HELP! My Airport Extreme has quit working...

[mileslong]

i have a 17" powerbook. i have airport extreme at both home and at my company. the apple router then quit working at work and i figured my IT guy had screwed something up with the connection on Friday, well now all of a sudden my airport extreme at home has now petered out tonight. i am connected now using the cable connecting directly to my laptop, when i plug it into the base station it doesnt work anymore. what is going on here?!!!

any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[mad jew]

So there are two unrelated wireless networks (both happen to be AirPort) that you cannot connect to, right? Do you get a dialogue box? Are you asked for a password or anything? Does it simply not realise that the networks are there?

Logic suggests it's a problem with your PowerBook. Maybe start by deleting the AirPort preference files and checking to see that the card is seated properly.

 

[mileslong]

thanks for the reply. i unplugged the base station for about 30 minutes just plugged it in again and it seems to be working properly now but time will tell. why would it need to be unplugged? i havent had this problem before for 4 months now since i set it up.

also how would i delete siport preference files??

 

[mad jew]

If you unplug the AirPort and leave it for about fifteen seconds it resets DHCP leases (I think ) and some other networking information (maybe IP addresses). I have to do the same every now and then.

As for deleting the preferences, sometimes they can become corrupt so deleting them forces OSX to create new default ones which effectively makes the AirPort work like it did when it was new. If everything's working now though, I wouldn't bother deleting preferences. It'll just be annoying, having to reconfigure your settings.

 

[dornoforpyros]

check to see if the airport attena is still attached to the card(may involve some screws & lifting of the keyboard). My friends bro had an iBook with this problem and it was simpy a matter of the attena popping out of the card.

 

[mileslong]

thanks for the help guys. this morning as i prepare for my beloved texas longhorns to play football my laptop is wireless and working. i will try this unplugging at my office as well. if i wanted to delete the preferences, how would i go about doing it??

 

[mad jew]

if i wanted to delete the preferences, how would i go about doing it??

Okay, well run a search for AirPort and PLIST and drag to the trash pretty much anything you find. If it ends in .PLIST then it's a preference file and 99% of the time can be deleted safely. I say 99% of the time to cover bases but to be honest, I've never found one that isn't immediately replaced by the app or system when necessary.

Don't delete the preferences though, I don't think that's your problem. If ever it seems like something is wrong with a particular device or more commonly a program, then deleting preferences has almost exactly the same effect as reinstalling it, nine times out of ten.