Issues with Airport Extreme and Internet.

[akp123]

I have Time Warner Cable with an Arris modem (provided by TW) and an old Dell Demension, connected via ethernet. Last June I bought a MacBook and Airport Extreme and everything was connected fine and running smoothly on the wireless network. Recently, I had an issue where all of a sudden my wireless printer that is not connected to the Airport would not get a connection. After days of trying to figure it all out, I simple rebooted everything from the modem up and things worked great!

My husband recently imformed me that his new Blackberry Bold could no longer connect to our wireless network, as it could not find a valid IP address. All of this is around the same time I had printer issues. I told him since the macbook and my iphone connected just fine that it must be a BB issue. Tonight my mom tries to connect her dell laptop and while it finds the network, we get the error that there is limited or no connetivity.

So I start messing around with the router and the airport settings and end up losing my internet connection to my desktop as well as my iphone. I have read some on the internet and see that my airport is picking up the 169 ISP (which I know is not correct). Also I have noticed that I have no DNS settings (which I assume is related to the ISP). I have also though received an email from Time Warner about the DNS hacking.

I connected the ethernet directly to the desktop and it worked great. Thus, the router must be working correctly. I have noticed that when I connect via the airport that the ethernet light on the desktop is not as bright. So that makes me think that i need a new ethernet cable which will maybe get the router and the modem talking and get rid of the bad ISP and get everything back on track. However, what confuses me in the whole situation and makes me doubt that it is the ethernet cable is Why Have I never lost my wireless internet connection on my macbook? and why now have I lost my iPhone wifi connection.

I don't know much about all of these, but I have picked up enough on the internet to somewhat make an educated guess.

Am I anywhere on track with this. Can someone guide me in the direction of starting with my modem (is this related to the TW hacking), the airport, or just go purchase a new ethernet cable!

Thanks in advance!

 

[madog]

I know there is a random ongoing issue with Mac's issuing 169 IP addresses incorrectly and not being able to access the net through a router. Generally all the times I have seen it are referring to the Mac OS having the specific problem so I don't know what is going on here. Maybe it's an issue extending from the APExtreme too.

If you haven't, I would try power cycling the modem (unplug it from power for a few minutes) and then try force resetting the APE. It used to be done by unplugging it from the wall, pressing in and holding down the reset button, and then while still holding down the button, plugging the APE back into power while still holding it until the light blinks.

I would suggest after you unplug both devices for a few minutes, power on the modem and then do the reset on the APE (otherwise I believe a "standard" reset is done just by holding down the button for 10-30 seconds until it flashes).

This used to be how to reset the APE, but I know it kind of changed on the APEn's even though (at least months after they initially came out) Apple's support document for it stated that as being the still correct method for a factory reset (which should hopefully reset everything back to its factory settings).

 

[akp123]

I might just be the stupidest person out there!!!

Thanks for your advice. I appreciate you taking the time to look at my inquiry!

But my advice to everyone is to check your connections on the Airport Extreme. Apparently, in my effort to get my printer going again a few weeks ago, I unplugged the WAN connection and the ethernet cable going to my desktop . . . and then plugged them back into the wrong slots.

Very interestingly, that it must not matter too much for Apple products to talk to each other as both my macbook and my Iphone continued to connect. I don't always get along with my mom, but her visit was very helpful as I would have written the issue with my husband's BlackBerry off on a lesser operating system as we all know the IPhone rules!

I can now go to bed!