Airport Express Issues

billiam0878 said:

I recently purchased an Airport Express and I've been having connectivity issues that I believe correlate with the sharing of a single IP address. Inside the Airport Admin Utility I've been trying to tell the Airport to distribute IP addresses and "Share a range of IP addresses (using only DHCP)." Now I have no clue what to set as my range of IP addresses (it needs a "Beginning" and an "Ending") or DHCP Client ID. Any ideas would be vastly appreciated. Thanks!

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Unless you own a block of addresses (or lease them from your ISP), or have some other method of distributing private IP addresses, you'll need to go back to DHCP + NAT. Most people who have broadband (or dialup for that matter) are only allowed by their ISP to use one DHCP address at any given time - and that's the address your Airport Express will be using. All of your client computers will have their own unique IP addresses, except they are in non-routable address space (e.g. 192.168.x.x).

DHCP + NAT shouldn't be causing any sort of connectivity issues. It's a practice that's been used by all sorts of operating systems on all sorts of networks for many years. It's very well established and very straightforward.

Have you tried other things such as switching the channel your AE is using, or turning on "interference robustness" on the AE and on your client computers?

billiam0878 said:

To clarify, it seems that our connectivity drops out (even though the airport meter suggest otherwise-- it stays at full range) when we both try to access the internet at the same time from two seperate PowerBooks. I doubt this is an issue (as I've set the mode to 802.11b/g Compatible), but one PowerBook is running the basic Airport card whereas the second is running an AE card.

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So (just making sure I'm not brain-dead here) if either one of your PBs are connected by itself, there is no issue? Also, do both computers have connection issues when they're both connected, or just one of them?

Have you tried 802.11b-only mode? (as a diagnostic step)

Help... please.

I have recently purchased a few Airport Express routers as well as an Airport Extreme. In brief, I have all the units arranged around my apartment in an attempt to get better coverage throughout the building. Much of the time, everything works smoothly. However, often... usually when I have guests over... my airtunes will drop out. I check my Airport Client Monitor and see the transfer rate going to crap! Down in the basement. I have no cordless phones, and don't run the microwave oven. The signal is fine... 40 dB signal to noise ratio. I can't explain these drop-offs. Before I had the Airport Express simply as a airtunes router, and all worked fine. No drop-offs. Now that it is part of a multi-router network... it drops off seemingly at the worst possible times. I run, in total, four routers in the apartment. One in the bedroom, the airport for the iTunes, the main base station and the Extreme as another range extender (So I can go outside.) Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Bill,

All I can do is come up with things I'd try now - I don't really have a definitive answer.

#1: Try switching the AE to hand out 192.168.1.1 addresses, then make sure your subnet mask on each laptop is 255.255.255.0. (BTW with your 10.x.x.x address space are your masks set to 255.0.0.0?). I'm wondering if this is somehow a subnet mask issue. I've seen odd problems on occasion with 10.x.x.x space, although they are usually client-side issues.

#2: (this is not part of #1, but I'd probably stick with 192.168.1.x space) Leave AE settings on DHCP/NAT, but try giving the Powerbooks fixed addresses within that space. Maybe set one to 192.168.1.220 and the other to 192.168.1.222 for example. Note that if you (as is likely) use these PBs other places as well, you'll need to take advantage of your PB's ability to have different network locations - so do this for a "home" location, but also set up a "roaming" location that is still set for DHCP. Or for that matter, call the locations "fixed" and "dhcp".

#3: If you've got anything installed that affects your TCP/IP stack, such as macstumbler or airsnort (one of these does, one of these doesn't, but I forget which is which), get rid of it.

Bill,

One other thing, after re-reading your second message - do you have the AE set to use "DHCP + NAT" or just "DHCP"? I'm asking because you mention you've set a specific range of addresses - which on my AE is not a "NAT" option.