reason to make any changes to your existing configuration on the AirPort Extreme unless you need to do so.
Download files are here:
http://support.apple.com/downloads/#airport

PLEASE HELP!!! AIRPORT EXTREME IS GREEN BUT NOT CONNECTING TO INTERNERT!!!

Please, I'm begging of fellow man, women and children to help me figure this out!
What Happened:
I had my Internet and everything working before I went to work at 3 PM. My girlfriend got home around 4 PM and all of a sudden the my Internet was not working. I had to call my ISP, Comcast, and we had tested Internet connectivity which worked perfectly fine which is how I am typing this now. After that, I looked up some things that would remedy the situation. Power cycling the modem for minutes, seconds and hours. Also, I have tried to plug both the modem and router without plugging any Ethernet cord in to both of them, wait for them to power up, hook up the Ethernet cord and nothing. I have done factory resets on both the modem and routers and created a totally new network to see if that was the problem and noting. I have also changed the IP addresses, Subnet Masks, Router numbers, DNS servers and Domain names and nothing. I was stupid and did not get a protection plan on it, and my warranty JUST expired a couple of weeks ago, so I have barely had this router for a year. As all indications go, it is saying that it's connecting to the Internet, but when I go to my Macbook Pro and check the system preferences it's saying its connected to the airport, but when I do the assist me function and go to diagnose or assistant and test everything, the Internet and Server are yellow and everything else is green. I DON'T KNOW THE ISSUE!!!
Hardware:
Modem - Motorola Surfboard: Model SB6121
Router - Apple AirPort Extreme 802.11n Wi-FI
Any and all advice would be greatly, greatly appreciated. I do not want to have to purchase a brand new router after just purchasing this one last year for over $150. I'll be eagerly awaiting your help. Thank you in advance.

@Mark Scott, are you referring to my cable modem or the apple router. I'm currently connecting to the internet just fine connecting the ethernet cable to my Macbook Pro laptop directly and having everything connecting just fine. Its when i try to connect wirelessly to the AirPort Extreme router is when I am unable to connect. If you were referring to the connecting the router directly to the computer and seeing if there is an internet connectin, I don't think that would help anything at all. Please let me know if this is what you meant and I will try it anyways.

HELP ME PLEASE - THE AIRPORT EXTREME DISC KEEPS OPENING ITUNES

THE DISC THAT CAME WITH AIRPORT EXTREME SOFTWARE EVERY TIME I CLICK ON IT TO SET IT UP , IT OPENS
I TUNES. WHAT SHOULD I DO ? I AM GOING NUTS PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!

It sounds like you have your "CD preferences" (in System Preferences) configured to automatically open iTunes rather than the Finder on CD insertion. See:
Mac OS X 10.5 Help: If the wrong application opens every time you insert a disc

Auto connect windows share over airport extreme, need delay somehow

Hi, Once the Imac is up and running, I can conenct to my win 2k box on the network fine (not w2k server, jsut w2k pro). I've got the smb location in the users pane to load at startup. Problem is that it takes a couple seconds for airport to connect and get settled. That means when the smb mount command opens and tries to conenct, I get an error that the dsrive couldn't be written to or accessed. What I need, (i think) is a way to delay the smb mount for a few seconds, until after airport is done conencting. Anybody have any option for this, or a better way to connect that is reliable and consistant? It angers me that I can just map a network drive on a pc to another network pc in about 2 seconds, and that I have to run through hoops on the "simpler, more advanced" Mac. I love Macs, but between this problem, and trying to figure out why I've been trying for 2 hours to get a borderless photo print from the mac to my Epson, I'm a bit frustrated. It's not "just working" for me right now....Thanks!
Steve
iMac G5, Dual 2.7 G5, iBook G3 Mac OS X (10.4.1) mixed Tiger, os9,xp,w2k environment

Welcome to the discussion area!
I am assuming that your drive is correctly formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or FAT 32. If it's formatted as Windows NFTS, the drive will not appear.
You'll also usually need to use a powered USB hub, even if your drive has it's own power supply because the available power at the USB port on the AirPort Extreme is quite low.
Open the Finder and look for your AirPort Extreme icon under the SHARED heading on the the left side of the window.
Click on the AirPort Extreme icon and a folder representing your drive will appear in the right hand side of the window.
Double click the folder to mount the drive on your desktop.

Help me decide if Airport Extreme needs to be replaced or if it is a setting

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