Weird Airport Extreme behaviour

[williamh]

I just purchased the 6th generation of Airport Extreme Base Station to connect my Mac mini and a Windows 7 PC via ethernet cable. I had a D-Link DI-604 router to do the job, however the DI-604 does not offer wireless access for my iDevice.

I found out that Windows 7 PC has extremely poor internet speed and frequently disconnected itself due to the error of "default gateway"; my Mac mini never had any problem, so do my iDevices.

My question is, what should I do to secure the stability of my Windows 7 PC's internet connection and to share files with my Mac?

ps. I have installed the latest Airport Utility in my PC.

 

[Altemose]

I just purchased the 6th generation of Airport Extreme Base Station to connect my Mac mini and a Windows 7 PC via ethernet cable. I had a D-Link DI-604 router to do the job, however the DI-604 does not offer wireless access for my iDevice.

I found out that Windows 7 PC has extremely poor internet speed and frequently disconnected itself due to the error of "default gateway"; my Mac mini never had any problem, so do my iDevices.

My question is, what should I do to secure the stability of my Windows 7 PC's internet connection and to share files with my Mac?

ps. I have installed the latest Airport Utility in my PC.

What OS is the Mini running on? If it is 10.7 or later (Lion) then fire up Software Update and ensure you have the latest AirPort Utility. The latest at time of writing is 6.3.1 for Lion and Mountain Lion.

Next, remove the power cable from your AirPort. Then, using a small paper clip or ball point pen, press and hold the reset button while plugging the power back in. The front light will begin to rapidly flash. Then release the button.

Now, open AirPort Utility on the Mac. In the top left it will say "Other Base Stations". Select that menu and then select your Base Station. It will gather some info about the network configuration (e.g. modem, clients, etc.). Then set up your network settings again.

Please do note that with these new Extremes and Time Capsules you should use AirPort Utility 6.3+ on a Mac or the latest version of the iOS app. The older Mac version as well as the Windows version may improperly configure the network.

 

[williamh]

My Mac is running OS X 10.9.1 with latest Airport Utility installed.

I have no problem setting up network and internet both wired and wireless. Mac mini and my other iDevices (ipad mini with retina & iPhone 5C) all work fine with the airport extreme base station.

Only my Windows 7 PC has problem with it. Let me state the problems I have on my Windows 7 PC:

1. The internet speed is only half of the speed than my Mac and iDevices. I've done the speed test from speedtest.net, the download speed on my Mac is 5Mbps and PC is 2Mbps. Both Mac & PC are connect to Airport Extreme via identical ethernet cable.

2. My internet connection on my PC is frequently disconnected due to the error of "default gateway"

3. Once everything is online, it takes 5 hours to transfer 100MB of file from PC to MAC via ethernet.

The ethernet card on my PC is the "marvell yukon 88e8001 pci gigabit ethernet controller" with the latest driver installed.

Everything works fine with the Mac but not PC, and I'm seeking the solution for PC.

ps. D-Link's DI-604 works perfectly but lacking of wireless ability, therefore I purchased Airport Extreme base station.

 

[drsox]

3. Once everything is online, it takes 5 hours to transfer 100MB of file from PC to MAC via ethernet.

The ethernet card on my PC is the "marvell yukon 88e8001 pci gigabit ethernet controller" with the latest driver installed.

Your PC NIC is only running at Fast Ethernet speeds (44,444 bps) so I would look at the NIC settings first. Do you have any other options for making a internal LAN connections ? Can you run to/from tests with other devices ?

Have you tried running IOMeter on the PC ? http://www.iometer.org.

Are there settings on the NIC for Flow Control ? I've found that to be a problem sometimes between devices - turn it off if there's the option.

My money would be on some incompatibility between the PC's NIC and the AE, but there's no setting options on the AE for low level NIC control (AFAIK) so you will need to fiddle with the PC NIC settings.

If you can't solve this problem, then you might consider buying a small unmanaged Gbit switch and connecting that in front of the AE. That might isolate any incompatibilities.

 

[williamh]

I just installed a new PCI network adapter and everything is now working perfectly!

The network controller on my motherboard isn't Gigabit and that's why.

Problem Solved!

 

[Altemose]

I just installed a new PCI network adapter and everything is now working perfectly!

The network controller on my motherboard isn't Gigabit and that's why.

Problem Solved!

Glad to see that you reported back so other users can benefit from your solution. Good to see you got it working.

 

[drsox]

I just installed a new PCI network adapter and everything is now working perfectly!

The network controller on my motherboard isn't Gigabit and that's why.

Problem Solved!

Good, but I don't understand why the "marvell yukon 88e8001 pci gigabit ethernet controller" didn't work also ?

 

[Altemose]

Good, but I don't understand why the "marvell yukon 88e8001 pci gigabit ethernet controller" didn't work also ?

I have seen Ethernet controllers start to die that way. Work fine for a while but if messed with then they will drop, disappear, and intermittently work.

 

[drsox]

I have seen Ethernet controllers start to die that way. Work fine for a while but if messed with then they will drop, disappear, and intermittently work.

Yes, I had a Gigabyte Mobo NIC fail but that was just a sudden fail. Add-In board NICs seem to be more resilient in my experience.

 

[Altemose]

Yes, I had a Gigabyte Mobo NIC fail but that was just a sudden fail. Add-In board NICs seem to be more resilient in my experience.

That is probably due to the way it is all manufactured. Power blip occurs and the mobo is getting a jolt through the PSU and the NIC and kills the NIC. Otherwise it mainly just jolts the NIC on an add-in card and continues working.