Do I need a new base station? (retitled thread)

[yojitani]

I have an airport basestation 801.11g (the white spaceship) - it's going on 5 years old now (!), so I'm wondering if it's starting to fail. The most recent problem that I think has to do with the airport is with port forwarding. I've had to set up a single port for forwarding so I can upload without interruptions to my webhost. The problem is that even after I set up the port forwarding, I'm still occasionally getting connection issues.
In story form: I identified the problem a few days ago - I couldn't upload a redesigned site - changed port forward settings and the site uploaded fine. Today, a similar problem. I tried to upload a different site, but the connection started to fail. I reset the airport and the connection started working again.

Just to note, I can connect to the internet during all of this, it's just when uploading to my webhost.

Also, every time I restart the airport, the airport utility can't detect the airport and I have to restart the software (although the internet connection is fine).

Hope this makes sense. I'm in the middle of a ton of stuff right now and this is just adding to my frustration... Does it sound like it's time to replace the airport?

 

[4np]

I don't understand why you need portforwarding for uploading to your hosting provider? One would use portforwarding to forward incoming connections (from the internet) to a machine on a local network.

For example, if you have a webserver on your Home LAN (ip: 192.168.1.100) on (the default) port 80, someone on the internet cannot connect to it as it is on your local network. In order to open it up to the world, you would set up a portforward rule on your router (in your case your airport basestation) for port 80 to the IP address of the webserver on your LAN (in this example: 192.168.1.100). If now someone browses to your home IP address or hostname, it can connect to port 80, which is forwarded by your basestation to the webserver in your LAN.

From your post I understand that you set up portforwarding while you are on your LAN and trying to upload to an FTP server outside your LAN, on the internet? You do not need any portforwarding rules for that...

 

[yojitani]

Perhaps I don't . Basically, I was having trouble uploading (actually downloading too) to my webhost - not on my network - the connection would time-out or drop. I thought the problem could have something to do with the base station firewall and, since my webhost specifies a port, I thought I'd try forwarding to that port. Could be totally wrong about this... sounds like I am... Anyway, after changing the port forwarding, the connection stayed constant... until earlier today. It could be simply that restarting the base station 'fixed' the connection issue. In which case, the question would be, 'why does the base station cut out my connection like that?'

About the setup, I am using the modem supplied by my ISP in bridging mode and have the base station in PPPoE...

 

[yojitani]

I retitled this thread because I think the question is a little different, but the information in the thread is not entirely irrelevant.

The question is this: something keeps going wrong with specific connections. Yesterday, the airport completely shut off my connection with my webhost. Email wouldn't connect. web pages wouldn't load etc. I've had intermittent problems the last six months or so with the airport suddenly disengaging from the internet (I could access other computers on the network, but not the web) and just generally being a bit buggy. So, is the airport trying to tell me it hasn't got much longer to live or could there be some other problem that I'm not seeing?

Again, this is the 801.11b/g airport base station (white), purchased new in summer 2004.

Also, are the new airport base stations (801.11 n) much of an upgrade?

 

[ZMacintosh]

Perhaps I don't . Basically, I was having trouble uploading (actually downloading too) to my webhost - not on my network - the connection would time-out or drop. I thought the problem could have something to do with the base station firewall and, since my webhost specifies a port, I thought I'd try forwarding to that port. Could be totally wrong about this... sounds like I am... Anyway, after changing the port forwarding, the connection stayed constant... until earlier today. It could be simply that restarting the base station 'fixed' the connection issue. In which case, the question would be, 'why does the base station cut out my connection like that?'

About the setup, I am using the modem supplied by my ISP in bridging mode and have the base station in PPPoE...

hm....anything in the way of it or close to it? Cordless phones? Televisions? Microwaves? etc etc

did you do a complete power-cycle and restore the AirPort to factory settings? sometimes they can get a little touchy for some reason.
mine was acting up because my ISP had some junk connections outside and was sending data to my modem and freaking out my aebsn as my modem would someitmes send and receive packets but i couldnt actually conenct to the net.

could be an isp issue too?

Again, this is the 801.11b/g airport base station (white), purchased new in summer 2004.

Also, are the new airport base stations (801.11 n) much of an upgrade?

from that? i'd say so.

802.11n upto 5Ghz wireless range speed
alot more connections via WiFi.
Gigabit Ethernet
USB port for Drives, Printers, Hubs etc

robust and stable...for me atleast.

 

[plinden]

Modifying any configuration such as the port forwarding settings restarts the base station, so yes, that would reset everything, same as doing a manual restart.

Looks like you'll need a new base station, but if you can go for days between resets, why not just unplug it at night? You might get a few more months out of it before needing to buy a new one.

 

[yojitani]

hm....anything in the way of it or close to it? Cordless phones? Televisions? Microwaves? etc etc

No. I did have that problem just after I bought it with some 2.4Ghz phones, but not now.

did you do a complete power-cycle and restore the AirPort to factory settings? sometimes they can get a little touchy for some reason.
mine was acting up because my ISP had some junk connections outside and was sending data to my modem and freaking out my aebsn as my modem would someitmes send and receive packets but i couldnt actually conenct to the net.

could be an isp issue too?

I was thinking that could be an issue. I recently changed ISPs and, at first, the problems subsided. But they seem to be back now.

Thanks for your answers!

Looks like you'll need a new base station, but if you can go for days between resets, why not just unplug it at night? You might get a few more months out of it before needing to buy a new one.

If I have to move large folders, I tend to let the process run overnight so I don't throttle the speed during the day (my wife needs a lot of bandwidth during the day!). Anyway, I'm finding some decent deals on base stations on ebay at the moment. I may just pop for one based on the feedback here.
Thanks!

 

[ZMacintosh]

I was thinking that could be an issue. I recently changed ISPs and, at first, the problems subsided. But they seem to be back now.

Thanks for your answers!

I would check with the ISP to see if they properly configured your Modem and MAC Address to their end.

i switched ISPs when moving, and for a month or two i had horrible connections.
they reinitialized my modem and all was good to go.

maybe do a double check on that also.

 

[yojitani]

I would check with the ISP to see if they properly configured your Modem and MAC Address to their end.

i switched ISPs when moving, and for a month or two i had horrible connections.
they reinitialized my modem and all was good to go.

maybe do a double check on that also.

I could check that but the pattern tends to be that the internet connection goes out, I restart or power cycle (depending on how bad the problem is) the base station and all is good to go again...until the next time.

 

[ZMacintosh]

I could check that but the pattern tends to be that the internet connection goes out, I restart or power cycle (depending on how bad the problem is) the base station and all is good to go again...until the next time.

well does your modem cut out? drop signal?

tried directly connecting to that for a while?


if thats the case, where specifically the internet drops out, its something to do with the ISP and establishing that connection to yourmodem.

theys hould be able to do it over the phone i believe

 

[yojitani]

well does your modem cut out? drop signal?

tried directly connecting to that for a while?


if thats the case, where specifically the internet drops out, its something to do with the ISP and establishing that connection to yourmodem.

theys hould be able to do it over the phone i believe

I've actually got the modem in bridged mode so it's not possible to see if the connection dropped there. Before I moved it over to bridged mode, it did happen once that the airport just stopped producing a signal and the modem was working fine... anyway, I'll check it out with the ISP.

Thanks!