Airport Extreme keeps disconnecting - some help please!

[stungunmaster]

Hello folks!

I just bought an Airport Extreme (the latest 2009 model) yesterday. When I first plugged it in last night I was able to set it up using the Airport Utility with no problems whatsoever. So the AE is in my room at the the second floor of my house, but my work desk is at the first floor, directly below my room.

After setting up the AE upstairs I brought my Macbook down to my desk and within a few minutes, I lost the connection with the AE. It only lasted for around 30 seconds, and then the AE reconnected again. But this kept repeating for around five more times in ten to twenty minute intervals.

I thought the problem may be the 7.4.1 firmware I upgraded to when I finished setting up the AE, so I downgraded to the base 7.4 firmware. The connection seemed to improve so I finished my work and went to sleep. This morning, when I started up my Macbook the AE started disconnecting again within a few minutes, and it kept doing that but this time in shorter intervals.

I didn't have enough time to tinker with the settings but I did reset the AE and rebuilt my network settings. This time around I also checked the "Use Interference Robustness" option. The thirty or so minutes after resetting the AE went by without any problems but I had to leave already so I'm not sure if it's fixed completely.

So I'm hoping to troubleshoot it again later tonight but for now I have some questions that you guys might be able to answer:

1) Does the network speed take a major hit when Interference Robustness is turned on? Is it advisable to keep that option on, even if it turns out interference isn't the problem?

2) Should I downgrade my firmware to a more stable older version? Can the 2009 AE move down to an even older firmware than the one that shipped with it in the first place (mine came with 7.4)?

3) How can I find out if my Macbook is using the 5GHz or 2.4GHz frequency of the AE? And if it's connected via N or G? Can I see that info in the System Profiler app or something?

4) Any other setting I should play around with that could potentially help stop the connection dropouts?

Thanks and hope to get some great advice from you guys.

P.S. My old (and rock-solid, may I add) Netgear Wireless-G Rangemax router very rarely dropped connections so I don't think the problem is with the layout of my house.

P.P.S. I'm using cable internet with DHCP.

 

[stungunmaster]

Well I've been testing the AE right now and the damn thing won't stop disconnecting and reconnecting. I've played around with the wireless settings in Airport Utility and nothing seems to work.

What I did do though is I tried to simultaneously surf the net using my iPod Touch and my Macbook. The iPod Touch I noticed seemed to fluctuate between 1 to 3 bars in the wifi indicator, but it never really disconnects from the router.

I also tried to time it so that I immediately open a page in my iPod the moment the Macbook's connection with the AE will be lost. What happens is the progress bar in the iTouch would start to fill up, but the page would really start loading around the same time my Macbook reconnects to the AE.

It seems that the closer I am to the AE though, the less I get disconnected. But I'd hate to think this is a range problem because I never got disconnected before when I was using my wireless-G Netgear router. How then can I be having range problems with a supposedly superior wireless-N one?

Any advice would be great.

 

[mattlong1978]

I'm going to throw something in as anything's worth a try but could it be your cable modem? I had serious intermittent internet connections once and after replacing my router found out the cable modem was failing. There's a good chance it isn't but maybe worth checking