Old Airport Express hooked to Extreme to create second network

[craigciccone]

I just purchased an Airport Extreme so i could finally have 802.11n speeds for the devices that support it. I still have an airport express (non 802.11n) that I'd like to keep and create a second, seperate network with for streaming audio to my living room and my slower devices to access.

I've tried running an ethernet cable from the airport extreme to the airport express, but it's not detecting the internet connection. Is there more to this setup than being able to just plug and play?

 

[waw74]

put the express in "off (bridge mode)" under internet-> connection sharing.

---or---

is it a new extreme? you already have G built in (the new ones have 2 radios), just have the old express connect to that network.

 

[craigciccone]

it's a 5-year-old express, so definitely no N on board. I did a hard reset and went through the setup and finally got it working (thank you). I was told by an apple store employee in soho that if any N-lacking devices (including my express acting as an extender) connect to my new Extreme, the whole network automatically scales down to just b/g speeds. Is that true?

 

[waw74]

N runs at 2 different frequencies 2.4GHz and 5GHz
B & G both run at 2.4.

when you set up in N (B/G compatible) it's in 2.4.
when you have a G device connected, your N devices will run slower, but not all the way down to G.

in 5GHz, you get more speed, but less range, walls and such tend to kill 5 faster than 2.4.
but since you went to soho, i'm guessing apartment, so 5 will probably be fine.(howdy neighbor, i'm in williamsburg)

also being in NYC, the 2.4 spectrum can be pretty crowded, there are 11 channels, but they overlap, numbers less than 5 apart share some part of the spectrum, (1&6,3&9 are separate, but 1&5 will overlap a bit)

 

[craigciccone]

thanks for the info! and yes, we're neighbors alright. I'm in prospect heights!

While we're on this topic, I had another question. I ran a cable to my airport express and allowed it to create its own network, and only 802.11-N devices are allowed to connect to the Airport Extreme network.

I thought i'd have to switch to the express network when I wanted to stream AirTunes from my itunes library, but it's recognizing the output in itunes even when i'm connected to the Airport extreme.

I guess the question is, if I'm streaming my Macbook Pro's music to the airport express via the airport extreme, is that dragging the N-network and all it's devices down in speed?

 

[waw74]

I guess the question is, if I'm streaming my Macbook Pro's music to the airport express via the airport extreme, is that dragging the N-network and all it's devices down in speed?

no, by placing it in bridge mode, you are basically making a wireless extension of your wired network (which in turn is bridged to G by your extreme).
so anything connected to your G network is only connected to something on your N by the wired ethernet backbone. so no speed drops.