[NYCFarmboy]

Hi folks..

my problem..just got a new Airport Extreme last Thursday...

It goes blank every 5 to 30 hours though..
meaning: no signal, no sign of it when I try to open it up using Aiport Administrator. When I scan the system for available airports it does not even show up.

It is just not there according to my g4 or my ibook...no signal, and not showing up at all when I try to reconnect...but phsysically it seems fine with the lights blinking as normal.

Sometimes it goes back on in a few minutes, but other times stays dead for up to 30 minutes until I just plug the DSL connection back into my g4. When I do this, the airport on its own suddenly comes back to life and tries to reconnect.

Does anyone know of how to fix this, or is it just bad and I need to send it back?

[Target Practice]

A bunch of people are having problems with this, including myself. Apple posted a firmware update that was intended to address the issue, but does not solve it for some people (again including myself).

Read these Apple Discussion Board threads for good info...

AirPort Extreme Frustration and 5.0.3 Firmware does not fix drop outs

One poster contributed this disturbing info about 802.11g...

"...the 802.11g standard requires the base station transmitter to send an 802.11b "burst" ahead of every transmission to alert the 11b receivers to "ignore" the following data. It must do that ONLY if it detects 802.11b activity in its receive sphere. Guess what? The "user data" throughput (after overhead and error correction coding) for 802.11b is only about 5.5 Mbps and 802.11g is only about 26 Mbps, even though they are transmitting at 11 Mbps and 55 Mbps, respectively. But in a "polluted" RF environment (i.e., 802.11b signal presence), the 802.11g throughput drops to just 13 Mbps due to the need for the "warning" bursts and attendant delays to make sure the 11b units receive it. That bothered me. It means that if your base station can "see" any other signals (such as a neighbor's WAP access point), it will be forced to slow down, even if all you have are 11g devices on your network."

This sounds like a plausible explanation of my situation. I am using the b/g mode with a TiBook and 12" PowerBook. I live in an apartment building and believe other networks are causing interference. Since today, I have switched to 802.11b mode and have not had a drop-out. I don't know if this will work long-term, but it is certainly annoying that 802.11g seems too flakey to be useful.

[on edit] Oh BTW, I also live in NYC and have a feeling it will be difficult to eliminate interference from neighboring 2.4GHz phones and other wireless networks.

[JustinD]

You know, I got the same thing with a Graphite BS and APX card in my 12". The BS required a restart via Ethernet for the PB to be able to see it again. But NOW, with the APX BASE, its a lot tougher - I had to do a FULL RESET twice in one night just to be able to CONFIGURE it, either wirelessly or over Ethernet! This is ridiculous!

[niji]

yes, the signal drop outs are frustrating.
here is something else that i reccomend you do when the signal is lost:
1. go to network pref panel
2. go to the airport pref pane in the network pref panel
3. assuming you are using dhcp, pull the drop down menu to manual. click apply.
4. then, pull back down the same drop down menu, and reclick the dhcp automatic line.
5. click apply
this should get you a new intranet ip address

here is something else that people have reported (which i at at first refused to believe,, but it does seem to work): if you happen to be on an iBook, close the lid so that an angle is formed of less than 90 degrees. do you get the signal back?

hth
thnx

[NYCFarmboy]

well..

I've tried lots of things...

last night i changed the airport extreme settings to be at the old airport standard b as I understand maybe its an issue with the new faster bandwidth being a problem.

however.. it failed this morning again.

what I do is unplug my dsl connection to my airport when it goes blank. and plug it back in..and it goes back online itself...

It went blank about 20 minutes ago, seems to go blank once or twice a day.

at least so far it resets either automatically, or when you unplug it from the dsl and just plug it back in.