Painfully Slow Airport Express

[peterj1967]

I was wondering if anybody has had the same issues with their Airport Express.

I bought my first one, it died (or at least I thought it did) in an hour. Returned it, and got another one it seems to be fully of issues.

I have 2 machines, DP 1.25 G4 and a 12 inch PB. I have been using the Desktop wired, and sharing the internet between Airport cards. I keep all my music on my DP and wanted to get rid of wires, so...

Set up the airport express connected my cable modem and it worked like a charm for about 30 minutes. Both machines went to painfully slow internet access, or none at all. I update the AE firmware and Airport software, still fantastically slow access. When I played music, it would drop all the time. Both machines show a full strength signal in the menu bar and maybe one missing bar when you open the Internet connect.

I have gone back to wires and sharing the internet access.

I would really like to get the AE working, any suggestion, anybody have similar problems. If not it's time for another return.

Thanks in advance

 

[peterj1967]

Few More Details...

The PB seems fine two e-mail and meteorologist open and run perfectly going through the AE.

The DP 1.25 takes about 15 seconds for e-mail to launch, even get the beach ball, and about 45 seconds to log in on AE. It does it all in about 5 seconds with the hardwire connection. Using the AE Meteorologist won't connect at all and web surfing is quite slow.

But at the moment, I am on my laptop playing my desktop's shared iTunes library through the AE that works great. My laptop can web surf e-mail and all the other programs run fine. My tower will barely launch e-mail.

 

[Applespider]

Not sure this really helps but perhaps I can get an answer from someone too.

When I first got my Airport Express, there was virtually no delay between selecting a song in iTunes and it playing through AirTunes. After 10.3.6, it all slowed down dramatically - now it takes 20 seconds to connect to Airtunes. I use my AEsp as a client on my normal AExt wifi network so haven't been affected by slow browsing thankfully

 

[huck500]

AE

I don't know too much about these things, so forgive me if this is too simplistic...

When I had airport problems (the connection would falter and then sever completely, modem and router would need a reset about three times a week) I figured out that it was because I had the airport set to distribute addresses. Since the router was also doing this the system was getting confused (that's stated as technically as I can put it...told you I know little...).

I set the airport up as a bridge...I think in the express software the setting is "Join Existing Network" or something. Doing this solved MY problems...hope it can help you.

 

[peterj1967]

Think I fixed it...

There was actually a similar post on the Apple support forums. The network config on my desktop had an old DNS in it. Took it out, all is back to normal. The apple post also recommneded checking the DNS in the AE config if people have speed problems.

 

[liquid stereo]

Painfully Slow Airport Express

I believe my setup is as it should be. Unfortunately I still get drop-outs. No other devices of similar frequency in my house. The laptop is near the AE. Plus it takes about 15 seconds for iTunes to connect to the AE.

I must admit I'm disappointed by the performance of this product.

Not sure this really helps but perhaps I can get an answer from someone too.

When I first got my Airport Express, there was virtually no delay between selecting a song in iTunes and it playing through AirTunes. After 10.3.6, it all slowed down dramatically - now it takes 20 seconds to connect to Airtunes. I use my AEsp as a client on my normal AExt wifi network so haven't been affected by slow browsing thankfully

 

[peterj1967]

One fix for the drop outs I read about is to set your QT settings to a slower speed something like 112. That worked for me, it seems it creates a bigger buffer for streaming and it works well.

Not perfect, but my network connectivity works now.