Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

omeletpants

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 21, 2005
397
164
I love Apple products but have an interesting situation with coverage on my Airport extreme.

I have a very long house. The extreme is in my office at one end with an iMac. My wife uses a Macbook at the other side of the house. Covergae seems to end 5 feet from where she uses the Macbook. In that room it varies between 200k and 2mb. Move the Mac book those 5 feet into the kitchen and she gets 5MB speed.

I tried an Airport Express as a repeater but it crapped out and even when working it didn't help much. I have tried every trick in locating the extreme but am limited. Even ran a long ethernet cable under my desk as the ethernet acts as an antenna.

Now the question: is there a simple to install router on the market that offers better range than the extreme?
 
5 feet into the kitchen... and one less wall. (and since it's the kitchen, that wall could be a row of cabinets, filled with metal pans, and the refrigerator)

if you have the express, you can run it as a wired repeater, give it the same SSID and security settings as the main, set it in "off (bridge mode)" in connection sharing on the internet page.
your devices will switch to the stronger base as you move around, similar to WDS, but a wired connection back to the main. (also means you don't get the speed drop that comes with WDS)

either run a cable as close as you can get to the other side of the house, or if that doesn't work you can use a Powerline networking adapter to place the express in the other room.
 
I love Apple products but have an interesting situation with coverage on my Airport extreme.

I have a very long house. The extreme is in my office at one end with an iMac. My wife uses a Macbook at the other side of the house. Covergae seems to end 5 feet from where she uses the Macbook. In that room it varies between 200k and 2mb. Move the Mac book those 5 feet into the kitchen and she gets 5MB speed.

I tried an Airport Express as a repeater but it crapped out and even when working it didn't help much. I have tried every trick in locating the extreme but am limited. Even ran a long ethernet cable under my desk as the ethernet acts as an antenna.

Now the question: is there a simple to install router on the market that offers better range than the extreme?

You're problem could be interference from your kitchen appliances. If that is the case, I doubt any wireless solution exists for you.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.