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AA-Ron

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 17, 2013
9
0
Here's my set-up:

Time warner cable in, cable modem, ethernet to 2nd gen Airport Express.

Moved first gen Express to other side of house, extended the network of the new Express.

Everything worked really well for about a month until we returned from being away for the holidays.

Didn't have signal problems at all before the upgrade.

Here's the problem:

My hp laptop, and my son's asus laptop can't get a steady connection anymore ... even though the iMac and iPad do perfectly well.

Additionally, when I am near the 1st gen Express, it goes from green to blinking amber at the same moment the signal drops.

And when it drops, I mean it drops ... I don't even see the network availbale any more. I reset my PCs wireless adapter, reset the ip stack, all that ... on both laptops, and that doesn't affect it. So it's related to the laptops, but it may not be the laptops.

But the 2nd gen base station stays solid green, and the Apple products keep going like there is no problem at all.

So here's what I wonder ... did a neighbor maybe get a gift over the holidays that is causing interference in the 2.4GHz band? I can't think of a change here that would have caused that. That would explain the Apple products going fine on 5GHz.

If that's true, is there anything I can do about it?

And if that is true, how does the blinking extender airport figure in, since I would think it would stay connected on the 5GHz band ...

And if that is not the case, what else could be going on?
 

AA-Ron

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 17, 2013
9
0
OK, I found iStumbler, and I changed the frequency.

But it didn't look like anyone was on that frequency in the first place.

And for some reason, my main network shows up twice in the 2.4GHz band ... on the same channel.

Am I somehow jamming my own signal here?

I'll keep it updated.
 

AA-Ron

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 17, 2013
9
0
I attached a pdf of the iStumbler screen.

My Networks:
Aaron
Aaron Guest

channel 157 is the 5GHz ... no conflict

I switched the channel on the 2.4GHz to 2. No conflict from the neighbors, but there is an "extra" Aaron network on channel 2 .... some how, somewhere.

When I change the radio channel for the 2.4 GHz, the second Aaron network changes at the same time.

Any ideas?
 

Attachments

  • iStumbler - AirPort.pdf
    49.8 KB · Views: 309

AA-Ron

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 17, 2013
9
0
So I took the express back to factory settings.

I ditched the "extra" one in the process, but it doesn't seem to have helped.

My laptop still won't hold the connection.

Here's what the graph looks like when it drops ... I think.
 

Attachments

  • Aaron WiFi.pdf
    23.2 KB · Views: 390

AA-Ron

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 17, 2013
9
0
AND I can hop on my neighbor's Linksys network, and my laptop doesn't drop the signal.

Gotta be the airport.
 

AA-Ron

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 17, 2013
9
0
When you say it won't hold the signal is it showing as a DNS error? That's what I had. Here is a thread with my solution.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1524028/

Yes, it is a DNS error.

Chrome tells me it can't connect.

On my laptop there is a wifi status, with bars, or with an amber circle when there is no connection.

So, you must have missed in my posts where I showed that I changed the 2.4ghz channel.

I don't have any competition on the default channel (11).
 

Apple fanboy

macrumors Ivy Bridge
Feb 21, 2012
55,097
52,713
Behind the Lens, UK
Have you tried manually adding the Mac address of your laptop to your wifi set up? That was another suggestion I was told about that might help. Either that or look at the other links in the thread I linked.
 

AA-Ron

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 17, 2013
9
0
Turns out I had tech support still since I hadn't bought the airport too long ago.

The guy tells me whatever he had me do through airport utility boosted the power.

It also seems to have changed the 2.4 ghz channel to 1.

We'll see.
 

AA-Ron

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 17, 2013
9
0
So what tech support did was have me change the Radio Mode to:

802.11n only (5GHz) - 802.11b/g/n

and it has worked for the PCs since.

I'm not quite sure what this did, though.

Anybody know?
 
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