New Airport Extreme and Older Airport Express No Longer Works

I recently bought a new Airport Extreme base station. Now the Airport Express that I've had for a number of years no longer works, flashing amber. It shows up under the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar, but when I try to follow Apple's instructions for configuring it, I get this message:
"This version of AirPort Utility doesn't support this base station. Use AirPort Utility 5.6 to configure or manage this base station. AirPort Utility 5.6 is available at AirPort Service and Support."
I then tried downloading and installing Airport Utility 5.6 on my MacBook Pro (running OS X 10.7.4) and received this error message: "AirPort Utility can't be installed on this disk. The version of Mac OS X on this volume is not supported."
I then turned to my IPad, which also detected the Airport Express under Wi-Fi Settings but returned a message when I tried to set it up that the Airport Express couldn't be set by this software and re-directed me to the support web site.
While we have an Apple TV unit, I used the Airport Express to stream music directly to our stereo from my MacBook and IPad and Phone and would love to be able to continue to do so. Has anyone found a workaround for this problem, or will I be forced to buy a new Airport Express as well?
Thanks for any help you can offer,
Steve

I then tried downloading and installing Airport Utility 5.6 on my MacBook Pro (running OS X 10.7.4) and received this error message: "AirPort Utility can't be installed on this disk. The version of Mac OS X on this volume is not supported."
I just tried this on my MacBook Pro running 10.7.4 and had no problems downloading and installing AirPort Utility 5.6 for Mac OS X Lion
AirPort Utility 5.6.1 will not install on a Mac running Lion....only Snow Leopard or Leopard.
Can you check again to make sure that you are trying to install 5.6 and not 5.6.1?

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Which airport is good to extend my wifi, what is the difference between the AirPort Extreme and the airport express base sstation

What is the difference between the AirPort Extreme and the airport express base station and which one can extend my wifi router.

With rare exceptions of a few older routers, neither one can extend a non-Apple router's network wirelessly - they are not designed that way - but you can extend the wireless network if the Extreme is hardwired to the router or you can connect wirelessly and join the network as an access point that will provide remote ethernet access but not produce or extend the wireless signal - here is a comparison of the Apple base stations - http://www.apple.com/wifi/

What is the difference between the airport extreme and the airport express?

What's the real difference between the airport extreme and the airport express except for the price and the size? Does one transmit with more range?

Range is about the same, maybe a bit better on the Extreme, which has better antennas.
The AirPort Exreme has Gigabit (1,000 Mpbs) Ethernet ports and the USB port will support a hard drive.
The Express has 10/100 (up to 100 Mpbs) Ethernet ports, and will not support a hard drive at the USB port.
The Express has audio capability for AirTunes while the Extreme does not.
If you don't need to connect a hard drive and don't need the faster Ethernet ports, the Express is a good value.
All the details here:
Compare Apple Wi-Fi base stations AirPort Express AirPort Extreme Time Capsule

I have a airport time capsule, an older airport extreme, and an airport express. I want to hard wire my Mac Mini to the network. What is the best arrangement of the devices? which ones should be hard wired to optimize extending the network?

I have a airport time capsule, an older airport extreme, and an older airport express. I want to hard wire my Mac Mini to the network. What is the best arrangement of the devices? which ones should be hard wired to optimize extending the network?

I am using TM Unifi with an ASUS RT-N18U Wi-Fi router. I would like to know could I use Apple AirPort Time Capsule to extend (repeater, booster) my Wi-Fi to a part of the house where the Wi-Fi signal is poor
Yes,, if you plan to connect the AirPort Time Capsule to the ASUS router using an Ethernet cable connection that will remain fixed and permanently installed at all times.
No, if you were planning to have the AirPort Time Capsule connect wirelessly and extend the Asus WiFi signal, since it would not be compatible with another manufacturer's router for that purpose.
Another way of saying the same thing here would be that if you want to extend the network wirelessly, it will take two Apple routers to do so

Setting up Time Capsule, Airport Extreme, and old AP Express...

Question regarding setting up a wireless network in the home.
I currently have the following Apple wireless networking products:
Time Capsule - Model A1254
Airport Extreme - Latest model
Airport Express - Model A1084 (older model unit)
I also have a Verizon router with wireless capabilities.
I am trying to provide wireless coverage throughout my entire home. The Verizon router is in the basement, and I have the wireless portion turned off.
I have ethernet running to my office on the first floor from the Verizon router in the basement as well as ethernet running to the second floor. In my office I put the Time Capsule, while the Airport Extreme is on the second floor.
Since both the Time Capsule and the Airport Extreme have ethernet providing their internet connection, I am curious to know what is the best way to set them up to provide wireless support to laptops.
Should they both be configured with the same SSID but with different channels? Should they be configured with different SSIDs? What settings will provide the most seamless (Apple-like) experience? What will provide the best bandwidth?
Lastly, should I set up the Airport Express with WDS? Should I ditch it altogether since it bottlenecks the performance of the WDS main router?
Any advice would be appreciated!
Thanks,
Ivan

+Should they both be configured with the same SSID but with different channels?+
Yes, if you want one "large" network. A laptop could "roam" around the house and automatically pick up the strongest signal.
No, if you want two separate wireless networks. In this case, you would need to switch networks depending on the location of your laptop in relation to the nearest router.
Make sure both the Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme are configured with their Connection Sharing setting to "Off (Bridge Mode)".
The ethernet backbone on your network will provide for the best possible bandwidth...much better than if you try to extend using wireless only.
+should I set up the Airport Express with WDS?+
Ideally, you would set the AirPort Express up the same as the Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme...using ethernet to the AirPort Express. WDS will kill your bandwidth on the wireless network, cutting it in half. If you can't connect the AirPort Express using ethernet, you will probably be much better off simply not using it.

How to setup a network with a time capsule, airport extreme and an airport express?

Hello.
First I want to make it clear all my knowledge off wireless networks is going on forums on the internet, before a couple of months ago I didn't realize wireless networking was so intricate so forgive my lack of experience.
I just bought a time capsule (today, 4th generation), I have an airport extreme bought in January 2011 (they just got refreshed so mine is now one generation old) and the same with my airport express (bought in January).
I originally bought the airport extreme and setup a wireless network using the dual band setup. I have no issues with the 5ghz network and most of my devices run on wireless n so I had no issues with them. my only two wireless devices that can not use the 5ghz network is my iPhone 4's which use wireless n but it has to use the 2.4ghz signal. Problem is in my apartment I am bombarded with other peoples 2.4ghz networks so my signal is terrible 10-15 feet from the airport extreme. Near my extreme I am getting signal ranges around 15mb to 20 mb. When Im about 15 minutes away in my bedroom (so one wall in between) my signal plummets to 1-2 mb. sometimes as low as 0.17mb which is not good. I got the airport express to extend my range and placed it in my bedroom. . After setting up the airport express the signal still was terrible. I researched and realized that if the signal strength ***** then the airport express cant boost the signal as much which makes sense in hind sight. I then researched setting up a roaming network or a WDS network. Per research a WDS network was not recommended b/c I was not using a wireless g network. I attempted to create a roaming network and then realized that you can not use an airport express in a roaming network. This has led me to now buy a time capsule.
First, in my setup do I or should I have the time capsule as the primary? I believe its more powerful than the airport extreme but Im not sure if that matters in a network that is distributing wifi from ethernet (thats how I am connected the extreme and the time capsule)
so can I do
cable modem ETHERNET Airport extreme(in the living room where its always been and works great in that immediate area) (3rd generation) ETHERNET Time Capsule(in the bedroom where I usually get poor signal) (4th gen) and then an airport express connecting to the 2.4ghz signal in the bedroom where the time capsule also is EXTENDING the wireless range?
or should it be the time capsule first bc its more powerful?
I tried setting up this setup and everything is green but I don't know if what I am doing is actually working on full cylinders b/c I am confused on some aspects. mainly on the airport extreme which is the primary device I have under the wireless tab selected create a wireless network and on the time capsule it also is on create a wireless network with the network name being exactly the same. Should it be changed to extend a wireless network? and then bridge mode? Should I have different channels for the different devices that are on 2.4ghz?
I am open to hear ANY suggestions, or ideas to improve my setup. PLEASE PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!, lol its been 5 long months of poor internet in my bedroom where my wife has her setup with a roku box and wifi tv (I have those hardwired for now) but mainly for her iPad and iPhone b/c its so bad sometimes she has to turn wifi off and use 3G. I have same issue in my bathroom, sometimes Im getting decent signal and sometimes its so bad I can't open the link on an RSS feed in safari which I have to assume doesn't require that much bandwith?
I have no wireless g devices. The only device I need 2.4ghz for is my iPhone 4's but they both use n also. All my other deivices connect on 5ghz and my 5ghz network is decent, a lot better than the 2.4ghz network atleast.

You wrote so much that I find it hard to address all your concerns. However, here are some thoughts:
1) I'd configure the Time Capsule as the "main" router, connected directly to your cable modem. Configure it to "create a wireless network" and to "Allow this network to be extended". Configure the other devices to "Extend a wireless network".
2) Put any device that's extending the network half way between the main router and the wireless clients. If the signal from the main router is weak at the cllient's location, then the extending device will also receive a weak signal.

Setting up Airport Extreme and 2 Airport Express all wired

Our entire 3-story house is wired with Cat5e. I have an Airport Extreme (n) on our 3rd floor, and want to add 2 other wireless access points on floors 1 and 2, using my 2 new Airport Express units. They can be wired to my network on each floor. I want 3 wireless networks, one for each floor. It is OK to have a different wireless network name on each floor. Is this possible? I know that they all need different IP addresses. I am assuming that the Airport Express units have the same address. How hard is this? Is there a better way? I want the strongest possible wireless signal on each floor. Thanks.

Hey guys...I have very similar setup, 4 wireless routers in a fully cabled home and have been trouble shooting/reconfiguring it over the last 24 hours with help in this thread.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2737069&tstart=0
and here is my original on the topic you are managing:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2726382&tstart=0
I have a:
• motorola cable modem
• "head end" base station extreme in my basement
• time capsule on the east side of the fist floor
• base station extreme on west side of the first floor
• base station express upstairs centrally located.
• ipad, iphone 4 and a mac book pro (recent)
o All base stations are set to create a wireless network
o The head end base station is set to share a public IP
o The other base stations and the time capsule are set to bridge mode
o All have the same SSID
o All have the same password
I have tried several different configurations.....
My base stations are dual band and when both the 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz bands were set to the same SSID, thus allowing a client to choose the strongest band, I had trouble with wildly inconsistent speeds when connected to the 5Ghz band and did not have consistent switching between routers as I moved in the house. (I removed a cordless phone and that helped immensely.)
I crested a separate 5Ghz network and connected my mac to it. Switching from router to router as I moved through the house was good and fast but throughput speed was inconsistent, choppy and only maxed out when the mac was within a few feet of the base station.
I then directed the mac to the 2.4Ghz network. Speed and consistency were much, much better and I was achieving max speeds from almost anywhere regardless of which router I was connect to. However, oddly enough the mac wouldn't switch from router to router regularly. If I sat next to a router the mac would not let go of the previous connection, but if I toggled the airport off/on it would connect to the closer router. I presume that because I was getting max speed (25MBPS) from anywhere in the house, even though the mac was at times connected to the farthest router, the 2.4Ghz signal was not diminishing enough for the mac to switch even though I was right next to another router. Or I was just impatient, but would wait minutes for the switch.
As of this morning I am bringing my iphone and ipad onto the network to test it as is will be used that way. So far all client devices are switching routers no sure yet how long it takes, they switched overnight, and speeds (after a time cap backup) were stable at 24.8MBPS.
My hope was to establish a private 5Ghz network for me and a 2.4Ghz available for friends and family but the 5Ghz is just too temperamental.
Hope my experience helps…
Best regards
Marc

Can I use an Airport Extreme and an Airport Express

Disappointed that the Extreme doesn't have a stereo input and an extra usb port so I can't use both my external drive, hook up the printer and have the stereo plugged in.
Can I use an express for iTunes and printer and at the same time have my external drive and internet hooked up to the Extreme?
At the moment I use an express for internet, music and printer.
Thanks.

lostinlondon, Welcome to the discussion area!
Disappointed that the Extreme doesn't have a stereo input...
None of Apple's base stations have stereo (audio) input. The AirPort Express (AX) has an audio output.
Can I use an express for iTunes and printer and at the same time have my external drive and internet hooked up to the Extreme?
Yes
But can I create a network with the airport express and airport extreme to use airtunes and airfoil?
Yes

Extend existing network with Airport extreme and 3 airport express.

I want to extend an existing network (thomson TG787v) with an airport extreme (MD031Z/A) with 3 or 4 airport express(MC14Z/A)
The thomson is the router from the provider and must be used. The building is an old mansion with a lot of brick walls
I tried to connect the extreme with an ethernet cable (in bridge mode) and then connect the airport express in a line to have wifi in all rooms of the mansion.
But somehow the airport extremes cannot extend the network.
Can anyone tell me how to setup the apple devices to make this work?
Thanks
Bernhard

I tried to connect the extreme with an ethernet cable (in bridge mode)
This is the correct.
and then connect the airport express in a line to have wifi in all rooms of the mansion.
Apple's "extend a wireless network" feature will only allow you to "extend" the signal one time. So, the first Express would connect to the AirPort Extreme wirelessly and extend the signal.
But, you cannot "extend" the signal a second or third time. Each AirPort Express must be located so that it connects directly to the AirPort Extreme. In other words, each AirPort Express must be located about the same distance from the AirPort Extreme.
Another way of thinking about his is to visualize the hub and spokes of a wheel. The AirPort Extreme would be located at the "hub". Each AirPort Express would be located at then end of a "spoke". As such, each AirPort Express communicates directly to the AirPort Extreme.....not to another AirPort Express at the end of another hub.
You may need to consider installing Ethernet cable to each location where you will need an AirPort Express and configure the network that way. Performance wise, this is a much better way to "extend" the network.

I bought a new airport extreme and on the first day, it worked well but the apple tv is lagging behind

When I got this and hooked it up. it was so easy to connect it to the puter and all but apple tv is lagging behind, so slow and had to wait to catch up to be able to watch movie(s) What can I do about it? ( the previous airport extreme had no problem with the apple tv, never lags behind.
H.E.L.P.

Dear LaPastenague,
many thanks for your ultra response...I have revisited my earlier thoughtsi / question...I possibly may have not mentioned, the whole intention was to add another device which is in my kitchen and cabling to it could prove time consuming....
Just came back from Maplins with a NetGear universal wireless adaptor for my Win XP machine which will be located in the kitchen.
I was balancing future swap arounds with the AE if my TC [ 2nd Gen] decides to pack up on me.
Good evening
Regards

My devices not automatically switching between Airport Extreme and Airport Express in extended network

I have setup an extended network in my home using an Airport Extreme and an Airport Express. The Extreme is connected directly to the FiOS modem and the Express is being used as the extender. The nework is setup fine, but my devices (MBA, iPhone, iPad) are not switching base stations when the signal becomes poor on the one it's connected to. For example, I am upstairs with my MBA and a great signal as I am connected to the Express. When I move downstairs to where the Extreme is setup, the Wi-Fi connection becomes poor even though I am litterally sitting next to the Extreme. To force it to connect to the Extreme, I need to shutoff the Wi-Fi on the MBA and turn back on. At this point, the MBA will connect to the Extreme with a excellent signal.
Any thoughts on why the MBA is not automatically switching?
Thanks for the help!
Brian

The first troubleshooting step for any kind of network "issue" is a complete power cycle of the network. This gives everything a "fresh start" with new connections.
Power off the entire network.....all devices....in any order you want
Wait a minute or two
Start the modem/router first, and let it run a full minute
Start the AirPort Extreme next and let it run a full minute
Keep starting devices one at a time about a minute apart until the entire network is back up
Check the network again with the MBA and report on your results
Do not worry about the iPhone and iPad....they are pretty much hopeless as far as automatically switching from one access point to another....but the MBA should if it is working correctly.

Connecting AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express

Hi, I have a windows 7 pc connected to the internet with a dsl modem/router (technicolor TG587n v3 made by Thomson) and a Mac computer that gets connected wirelessly, but now I have purchased an AirPort Extreme and an AirPort Express and I want to connect the new AirPorts to provide a more stable connection and also to extend the wifi signal and connect a non wifi USB printer to be accessible by the other computers in the household. Would it be possible for someone to spell out all of the steps to be taken to achieve this? Many thanks

No worries. It was all to do with the sequence of events which happened as follows (bear in mind that I'm not a technical person). First of all I've left the original moden/router's connection as it was, then I connected the Airport Extreme to the original modem with an ethernet cable. After this I started Airport Utility and I chose to do a manual setup until it recognised the Extreme, once this was done I plugged the Express to a power point, then Airport Utility recognised the Express and once again I did a manual setup and voila!
The above steps are only a summary of what took place as I did get a little bit confused as the first person that attended to my enquiry was not an expert with creating networks. The second person was amazing knowledgeable.

Can an older Round Airport Extreme and Airport Express be used on my home WIFI network?

I recently upgraded my Macbook Pro to a newer one because I was having problems with the older one getting on my home WIFI network. It had been dropped, but had continued working without any hiccups for five or six months. Suddenly it won't go online. It said there was no WIFI hardwae installed. I suspect that the WIFI antenna connection between the main bdy and the display failed. Repair options at the Apple Store were iffy, so I just baought the new one. My Time Machine backup smoothly cloned my old machine onto the new one.
In the "when it rains it pours" category, my Airport Extreme also failed at the same time I began having problems with the old laptop. Suspecting the hardware was the problem after checking with my ISP, I purchased a new Airport Express at Best Buy. Using it, I got my WIFI network back up and running. That's why I figured there was a problem with the older Airport Extreme. The Airport Extreme was replaced by an Apple Genius at the store, when I purchased the new laptop. Putting my Home WIFI network back together with the new AE, went fine, but it turned up another problem. I use an older (pre-N speed) Airport Express to link a YAMAHA digital piano wirelessly to my WIFI. It can go online directly and download music. I can also push my iTunes wirelessly through the piano's amplifier and speakers for great sounding stereo. The problem is my new AE won't recognize my older Airport Express. I tryied downloading the Airport Utility v. 5.6 as suggested online, but It still won't find the Airport Express hooked up to the piano.
Is there any way to update my earlier Airport Express and also an older Airport Extreme (round)? The Airport Utility v.5.6 won't recognize them and initialize them. Any ideas? I repurposed the new Airport Express I bought to seerve my printer, allowing me to disconnect the USB cable from my iMac. That's working fine, except my HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 now won't give me two sided printing anymore. It always something!
Network consists of:
20" Mid 2007 iMac running Mac OS Lion 10.7.4
New 15" MacBook Pro running Mac OS Lion 10.7.4
HP Officejet Pro 8500 All-in-one Printer
New Airport Extreme attached to DSL Modem
New Airport Express wirelessly attaching my Printer to the network
Old Airport Express (A/B/G) connecting my Yamaha Digital piano (NOT WORKING)
Old Airport Extreme (round) (NOT WORKING)

Bob,
Thanks for your help. At this point, I'm seriously considering replacing the older "g" AX with a new "n" model. For whatever reason, each time I've tried to bring the ols AX bcak online in my network, it only managed to screw up my network. Using the Airport Utility 5.6 for Lion, I was able to get a green light on the AX, but it still would not go online from my Yamaha digital piano control panel, like it always did before.
Using AUtil 6.0, everything else works, and I'm assuming that setup with a new "n" speed AX, my piano will be able to get back onlune, too. When I originally set up the AX to link the piano to my WIFI network, I had very little trouble getting it setup. YAMAHA didn't list the Apple AX in it's list of compatible wireless routers/adapters, but I saw no reason that it wouldn't work. As I said it was a reasonably easy setup the first time, and it has worked for several years with no problems.
It's not the cost of buying the new AX that bugs me, it's the fact that I can't figure out why it won't work now when it did before. It was working fine with my old AE based WIFI network, even after upgrading the my computers to the Lion OS. I used to be reasonably savvy with Apple technology, having spent the last 15 years of my teaching career (1987-2001) as the tech liason for the schools where I worked, supporting first Apple II's, then Macs, and networked buildings. After eleven years of retirement, I find it harder and harder to keep up as the technology just keeps evolving. I'm trying, but it's not easy! Any and all help is appreciated!

How does one sync the new time capsule with the old airport extreme and airport express in order to extend range?

How does one sync the new time capsule with the old airport extreme and airport express in order to extend range?

Thanks for the additional information.
Unfortunately, the AirPort Utility application in the Lion and Mountain Lion operating systems, which is used to configure the new Time Capsule does not support the older versions of the products that you have.
Even if it did, there are no settings on the older AirPorts to "Extend a wireless network", so they are not compatible with the new Time Capsule if you intend to extend the network only using wireless connections.
If you have the ability to connect each AirPort to the Time Capsule using a permanent wired Ethernet cable connection, it might be possible to use a complicated workaround to install an older version of AirPort Utility to configure the older AirPorts to work with the new Time Capsule.
If you have another Mac there that is using the Leopard or Snow Leoapard operating system, things would likely be simpler. I have not done this type of procedure to mix a new Time Capsule with older AirPorts, so I would not be able to say whether this would work or not.

Setting up network with newer and older AirPort Extremes

Okay, I thought this was going to be so simple. I have a newer (like a year old - square) Airport Extreme that I have three computers wirelessly hooked up to in the house. Great... so now, I want to hook up the old iMac in my son's room that doesn't have a wireless card to the network. It is too far away to use the ethernet cable into the back of my newer Airport Extreme station so I figured I'd dust off the old saucer type base station, plug the ethernet cable into that in my son's room and then just easily get the old base station to network with the newer one wirelessly.
Not so easy. The newer one has no reference how to make a network with other base stations whatsoever and the old book describes how to with the Airport Admin Utility which is not available to the newer version, just Airport Utility and it does not have the WDA options listed. I tried to extend the network and then Doh! The whole network disappeared.
Is this a compatibility issue with the older and newer base stations? Would it just be easier to put in a wireless card to my very old iMac, if that's even possible? Has anyone successfully networked an old and new base station together? If so how?
Thanks!

Welcome to the discussions!
When you have an older "g" device (the flying saucer) and a newer "n" device (the square one) in order for them to communicate using wireless only, you must configure both of them in what is known as WDS configuration.
This is a quite tricky setup for most users. The best set of instructions that I've seen for this comes from expert user Tesserax in this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2355832&tstart=0
If you elect to try this type of setup, you will probably need to hold down the option key on your Mac while you click on the Wireless Mode selection box to get the WDS option to appear. (My guess here is that Apple "hides" it because it slows down the network substantially). But, it's the only way to do what you want to accomplish with and old and new device.
Other options would include the wireless card you mentioned for the iMac. Even better might be a pair of ethernet powerline adapters. One adapter goes near the AirPort Extreme and the other near the iMac. The AC wiring in your home transmits the ethernet signal of the powerline. Works great, almost no configuration required and better than wireless in many cases.

New Airport Extreme and Older Airport Express No Longer Works

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