My wi-fi worked fine on Airport Express two days ago. Now the light is green, but I can't get the Internet on my satellite connection. I've checked Network Preferences, Aiport Express menu, and the satellite tech support. The Ethernet connection works.

Question

My wi-fi connection from my iPad via the Airport Express Base Station on my home computer worked just fine until yesterday morning.  I have a Macintosh G5 with a satellite connection.  I could not get an Internet connection.  After using the Network Preferences and Aiport Express applications several times, then unplugging and replugging in the computer, satellite modem and Airport Express module, checking the satellite dish for any obstructions, and so on, the computer still wouldn't connect to the Internet.  (The green light was on in the Airport Express module.)  I called the satellite company technical support division last night.  The tech couldn't find any problem with the satellite connection.  When I plugged the satellite modem cord directly into the Ethernet outlet on my computer, I could pick up the Internet.
Today, the Airport Express module still has a green light but still doesn't connect to the Internet.  The only thing I can think of is that lights went out for about 15 minutes yesterday morning.  All of my electronics, except the Aiport Express Base Station, are on surge protectors.  Why would the Airport Express module still have a green light if it was damaged by the electrical outage? 
I bought the module in 2009.  I have never had problems with Apple equipment before this. Is this base station fixable?
I would appreciate your suggestions.

Answer 1

Hello everyone.  I too have experienced the same problem Mary described starting on the same day she mentioned January 12.  I have a G5 iMac, a G5 mini-mac, and a G4 laptop.  They were all working fine but all have mostly the same problem now in that the G4 does not connect at all and the G5s connect once in a while after restarts but do not maintain the connection.  In my case there was no power interruption.  In fact, the G4 laptop was not even connected to the home power connection.  My iPad2 and iPhone 4s wireless work fine and a wireless PC and Android tablet work fine as well.  The G5 and G4 work fine on an ethernet connection. ISP tech support (AT&T u-Verse) was very generous with their time in trying to solve my problem although it was established early on that their connection and equipment was working fine and that the problem was with my computers.  They walked me through a manual reset of all the particulars on IP addresses etc. so the problem was not related to that either. In the end ISP tech support concluded that the problem must lie with the Airport driver.  For some reason it changes the IP addresses to an incorrect address so it cannot connect.  Indeed when I tried the diagnostics on the G4 I got a window Pop-up that said an application had reset my settings. (In retrospect I seem to recall that I may have gotten that same message early on with the G5s but at that time I did not think much about it and went about trying to reset the settings but that process never concluded well) I think that the problem may be that there must have been an update of the Airport software that was not backward compatible with the G5 and older Macs.  I mention all this for two reasons.  First, perhaps someone out there who knows better than I do how to bring this to Apple's attention and perhaps they will address this.  Second, I would be curious to know whether there is anyway one can return a configuration on Macs to some earlier time period (as you can on PCs) when everything worked and then leave it that way foregoing any subseqent upgrades or any subsequent apps?