V. Slow transfer speeds with new dual band Airport Extreme

I have a new Airport Extreme (late 2009, dual band, full 'N' spec) which I am using to replace an older Airport Extreme (early 2008, 5Ghz, 'draft' N).
I have a USB disk attached and was interested in benchmarking the transfer speed of the new Extreme, compared to the previous version. The results are puzzling / alarming.
Shown below are transfer speeds (file copied to the attached USB drive) under different connection standards (2.4Ghz / 5Ghz & a/b/g/n)
'Old' Airport Extreme
5Ghz - 'draft' N : ~5-7 Mb/sec
'New' Airport Extreme
2.4Ghz - b/g : ~3-5 Mb/sec
5.0Ghz - a : ~3-7 Mb/sec
5.0Ghz - N : ~200 Kb/sec
Hence transfer speeds appear to collapse when I try to make use of the 'N' spec with the latest Extreme. I have tried altering items such as - wide channels (on / off), interference robustness (on / off), 5Ghz channel (manual, instead of auto), with no upside.
I seem to be at the point of concluding that either
1. I have a 'broken' Airport Extreme
2. The WiFi card on my early 2008 iMac (which implements I guess the 'draft' N standard) is 'incompatible' with new the Airport Extreme under a 'N' connection.
Any thoughts ?

Since all devices in my wireless network are capable of latest 802.11n protocol, I really do not need older and slower 802.11a/b/g protocols. To achieve above 200 Mbit/sec, 5GHz band with wide channel option turned on is really necessary. Thus I really wish I can turn off the 2.4GHz radio band (seems Apple has set this band as default) of my new dual band Airport Extreme to avoid unwanted bandwidth degradation. Unfortunately this is not possible with radio mode setting in Airport Utility.
The best I can do to force connection with 5GHz radio band (with quite consistent result) is as follows:
On Airport Extreme through [Airport Utility>Wireless] :
Radio Mode: 802.11n only (5Ghz) - 802.11b/g/n
More Options>Wireless Network Option>Transmit Power: 100%
More Options>Wireless Network Option>Use Wide Channels: checked
More Options>Wireless Network Option>5 GHz Network Name:
checked and same network name with extra suffix "(5 GHz)"
On 27" iMac through [System Preferences>Network>AirPort>Advanced>AirPort]:
Preferred Networks:
Create only one profile in Preferred Networks for the above network name with suffix "(5GHz)"
Uncheck the option [Remember networks this computer has joined] to ensure there is only one profile under Preferred Networks .
Once all above settings are done, restart Airport Extreme in Airport Utility. Your computer should connect wirelessly to the base station through 5GHz band after booting most of the time. Even when it is not occasionally, simply go to the Airport icon in main menu bar and click on the network name with suffix "(5GHz)" in dropped-down list to connect manually. With all these settings, I have achieved 300 Mbit/sec bandwidth on my iMac most of the time for fast Time Machine backup.
How I wish feature for better radio mode control by end user will be implemented in next update of Airport Utility. Apple should trust end user's brain better than artificial intelligence (or ignorance ?) in wireless network implementation. Wireless traffic between the two radio bands and among various wireless devices should be segregated specifically in Airport Utility by end users whenever dual band Airport base stations are in use.

Similar Messages

Why does the new Dual-Band AirPort Extreme Base Station act as a proxy?

The previous thread
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1531675
has been archived and nothing came of it, but after testing, I'm certain that their findings are true.
The Dual-Band AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBS) with firmware 7.4.1 acts as a proxy for TCP ports 21, 554, and 7070 when NAT is turned on. This can be verified by using Nmap on any external server known to NOT have the ports open and having Nmap return that the ports are open. You can telnet to these ports to verify that they're "open," even though they are not on the server.
This functionality appears to be undocumented and as far as I can tell, the only way to turn it off is to put the AEBS into bridge mode and having some other device do NAT further upstream.
As a computer professional, this functionality extremely undesirable, particularly since it is not documented and doesn't have an "off switch." I wasted a bunch of time with one of my network engineers because of this, thinking that some network router was spoofing our server. I also wasted a bunch of my time trying to detect whatever "stealthy rootkit" had opened a FTP server and some other botnet related ports on our server, when in reality, it was simply my AEBS tricking me.
Disabling NAT-PMP ("Enable NAT port mapping protocol") does not affect this.
Is it too much to ask to have a checkbox in the "Advanced" section of the AirPort Utility to turn this feature off?

Welcome to the discussions forum Michael Bennett2.
Thanks for investigating this odd behavior.
If you want your work to be noticed by those who can effect change, you'll have to tell Apple via their feedback link. It won't do any good to post it here.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/

No more WDS networking in the new dual band airport extreme?

we had a network of 3 airport extremes in our small 2 story design studio, we bought a new dual band to see if it would help with our DSL problem [it did], but there is no more WDS networking option available. this unit replaced our MAIN WDS unit. so now we are left with 'extending the network' option. it seems to be working, but what is the reason behind no more WDS?

WDS gives you more control over your network. You can set-up certain base stations as relays and others as remotes. Using the "Extend a network" option just tells the base stations to try and find other base stations. It is much easier for a novice to set-up, and I think this is probably why Apple has highlighted this feature as opposed to WDS (where you have to specify MAC addresses for all base stations and remotes).
WDS is nice if you have a mixed network with older b/g base stations since they don't have the option to "Extend a network" or "Allow this network to be extended".

Will Airport Express 802.11g network with a new Dual Band Airport Extreme?

Bob Timmons I need your help. I have a older Airport Express, can I use it to extend my wireless network to the far reaches of my house by linking it to my new Airport Extreme 802.11n?
There must be an article on this somewhere.
Thanks!

Welcome back!
If by "older" AirPort Express, you mean it is a "b/g" version, you'll have to use the WDS setup options on both the new AirPort Extreme"n" and the AirPort Express.
Unfortunately, two negative things will occur when you setup WDS:
1) Because WDS is a "g" technology thing, the entire wireless network will drop down to "g" wireless levels. So, you lose any advantages of "n" speeds with your new router.
2) The bandwidth on the entire wireless network will be cut 50%.
Bottom line, you will have a "g" wireless network operating at half of it's capability. That's a tremendous loss of performance for a bit more wireless coverage, but you may disagree.
WDS is difficult for most users to set up because it is very easy to make a mistake. Look over this post to get an idea of what is involved with this. There is also a link to Apple's instructions in this post, but the step by step by expert user Tesserax is easier to follow.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2287950&tstart=0
I do not recommend WDS, but it's your call.

Issue with new dual band APE

I am having an issue keeping a good connection on the 5ghz channel with my new dual band airport extreme. Let me explain my current network. I just purchased a new APE. Airport utility shows it as AirPort Extreme Dual Band II with 7.5.1 firmware. I have it running a 2.4ghz G network and a 5ghz N network. In the basement I have my older APE which is a Airport Extreme N with gigabit ethernet (7.4.2 firmware). It is set to join 5ghz network from the dual band and then acts as a hub to my gaming Windows PC, ps3, and xbox. The 5ghz network is very spotty, it will work fine and I can browse away for about a minute and then it will just stop. My laptop and ipad will still show full signal strength, safari will just end up timing out while waiting. If I move them over to the 2.4ghz G network everything works fine, except of course file transfers which are slow because of being on the G network. Also should the older router be on a higher version number of firmware? I have tried checking for updates on both.

+Something seems off.+
Absolutely.
At 2.4 GHz, the high noise level indicates that you are experiencing interference from another wireless network (do you see other networks in iStumbler?), cordless phones (could be yours or your neighbors', a nearby wireless security system, microwave interference...lots of possibilities.
iStumber may not display "hidden" networks. Most modern routers (Apple included) allow users to "hide" their network, so it's possible that you may be experiencing interference from a wireless network that you cannot "see".
If you have cordless phones, you might want to pick a time when you can power them and their base stations completely down for a few hours to see if the wireless signal improves and noise drops on your network. Not much you can do about a neighbor's cordless phone or security system.
Experiment with different channel settings on your 2.4 GHz wireless as well.
Most cordless phone will not interfere with 5 GHz. I can't explain why your 5 GHz signal is so low..and the noise high..if you are close to the router and have line of sight between devices. Try a few different channel settings on 5 GHz as well.
Let us know what you find.

Streaming DVD movies over Dual Band Airport Extreme Airdisk

Hello,
This is my first post in the discussion forums. I have been a long time reading of the discussion forums. I recently bought a late 2009 dual band Airport Extreme base station. I have been trying to stream DVD movies (TS_VIDEO) using the Airdisk feature. What I did, as an experiment, was to hook up the dual band Airport Extreme to my 2009 Mac-Mini using an ethernet cable from the base station to the Mac-Mini. I enabled file sharing on the Airport extreme base station. I hooked an external hard drive to the base station via a USB port on the base station. I mounted the Airdisk on the Mac-MIni. When I play the ripped DVD movies (TS_VIDEO) from the Airdisk I get a lot of stuttering using Front-Row. According to the Apple customer service reps, this is normal behavior. Can anybody comment on if this is normal behavior.

An uncompressed DVD should have a maximum data rate of around 6 or 7 Mbps and so be well within the nominal 300 Mbps of an 802.11n network - even allowing for the slower actual speeds attained due to networking overheads and weak signals. However, given that you have the latest Airport Extreme it sounds like you may be suffering from the common fault many are reporting in these forums, in which disk transfer rates are very, very slow over the 5GHz 802.11n connection. Look at some of the other threads here. It is clearly a fault in the current design (not a fault with your particular unit) and something that Apple are apparently aware of. Most are hoping it will be resolved in an updated firmware at some point in the future.
Edit: I just re-read your post and notice that you said you used a physical connection between the Airport and the Mac Mini. Thus no wireless involved. Nevertheless, others have reported poor data rates with disks connected to the unit, and so this may still be the issue. Check out some of the other threads here.
Message was edited by: Paul Howland2

Wired throughput on dual band Airport Extremes

I wonder if anyone has put the dual band devices through their paces with the 5Ghz network and wide channels plus the 2.4 Ghz network at the same time. Since it has two radios, I'd expect it to be able to really route a lot of traffic, perhaps 300-350 Mb/sec through its gigabit WAN port, similar to the combined capacity of an older AE on 5 Ghz and an 802.11g Airport network. Is this wrong?
I have a three-room area of the school where there are sometimes more than 90 laptops are in use, half MacBooks, half iBooks. I have a 'square' original model AEn in each of the end rooms and an older dome-shaped AE in the middle room. All three non-overlapping channels are utilized, and all are set to 802.11g only. This has worked to balance traffic reasonably well, but it really gets slow sometimes. The AEn's take 40-45 clients each, and the older AE grabs a few.
I am thinking about replacing the two end room AEn's with new dual-band ones, use the same SSID for both frequencies, and set the 2.4 Ghz to be 802.11g. I understand this setup will cause my MacBooks to tend to the 5 Ghz, the iBooks only the 2.4 Ghz. If so, is the setting "802.11a/n - 802.11g only" the correct wireless setting? I am not sure why "802.11n - 802.11g only" is not an option, but we do not have any 802.11a devices that I know of, so that should not slow the network down.
Anyone with experience with this? I searched the forum pretty well, I thought, but maybe I missed something. Thanks.

Thanks Bob - I've thought about this. The guest area is on a different power phase so the ethernet over power option doesn't work. I'm looking at extending the WAN port using a bridge and set the second unit up to create a new network. I'll get the bridge to join the guest network. Double NAT won't be too much of an issue considering it's just to access the Internet.
The issue is related to the construction of my house - I have a metal roof and all of the walls have sisalation (aluminium backed insulation). If I were to connect an external antenna it'd probably fix the problem.
I must say that I'm a bit disappointed with Apple on this.
1. No easy access to antennas - an external antenna would most likely fix the problem.
2. Restricting the functionality of the guest network (impossible to extend properly, even with a wired connection!)
3. No filtering capability to control IP traffic
4. No Web interface to configure the unit.
- Mark E

Adding Wireless-N-ONLY Time Capsule to Dual-Band Airport Extreme Network?

I have a dual-band airport extreme which I have configured to create both a wireless-a/b/g/n SSID on my network, as well as a second SSID which is Wireless-N-ONLY (meant to be used with my Time Capsule so that all backups to the Time Capsule via Time Machine are only ever done via Wireless-N).
My Airport Extreme is already configured, and now I just have to configure my Time Capsule on my network...
Can someone briefly run through the "assist me" steps in the Airport Utility that I'd want to follow to configure my Time Capsule so that it's available on my dual-band base station's wireless-N-ONLY network and so that it's not transmitting or receiving any other wireless protocol other than wireless-N?
Thanks!

Hi Bob,
Thanks for your earlier feedback. I now have a dual band TC and the previous dual band EABS and I'm tearing my hair out trying to get these things to play nice! Maybe you can provide some assistance:
1) The TC upstairs is connected to the comcast modem and is the main 'router' in my network. In addition, I'm using the "create wireless network" option on this router to set up both a 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz wireless environment.
2) The AEBS downstairs on the opposite end of the house is connected by ethernet - whole house is wired so I'm feeding from the TC upstairs through a switch in the disti box down to an outlet where I have the AEBS. The cat-5 cable is connected to a LAN port on the back of the AEBS.
3) I have the AEBS set up to extend the wireless network. When I do this it only gives me the ability to select one wireless network (I have the TC configured to call the 5 GHz network something different) - In essence doesn't appear to want to let me extend both bands of the wireless network.
The problem seems to be that once I get all the configurations set I have no connectivity and if I try to open the configuration via Airport Utility, its just a spinning gear and will never open to show the settings. This happens to with both the TC and the AEBS. It's like it's in a loop or something.
I immediately disconnect the AEBS from the network and suddenly all is well again.
I know this seems like a rant, but this has been kicking my a** for two days!! I've just about had it with the constant 'hard reset' of the routers and starting over with configuration. If you have any specific things I should do, or settings that are key to set up both devices to extend my wireless network throughout the house I would be so thankful!!
Thanks,
Don

Very slow transfer speeds with Airport Extreme and MacBook

I have been using a new Airport Extreme without problem at my home for the past six weeks. The speed and range was excellent with both my MacBook Pro and the MacBook which I purchased a few weeks ago. I came out to Greece with both laptops and a new AP Extreme box for my home network here. After set up I noticed that internet access was lethargic on the MacBook and file transfer between the two computers was extremely slow. The problem seems to be with the new MacBook (although it was working well in London). I've done some speed tests and the internet download speed is only 48 kpbs! I also notice that the range is very poor--in the room next to the router I am down to five bars. If I connect to the AP Extreme with cable I get the full 1Mbps I would normally expect here in Athens (ADSL nominal 2Mbps). The MacBook Pro has no problems with wireless access speeds or range, so I am assuming this has to be a problem with the AP extreme card in the MacBook. Is there anything I have overlooked? Perhaps something to do with setting up the new AP Extreme here in Athens?

By process of elimination I realised that the only cause of the sudden slowness must be software that I had installed recently. The only software I had added was a wifi utility to detect available networks--open or protected. Unlikely as it sounds, quitting the utility (which I had set to load on startup) made a dramatic improvement in performance.

Very slow transfer speeds with external hard drives through Firewire and US

Hi All,
My external drives transfer very slowly on my MacPro. I've been searching for answers and have turned up very little. Apple support suggested I post my issue here. Just to make a note, I measured my disk speeds with both AJA System Test and copying files between drives and reading the Disk Activity in Activity Monitor.
I have 3 external drives, all MyBook Premium or Professional, 1x 500GB, 1x 1TB and 2x 1TB in RAID 0. I had them on Firewire 400 and the RAID 0 2TB one on Firewire 800. My transfers on FW were all around 24MB/sec on all drives (much less than what I should be getting with FW400). I then read somewhere that the FW bus on the MacPro uses the slowest speed connected for all FW connections. So I unplugged everything but the FW800 Raid 0 drive and my transfer rate jumped to 40-60MB/sec. This is much better, but still about half or so of what I expect it should be producing from an external RAID 0 setup.
To keep my FW800 backup drive faster, I've plugged the other two into USB2.0. The transfer speeds on both drives are now hideous, around 10-15MB/sec. This is so slow, but I'm not sure what to try to fix my speeds.
The HD's in the external drives are all 7200rpm, and all should be transferring at a higher rate. Do you have any suggestions or ideas? Ideally I'd like to get everything transferring at rates they should be transferring at, but I'll settle with my current FW800 speed of 40-60MB/sec if I can get my other two drives transferring at a non-snail pace.
Is this a common issue? I can't believe I'm the only one plugging multiple external hard drives into their Mac Pro. I hope someone has a fix or solution for this. I'm all ears!
Thanks in advance.

Hi Kappy, thanks for the information.
So I rejigged my setup a tad. My RAID 0 is still FW800, the second drive is back on FW400 on the back port, and the third is USB 2.0 on the back as well.
It's interesting to note that I saw the FW800 taking a bandwidth hit if the FW400 drives was being read/written to. For example, if I was averaging 50-60MB/sec on the FW800 drives and copy something large to the FW400 drive, each drive averages out to about 30/MB second, roughly half the FW800 speed I was getting. The USB while the slowest didn't cause any slowness on the FW drives.
Here are my Xbench results. These results are from each drive being benchmarked individually with no other drives being tested at the same time.
*MyBook 2TB in a RAID 0 configuration: Firewire 800*
Results 75.42
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.5.5 (9F33)
Physical RAM 16384 MB
Model MacPro3,1
Drive Type WD My Book
Disk Test 75.42
Sequential 80.92
Uncached Write 69.16 42.46 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 110.79 62.68 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 53.66 15.70 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 136.76 68.73 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 70.62
Uncached Write 36.38 3.85 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 140.55 45.00 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 93.26 0.66 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 88.38 16.40 MB/sec [256K blocks]
*MyBook 1TB on Firewire 400*
Results 47.73
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.5.5 (9F33)
Physical RAM 16384 MB
Model MacPro3,1
Drive Type WD My Book
Disk Test 47.73
Sequential 52.47
Uncached Write 48.45 29.74 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 53.76 30.42 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 43.69 12.79 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 70.91 35.64 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 43.78
Uncached Write 17.29 1.83 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 98.83 31.64 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 76.33 0.54 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 97.01 18.00 MB/sec [256K blocks]
*MyBook 500GB on USB 2.0*
Results 40.60
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.5.5 (9F33)
Physical RAM 16384 MB
Model MacPro3,1
Drive Type WD 5000AA External
Disk Test 40.60
Sequential 35.99
Uncached Write 37.31 22.91 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 37.22 21.06 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 26.62 7.79 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 50.27 25.27 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 46.55
Uncached Write 20.37 2.16 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 68.44 21.91 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 93.55 0.66 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 86.71 16.09 MB/sec [256K blocks]
So Kappy are you saying that those speeds look normal?
Thanks

Slow wireless speed with new iMac Intel- problem with 802.11g?

There IS a problem with the new Intel Mac, I have tried both the Intel iMac and the new Intel Mac mini and they both have the same problem with slow wireless speed (or rather it variates, if I do a ping to another computer on the network the speed goes from < 1 ms up to 1000 ms and then down to < 1 ms and so on). The older mac minis, my Linux boxes and my Windows PCs don´t have that problem. I have also read reports on the net and it appears that most users experiencing this problem have wireless card firmware version 101.3 (3.120.28.3) . A possible "fix" is to change to 802.11b on the router and then it works. No speed fluctuations and a stabile network! I know it is a bad solution, I would prefer to use 802.11g and get the speed. However I think this points to a problem with the drivers regarding 802.11g. I am starting up a new thread on this and those of you with problems, please try to switch to 802.11b and if it works let us make Apple aware of this.
/Tobbe

Which home hub do you have?
There is some general help at this link Wireless connection problems
There are some useful help pages here, for BT Broadband customers only, on my personal website.
BT Broadband customers - help with broadband, WiFi, networking, e-mail and phones.

Which Mac's have airport that can work on the new dual band Airport?

I have a MB470 Macbook Pro (Late 2008) and want to know if it can transmit on the 5GHz band if I were to buy the new AirPort Extreme Base Station dual band?
I checked the manual and spec but no mention.
Also from reading on this subject I have seen most articles saying only the original 802.11a band wifi products used 5GHZ bands and b/g/n use 2.4GHZ so what has happened there? Have manufacturers started using the 5GHZ again only recently and can products have their firmware upgraded to make them work on 5GHZ?

Also from reading on this subject I have seen most articles saying only the original 802.11a band wifi products used 5GHZ bands and b/g/n use 2.4GHZ so what has happened there?
The 802.11a standard works on the 5 GHz radio band; for 802.11b/g, it's the 2.4 GHz band, but for 802.11n it can be both bands.
Have manufacturers started using the 5GHZ again only recently and can products have their firmware upgraded to make them work on 5GHZ?
Use of the 5 GHz band for Wi-Fi is restricted in some countries due to conflicts with either military or governmental regulations. Manufacturers typically comply with these regulations in order to sell their products in such countries "legally."
Firmware alone, in most cases, will not solve the problem. The device would have to have the proper antennae & transceiver to meet the appropriate standard in order to provide the wireless network.

Poor internet speed with time capsule or Airport extreme

I'm trying to find away to increase the throughput of my 1st generation tme capsule. i'm getting a 33% drop in speed over wireless compared to wired conncetions.
current setup
Virginmedia XXL broadband 100Mbit down 5Mbit up.
Modem standard virginmedia modem (not the superhub) connected to Apple time capsule (500Mb) @ 1000Mbit full duplex
time capsule reset to default and then configured to use 5Ghz band, channel 36 . (no other networks in the area using this band) tested using wifi scanner and istumbler
tested down/up speed using www.vmspeed.com
wired connection
105Mb/sec download 4.9Mb/sec upload
wireless connection
73.14Mb/sec download 4.7Mb/sec upload
i have tried testing with an airport extreme 3rd Gen with the same setup and get the same results.
Tested using a 2008 Macbook running Lion 10.7.3 and also tested using 2010 Macbook unibody running snow leopard 10.6.8. both laptops connecting to wireless network at 270Mb/sec and are both exhibiting the same drop in speed over wireless. only one laptop connected to the network at a time.
is thier a limit to the time capsule/airport extreme wireless throughput?

Further to Bob's comments..
A Gen1 TC will be using marvel wireless chip and your 2008 and 2010 Macbook will use atheros and/or broadcom cards.. Just open your system profiler and look for info on the airport. We find the mixture of wireless chipsets especially older draft N and later N products can give very varied results.
The very fact you are linking at 270 and not 300mbps shows some reduction from theoretical max speed.. and really to get over 100mbps with any wireless you need perfect setup.. matched wireless chips etc.
Do a test uploading and downloading a file to the TC to see if the LAN speed is better than internet speed.
In reality I think you are doing especially well.. we see loads of people complaining about slow internet here who are getting less than 10% of the speed they get direct when routed through the TC. And on most occasions the limit in speed is not really going to affect what you do, as the real links to the internet are not that fast.

I have both a simultaneous dual band and a regular dual band airport extreme on an extended network will the 5ghz work at its full potential if its the one that is extending the network?

I have a A1143 model Airport extreme with dual band capabilities but not simultaneous, i'd like that to run on the 2.4ghz band, while i have a A1408 model airport extreme as the "extender" but i want to make sure that even though im running the 2.4 and the newer model is extendeding it, my simulataneous dual band will still work to its full potential (ie: 300mbs i think is the max for the 5ghz)..?
notes: no i can't use the newer model as the primary and the older model as the extender.

I am assuming that your simultaneously dual-band Extreme is using the same Network Name for both radios. If that is the case, and depending on the distance between AirPorts, the extending Extreme is most likely just extending the 2.4 GHz radio. That would leave the 5 GHz wireless network basically "untouched."

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.

V. Slow transfer speeds with new dual band Airport Extreme

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