Airport Express

wrinkster22

wrinkster22

macrumors 68030
Good Evening Everyone,
I purchased and airports express today (the little white box that plugs directly into the wall) I plan on useing it to "boost" my Wi-fi signal to my various IOS devices. I put the install disk on my WIN 7 pc and I Have the airport utility thingy. My pc is not able to find it. the light on the express is flashing orange. I get 3 bars of wireless in that room. Why cant my PC find it? is there somewort of blocker/firewall setting? my computer is on the same network.

Also what setting do I use as a booster?
thanks
 
wrinkster22 said:
Good Evening Everyone,
I purchased and airports express today (the little white box that plugs directly into the wall) I plan on useing it to "boost" my Wi-fi signal to my various IOS devices. I put the install disk on my WIN 7 pc and I Have the airport utility thingy. My pc is not able to find it. the light on the express is flashing orange. I get 3 bars of wireless in that room. Why cant my PC find it? is there somewort of blocker/firewall setting? my computer is on the same network.

Also what setting do I use as a booster?
thanks
Click to expand...

First of all, do you have an Airport Extreme Base Station or Time Capsule? An Airport Express can only extend the wireless network of another Apple wireless device. In most cases you can't mix brands when extending networks.

Let's say you have an AEBS. You should see both the AEBS and the AE in Airport Utility. There is no need to run a wire to the AE. Simply tell it to extend the wireless network created by your AEBS or TC and you are all set.

We have an AEBS in our basement and an AE in the upstairs hallway between the kids' rooms. It is the exact opposite corner of the house. Everybody gets good wireless strength in every room with this setup.
 
you could set it up as another hotspot. i have a belkin router in the front of the house and the airport near the rear. so now i have wireless throughout the whole house. it works great and most of my devices switches easily to each wireless connection.
 
the express can either be set up as a router (10 wireless clients) or as a hotspot, access spot or whatever.
Since you stated you want to set it up as a hotspot try the following.
1. leave your router set up as is.
2. at the router connect the AE to it with a lan cable
3. with the airport utility rescan your net work
4. the AE should be there and you should see the light turn green.
5. at this point the AE has an IP address starting with 169.XXX.XXX.XXX, no worries.
6. Make sure your router is set to allow extension of the network.
7. click on the AE then base station
8.Airport express name (anything you want)

Password (this is only for the AE not the network) i made my the same

9 Click on the wireless tab
Wireless Mode (extend a wireless network)
Wireless network name (this is the name of the network you want to extend, this name is the network name of the router not the router name)
Wireless Password (this is the network password)
click on update

I think that is it. Now disconnect the lan cable, unplug the AE, plug the AE back in and reboot the router.
both devices should appear on the utility, assuming you have an AEBS.
you should be good to go.
Can it be used as a router?
 
Last edited:
Ok thanks everyone, I have a lynksys router, oops. So I ordered an airport extreme base station for 129$ (refurbished) I plan on just swapping the lynksys, than plug my airport express in where I notice bad coverage
thanks everyone, I hope I like the base station, it seemed like a good price :)
 
bump...
does anyone have any thoughts on there airport extreme?
does anyone have any experiences with a setup with an airport extreme and express ?
 
wrinkster22 said:
bump...
does anyone have any thoughts on there airport extreme?
does anyone have any experiences with a setup with an airport extreme and express ?
Click to expand...

Unless you are planning on hardwiring the Express to the Extreme, then you'll get a drastic cut in WiFi performance because the Express not only will have to receive Internet from the Extreme, but also broadcast it at the same time. Most people have said it cuts it in half.
 
b-rad g said:
Unless you are planning on hardwiring the Express to the Extreme, then you'll get a drastic cut in WiFi performance because the Express not only will have to receive Internet from the Extreme, but also broadcast it at the same time. Most people have said it cuts it in half.
Click to expand...

if I where to put the express where i get like medium bars, will the wifi coverage be extended?
 
wrinkster22 said:
if I where to put the express where i get like medium bars, will the wifi coverage be extended?
Click to expand...

You probably won't get the best results if you do it this way. Here's why.

If you put the Exp in a room with medium bars, then the Exp will be getting a medium signal and extending that out. I would personally put the express in a spot where you get decent, but not great signal (right where the bars teeter on 3-4 bars. That way, you'll extend a better signal to a farther point.

Also, take note that the Express will extend the network, but to do so, you'll lose speed since it has to use 1/2 the bandwidth to recieve the signal and 1/2 the bandwidth to rebroadcast it.

You'd be better off using ethernet, if you can connect the primary base station to the extreme. This is called a "roaming" network. This way, the Exp will get a full speed connection (100 Mbps) from the Base station and then can send out a full 11g/n signal. Theoretically, you can cover a larger area since you can set the Exp in an area that has a poor signal from the base station.

Two things to keep in mind. The Express only has a 10/100 ethernet port. The Express only has one ethernet port, which can be used for recieving or sending the network, not both.
 
Originally Posted by b-rad g
Unless you are planning on hardwiring the Express to the Extreme, then you'll get a drastic cut in WiFi performance because the Express not only will have to receive Internet from the Extreme, but also broadcast it at the same time. Most people have said it cuts it in half.
Click to expand...

Hi. That is quite correct, any wifi device can either receive or transmit but not both at the same time. Therefore the bandwidth is half, as a rule of thumb when an AP claims 54Mbps this is halved by the half duplex operation. When the WiFi overhead is added a single user could expect 18 to 20Mbps. Now if 2 of you are using the WiFi at the same time the effective bandwidth is halved again and so on. Basically it is shared.
Next, as you move away from the AP and the signal strength reduces then the association rate will start to fall off. The 54Mbps could drop to say, 11Mbps. This will then affect the performance of the entire cell. Negotiation for air time happens at the speed of the slowest client while the actual data transfer happens at the best negotiated speed of the active client.


if I where to put the express where i get like medium bars, will the wifi coverage be extended?
Click to expand...

Yes it would but best place the Express in an area of full signal but in the direction of the blackspot.
If you put the Express in an area with only half signal then it may only be able to communicate reliably at 36Mbps which will result in degraded performance for probably all users irrespective of location.

I have a Time capsule, an Express and a D-link (Virgin router), all three wired together, all on different channels, 1, 6 & 11, all set up with the same SSID and wpa and working well. The TC is the Virgin router now and the other two connected in to it. I have tested roaming and can see that I am switching between APs as I move around the house.
BTW the TC and Extreme also have 5Ghz, you need to enable that in a sub menu. Note that 5Ghz has a shorter reach than 2.4Ghz. As far as I'm aware the Express can be either 2.4 or 5Ghz but not both.

Hope this helps.
 
what if I had my airport extreme broadcasting my WI-FI
than my express picking it up, a
than i would attach a linksys router to the express

airport extreme -> express -> linksys router

obviusley me extreme would be near my pc but where would you reccomened me put the express? a high range area?
 
wrinkster22 said:
what if I had my airport extreme broadcasting my WI-FI
than my express picking it up, a
than i would attach a linksys router to the express

airport extreme -> express -> linksys router

obviusley me extreme would be near my pc but where would you reccomened me put the express? a high range area?
Click to expand...

As a previous post suggests an Express can only extend an Apple WiFi, you'd need to make sure what the linksys is capable of. If you are hardwiring the linksys back to the Express then that should work. Throughput would still be compromised though.

Is the location of your Extreme, next to the PC, the internet entry point?
As for location if you fire up the Airport utility you can see a graph of the association rate under the client button on the first summary page, use this to check the speed and signal at different points as you move the Express around (I appreciate that it'll take some time as you'll have to try it in different wall sockets). If you have a laptop then that would be easier, use the utility on that and move to different areas and stay there a min or so to get a true reading.
 
well I wont be able to test it yet because my airport extreme wont come for a while. What if I plugged in my Extreme by my pc (i have no clue where the internet comes in) What if i found another ethernet port and plugged in my express?
 
AndyEngel said:
As a previous post suggests an Express can only extend an Apple WiFi, you'd need to make sure what the linksys is capable of. If you are hardwiring the linksys back to the Express then that should work. Throughput would still be compromised though.

Is the location of your Extreme, next to the PC, the internet entry point?
As for location if you fire up the Airport utility you can see a graph of the association rate under the client button on the first summary page, use this to check the speed and signal at different points as you move the Express around (I appreciate that it'll take some time as you'll have to try it in different wall sockets). If you have a laptop then that would be easier, use the utility on that and move to different areas and stay there a min or so to get a true reading.
Click to expand...

I have 2 Airport Expresses configured as routers. When I travel I through it in my bag , plug in to an ethernet connection at a hotel or what ever and I have an instant wifi network or when I stay at my sons place I disconnect his router plug the express in and the iPad, dell laptop and iPhone connect to the internet.
I have two cable connections coming in. One has an extreme and the other has an express as a dedicated router. The express is not just an access point it is a wireless router that can also support a usb printer that supports up to 10 wireless clients. well at least 8 that I know of.
For $50 , refurbs, they are a great portable router
 
Hey Everyone quick update,
So i ended up bye the refurb AEB and use my AE as an extender. Overall we could not be happier, our range is vastley improved and the speed is quite good. A lot of the dead spots are gone though. Yeah apple
!
 
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