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Airport Extreme Set-Up Driving Me Mad! Please Help!

M

MrManwelo

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 13, 2010
92
0
So I bought a second hand Airport Extreme off ebay. It's a 2nd Gen airport extreme.

I thought setting it up would be a doddle, plug it in and up it would pop in Airport Utility. I was wrong.

I've got it connected to a Virgin Media Super Hub that I have set to Modem Mode, so it is just working like a modem and not pumping out any conflicting wireless signals. The ethernet cable goes from the modem to the WAN on the Airport Extreme. Turning the Airport extreme on produces a constant flashing amber light and nothing else. I cannot see it in airport utility at all.

I tried factory resetting it, but the orange flashing light still persists. I can't connect it directly to my Macbook Pro by ethernet either as I am using a Retina Macbook Pro and I don't have an ethernet dongle.

I can however, connect to a netbook that is running Windows XP SP3 via ethernet. I installed Airport Utility for Windows and the Airport Extreme does show up as:
'Airport Extreme with 802.11n (Gigabit Ethernet) with default settings.
Airport Extreme Name: Base Station 000000
IP Address 192.168.0.4
Version: 7.6.1

If i click 'continue' or 'manual set up' to have a look at and change the settings I am presented with the following warning:
'An error occurred while trying to access the Apple wireless device. Make sure your network connection is valid and try again.
Error -6742.

I read this might be the firewall or anti virus blocking the connection, but turning both of makes no difference. I tried phoning apple support, but the helpdesk is closed.

Can anyone help me, or was I sold a dodgy Airport Extreme?

Thanks for reading.
 
Can you force a factory reset on it? Sounds like the router's assuming it's still running on the previous owner's network setup.
 
jcpb said:
Can you force a factory reset on it? Sounds like the router's assuming it's still running on the previous owner's network setup.
Click to expand...

Well there is a reset button on the back. I followed the instructions to factory reset off the apple website and I'm left with the same problems.
 
I'd use Airport Utility 5.6 on the Mac; I seemed to have more success with it with a balky Express than the new version, and it is easier to use IMHO.

Can you get any local network going with the Mac? Without the AEBS connected to anything? And have you tried seeing if it's doing any wifi, with iStumbler or AirRadar? In other words, is it transmitting wifi at all?
 
I'm pretty sure 'setup over WAN' is disabled by default so you need an ethernet connection to set it up. You need to set it up in bridge mode for it to work with your VM hub. I have a similar setup with a BT home hub and three Airport Extremes and had to set each one up using an ethernet cable.
 
Have you tried connecting your netbook to other ports on the back of the Extreme? Did you disable Wi-Fi on the netbook to ensure it is only using its connection to the Extreme?

To tell the truth though, it seems you were sold a dud. Connecting it by Ethernet like you did with your netbook should have worked to be able to administer it using AirPort Utility. The fact that you couldn't do that makes me think it's a hardware issue that can't be fixed easily.

Just for fun, I googled the error code and came up with this:
http://dbstudent.blogspot.ca/2012/01/airport-extreme-error-solved.html

Maybe it'll be of some help in your situation.
 
thank you all for your replies. I tried a few things you suggested to no avail, so got fed up with it and sent it back to the guy on eBay. He swears blind it was working when he sent it to me so he wants to test it. I'll see how it goes, i don't doubt him, seems genuine enough. Perhaps it got bashed in transit.
 
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