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Always connect to Airport Extreme

G

generator

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 23, 2009
18
0
I've got the following setup:

- One Airport Extreme in my living room connected to the internet
- One Airport Express next to it for Airtunes (set to join the Airport Extreme's network)
- One Airport Express in my study (set to extend the Airport Extreme's network)

When I'm in my bedroom (on the far end of my house), my iPhone can barely connect to the Extreme. So that's why I bought another express to extend the network. This works great.

But now my iMac (located in my study) is always connecting to this Airport Express. Probably because it is right besides it. The internet speeds are about 10mbps when my iMac is connected through the Express, and 40-45mbps when it is connecting to the Extreme. So the connection to the Airport itself may be better, but the actual internet connection is a lot worse!

Is there any way to force my iMac to connect the the Airport Extreme? Or maybe someone has another solution?
 
Have you tried changing the preferred networks ordering in the advanced network preferences?
 
The Airports extend each other to form one network.

One solution is to create a seperate 5GHZ network, and always let it connect to that. But I bought these Airports because I want it to work automatically.
 
To force the iMac to always join the Extreme, you have to add its MAC address to the Express' block list.
 
I guess you mean the "Access Control" list? When I add my iMac to this list, it also gets added to the list on the Airport Extreme, and vice versa (apperently they are synced).
 
Is it possible to connect the Extreme and the Express with a cable?
As far as I know, extending a wireless network comes at the cost of speed. With the cable, the Express will have the full WiFi speed.
 
Unfortunatly, that's not an option. I hope I get to design my own house one day, I'll put ethernet connections in every room (including the bathroom).
 
generator said:
Unfortunatly, that's not an option. I hope I get to design my own house one day, I'll put ethernet connections in every room (including the bathroom).
Click to expand...

I currently have all major rooms (not bathrooms) setup with an ethernet connection and it's great. I have iPads in each bathroom...
 
generator said:
I've got the following setup:

- One Airport Extreme in my living room connected to the internet
- One Airport Express next to it for Airtunes (set to join the Airport Extreme's network)
- One Airport Express in my study (set to extend the Airport Extreme's network)

When I'm in my bedroom (on the far end of my house), my iPhone can barely connect to the Extreme. So that's why I bought another express to extend the network. This works great.

But now my iMac (located in my study) is always connecting to this Airport Express. Probably because it is right besides it. The internet speeds are about 10mbps when my iMac is connected through the Express, and 40-45mbps when it is connecting to the Extreme. So the connection to the Airport itself may be better, but the actual internet connection is a lot worse!

Is there any way to force my iMac to connect the the Airport Extreme? Or maybe someone has another solution?
Click to expand...

Home plugs could be a good solution for you. Have you looked into it?
 
I've still got some home-plugs, so I've looked into that. but unfortunately it's not an option. Plus, I hate workarounds for things that should just work.
 
Last edited:
Did you try rgarjr's advice to extend only 2.4GHz network, and connect your Mac to the 5GHz network?
 
Yeah, my iMac is connected to seperate 5GHZ network. I did notice that my iMac is connecting to the 2.4GHZ connection when the 5GHZ is unavailable (for example, when I have just reset my Airport Extreme). Even though I removed it from my iMac's "Preferred Networks" list.
 
Last edited:
Remove the 2.4GHz network from your Mac entirely, including the password from your keychain. Make sure the 5GHz network's name is DIFFERENT from the 2.4GHz network. Then connect to the 5GHz network and enter its password.

Your computer should now no longer fall back to 2.4GHz automatically. Or it wouldn't if you had a PC anyway, I dunno if OSX has some special sauce here that "helps" you automatically in situations like what you're experiencing... *shrug*
 
generator said:
I've still got some home-plugs, so I've looked into that. but unfortunately it's not an option. Plus, I hate workarounds for things that should just work.

I've been monitoring my Airport Extreme (The graph at the "Wireless clients" section). I've noticed the following:

- When my mac is listed there, I can wake up my mac. When it isn't I can't.
- The graph shows my iMac waking up for a few minutes every hour or so during the day (like it should).
- When I get out of bed in the morning, my iMac is gone from this list. So I can't wake it up anymore. This morning I noticed my iMac came back in this list a few hours later.

So it seems my iMac is experiencing some blackouts. But I don't really know what that tells me. I'm not able to monitor the graph when I'm asleep. Is there anyway to log this graph?
Click to expand...

Could this be an option? http://alexking.org/blog/2010/01/30/airport-express-provides-wired-connection
 
generator said:
Unfortunatly, I've got my printer hooked up to my Airport Express.
Click to expand...

Hmmm... If you try it and find it to be a good solution, couldn't you use the USB port for the printer?

About the problem with the iMac connecting to the 2.4 GHz network, how about if you switched the name or the password on it? That way the iMac shouldn't switch...
 
My printer won't scan when connected to the USB port of the Airport.

The networks are named differently, and as for as I know you can't set a different password for the 2.4GHZ and the 5GHZ. It's one setting.
 
generator said:
My printer won't scan when connected to the USB port of the Airport.

The networks are named differently, and as for as I know you can't set a different password for the 2.4GHZ and the 5GHZ. It's one setting.
Click to expand...

Oh, of course :eek:

edit
Forget it, I saw you'd tried that...
 
No problem! I appreciate your help.

I must say, it's working pretty good right now with the seperate networks. I would rather have one network to rule them all. But apparently it's not possible :(
 
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