Airport Dying?

[wayland1985]

I have an airport extreme. It's been trouble free until recently, when I moved. Sporadically, I'll lose wireless internet on it: The signal will suddenly be lost. The only cure is unplugging it for about 1/2 hour, then plugging it back in.

It's happened maybe 3 times in the past month. The wireless signal will completely disappear (Airport Utility can't even find the station). Today, I unplugged it for 5 minutes, and plugged it in, and it appeared in the list of wireless options, BUT, it "timed out" before actually connecting.


I'm curious if this means she's dying? Do I need to replace it?

I did just move, however. I'm in a 1 bedroom apartment, of about 800 square feet. I have allowed access to my girlfriend who has a dell, and my ISP is new as well... Although I'm not sure if these changes contribute to my problem.

 

[JediMeister]

I doubt it's an issue with the AirPort Extreme unless its one of the UFO shaped ones, which are getting up there in terms of age. Are you able to connect an Ethernet cable to one of the LAN ports of the Extreme? Does a wired connection to the Extreme drop off?

Based on what you've told the forum, my best guess is some type of interference. If power cycling it allows your wireless connection to work until the next time it drops off, your Extreme is automatically shifting channels until it finds a free one and then another device kicks it off the channel it was auto-configuring to. You need to either use iStumbler, or if you have 10.6, the System Profiler->Network->AirPort database, to see what channels your neighbors' wireless networks are using and then pick a different one. This will not take care of environmental interference like microwaves/hair dryers/baby monitors.

 

[wayland1985]

I doubt it's an issue with the AirPort Extreme unless its one of the UFO shaped ones, which are getting up there in terms of age. Are you able to connect an Ethernet cable to one of the LAN ports of the Extreme? Does a wired connection to the Extreme drop off?

Based on what you've told the forum, my best guess is some type of interference. If power cycling it allows your wireless connection to work until the next time it drops off, your Extreme is automatically shifting channels until it finds a free one and then another device kicks it off the channel it was auto-configuring to. You need to either use iStumbler, or if you have 10.6, the System Profiler->Network->AirPort database, to see what channels your neighbors' wireless networks are using and then pick a different one. This will not take care of environmental interference like microwaves/hair dryers/baby monitors.

I see. I knew my linksys routers always had a short life, so I wasn't sure if these were known for that too. I did reset the base station today, and reconfigured it. I kept it on automatic channel selection, but if it happens again, I'll have to pick a channel.

I'm unsure how the Airport database in the profiler works? Does it show you all acknowledged signals here, or do you need to pick and log into a network first?

Also, would you recommend I enable interference robustness? What implications would that have?