[winwintoo]

I live in an apartment building right in the center of the city. My airport extreme works fine as long as I have all the windows closed. As soon as I open a window, the airport signal is lost.

Whats up with that??

Is there too much interference in the vicinity and opening the window allows the interference to come into my apartment??

Thanks for any suggestions.

Margaret

[AssassyN]

Welcome to the MacNN Boards!

That's a strange problem indeed...it may have something to do with excessive 2.4Ghz signals outside of your windows (cordless phones are atrocious for 2.4Ghz interference). Aside from moving your base station, I'd guess the only other option is to keep the windows closed.

[aaanorton]

Ya, I'd try moving the base around. This can make a big difference. Keep it away from your own computer and monitor, though. And try posting this in the Networking forum. You may get more input there.

[Angus_D]

Mine cuts out too, I think it's just that AE sucks. I doubt it's interference, there isn't much that could cause it, and I've tried several different bands.

[aaanorton]

Originally posted by Angus_D:
Mine cuts out too, I think it's just that AE sucks. I doubt it's interference, there isn't much that could cause it, and I've tried several different bands.

Are you on cable?

[AssassyN]

Ya know to be perfectly honest with you, my internet cuts out a bunch too...at least 5-6 times per day. I've got an ethernet cable from my dormroom wall (we've got an Octal connection here, d/loads over 1MB/sec...good stuff) into my WAN port, then another cable from the LAN port into the Uplink port in my 5-port Linksys hub. From the hub I've got my PowerMac connected via a ethernet cable, and I occasionally connect my 2 notebooks via wires if doing huge file transfers...escp. during plugging in/out or connecting/disconnecting, the internet tends to fall out and will only come back w/ a reset of the Base Station.

I initially thought my hub was just old or crappy or something, but I'm beginning to think it's the AE Base Station.

[bmmp]

If your Airport is still new, I would take it back to Apple and have them take a look at it.

My Apple store was quite nice about it and checked it out. I purchased 2 Extreme base stations and turned out one of them was broken. The station would respond intermittedly. I would have Apple check to make sure your signal is strong enough, because something like a window opening shouldn't interfere with a wireless network soo close, Especially 802.11G.

I've also hear from various other forums that Extreme is less reliable that the Original for some reason. Too bad Apple doesn't sell them anymore.

[Kenneth]

Yes... my AirPort Extreme acts this way as well.

Meanwhile, I'm using the Linksys wireless access point + Comcast. My PowerMac G4 with Apple AE card got a weak reception and sometimes lost signal, a reboot was necessary to get it re-connect. Moreover, my original iBook with old AirPort card plays extremely well.

Both are running AirPort 3.1.1

[AssassyN]

Well at least in my situation, I've pinopinted the actual AE Base Station as the problem with my internet cutting out. In my previous setup I mentioned above, I had the AE Base Station routing a single IP to all of my connected machines, which for some reason, I don't think it liked.

I re-routed the wires so that the cable from the wall (that goes to the campus's internet) went directly into my HUB first, and then passed along the signal to my AE Base Station for any *wirelessly* connected machines. Now I'm lucky enough to have multiple IP's at my disposal, so this is why this setup works...each machine can use it's own IP, thus no need for routing a single IP to all machines. After doing this, my PowerMac hasn't lost connection a single time.

[Angus_D]

Originally posted by aaanorton:
Are you on cable?

I'm not, and why would this make any difference?

[Diggory Laycock]

Every so often my AEBS just stops doing its thing - and there is no network available.

I have to unplug the thing and restart it.

Other times I just cannot join the network - I get a "There was an error joining the network" message - hmmm Helpful message there.

I suspect It has something to do with the 802.11b network in the office below my flat.

Grrrr.

[aaanorton]

Originally posted by Angus_D:
I'm not, and why would this make any difference?

Sometimes with my cable connection, my LAN seems to go down. It often looks like it is caused by my wireless router freezing. But almost ALWAYS, it is because of some issue with my cable provider's servers or network. I've heard of others seeing this on cable too, possibly on DSL, but I'm not entirely sure.
Anyway, the solution is generally a call to my provider and waiting for it to get resolved.

[aaanorton]

Originally posted by Diggory Laycock:
Other times I just cannot join the network - I get a "There was an error joining the network" message - hmmm Helpful message there.

I mostly see this when the MAC address of my machine is being filtered out by the base.
Either check to make sure your MAC address is included in the approved list, or make sure your joining the right network. To help with the latter, you might want to make sure that your Airport setting are correct in the Network pref pane. The most reliable seems to be Most recently joined available network (or something like that, it's the middle one).

[aaanorton]

Originally posted by AssassyN:
Well at least in my situation, I've pinopinted the actual AE Base Station as the problem with my internet cutting out. In my previous setup I mentioned above, I had the AE Base Station routing a single IP to all of my connected machines, which for some reason, I don't think it liked.

Well, this is exactly what they are designed for. What do you mean it didn't like it?

I re-routed the wires so that the cable from the wall (that goes to the campus's internet) went directly into my HUB first, and then passed along the signal to my AE Base Station for any *wirelessly* connected machines. Now I'm lucky enough to have multiple IP's at my disposal, so this is why this setup works...each machine can use it's own IP, thus no need for routing a single IP to all machines. After doing this, my PowerMac hasn't lost connection a single time.

You could also try disabling the DHCP server on the AEBS. Then it wouldn't share a single IP with its clients. Are you really using just a hub, or is it a switch?

[Diggory Laycock]

Originally posted by aaanorton:
I mostly see this when the MAC address of my machine is being filtered out by the base.
Either check to make sure your MAC address is included in the approved list, or make sure your joining the right network. To help with the latter, you might want to make sure that your Airport setting are correct in the Network pref pane. The most reliable seems to be Most recently joined available network (or something like that, it's the middle one).

I'm absolutely sure I am joining the correct net - I have specified the net in the Network Prefs. Also It happens when I choose the network directly by name from the Airport Menu Extra.

I also don't have any MAC filtering on - any MAC address is allowed on the net.

Another symptom is that the Network is intermittently available - I will go to the menu extra - and only the neighbouring network is listed (My base station is three feet away!). Then one second later I will go the menu again and both nets are available.

Sometimes the network will be available, but very spotty (it happened as I clicked on this thread co-incidentally)

E.g. Ping results:

Ethernet Based G4 -

Code:
pinLast login: Fri Sep  5 03:00:41 on ttyp1
gWelcome to Darwin!
 [G4Server:~] diggory% ping www.apple.com
PING www.apple.com.akadns.net (17.112.152.32): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=0 ttl=46 time=155.54 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=1 ttl=46 time=155.561 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=2 ttl=46 time=155.931 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=3 ttl=46 time=155.668 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=4 ttl=46 time=155.531 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=5 ttl=46 time=154.659 ms
^C
--- www.apple.com.akadns.net ping statistics ---
6 packets transmitted, 6 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 154.659/155.481/155.931 ms
[G4Server:~] diggory%

Pismo (ordinary airport - took Two goes to correctly connect to the network):

Code:
Diggory-Laycocks-Computer:~ diggory$ ping www.apple.com
PING www.apple.com.akadns.net (17.112.152.32): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=0 ttl=46 time=158.185 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=1 ttl=46 time=157.286 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=2 ttl=46 time=165.048 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=3 ttl=46 time=170.603 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=4 ttl=46 time=158.714 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=5 ttl=46 time=156.918 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=6 ttl=46 time=162.395 ms
^C
--- www.apple.com.akadns.net ping statistics ---
7 packets transmitted, 7 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 156.918/161.307/170.603 ms
Diggory-Laycocks-Computer:~ diggory$

17" Powerbook (Airport Extreme)

Code:
pingLast login: Sat Sep  6 02:29:48 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
[DiggorysWideBook:~] diggory% ping
usage: ping [-Rdfnqrv] [-c count] [-i wait] [-l preload]
        [-p pattern] [-s packetsize] host
[DiggorysWideBook:~] diggory% ping www.apple.com
PING www.apple.com.akadns.net (17.112.152.32): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=0 ttl=46 time=512.711 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=1 ttl=46 time=2309.26 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=4 ttl=46 time=406.919 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=5 ttl=46 time=177.936 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=6 ttl=46 time=2166.82 ms
^C
--- www.apple.com.akadns.net ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 50% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 177.936/1114.73/2309.26 ms

[aaanorton]

Run through all the different channels. You may find significant diffs between them. I did.
And try setting it to b only to see if that helps.

[NYCFarmboy]

Airport Extreme sucks. Mine goes in and out all the time. I have done all the upgrades and it is better than it used to be, but still goes out.

Manually change the channel, and if you are not using an extreme compatible computer go ahead and switch to the channel.

I have a suspician the cordless phone next door to me causes mine to go out.

Mine still goes out though even though I've changed the channels etc. I finally gave up and put an ethernet cord from the back jack of the Airport Extreme base station back into my G4 tower. So at least my G4 tower is online all the time now. But it sort of defeats the purpose of having the base station except for when I use my laptop.