Will getting an Airport Extreme

[technicolor]

solve my wireless problem?

I have a SR MBP that cant stay connected to our current home network for more than 10 minutes at a time. Currently on a D-Link Router. Would getting an Airport Extreme alleviate this network dropping issue?

 

[D4F]

Good question.
I'm loosing WiFi connection every few minutes and I have to turn off/on the WiFi on the macbook

 

[ClassicBean]

I used to have a Linksys router. Worked great. When I moved out, I got a D-Link. Worst move I ever made.

D-Link routers are notoriously terrible. I can't guarantee that your constant wireless dropping has to do with D-Link but let's just say that when I replaced it with an Airport Express, the dropping issue went away.

I now use an Airport Extreme. It's beyond amazing.

 

[mkrishnan]

It really depends... there are a number of causes of dropped signals...

- Obstructive interference -- the arrangement of walls and solid furniture in your home (you can tell this is the issue if you can stay connected within a 5-10' / 2-3m of the router in line of sight)

- RF interference -- other devices that emit radio frequency near the wavelength of the router (this can be a toughie... if you live in an apartment, this is a big one; if you live in a home, it can be difficult to tease out if you have something making RFI that you wouldn't expect as a traditional culprit... if this is the issue, then moving to an 802.11n router like the AEBS and the 5GHz frequency band may also help substantially)

- Improper setup -- such as if you are using a modem that drops inactive leases and so keeps dropping the AEBS, forcing it to reconnect and in the meantime, acting like it isn't working... this happened to me when I first got Yahoo DSL in Michigan)

- Wiring harness problem in your MB (the easiest way to rule this one out is to find out if the MBP works flawlessly on other networks).

- Freak OS X stuff -- I actually had an odd issue just over the past couple of days with my iBook where it would keep dropping the AEBS connection when there was a bulk transfer. For instance, I couldn't do software update because, a few MB in, it would drop my Airport connection... Grr... I couldn't figure out what was causing this, and it's never happened before... a reboot oddly made it go away, as far as I can tell.

- Bad router... discussed above.

In other words, the only things the AEBS will help you with are maybe the obstructive interference, the RFI if you go to 5GHZ, and the possibility that you have a bad router in your D-Link....

 

[ivi7]

I use a linksys router and haven't run into any problems so far. I personally think D-Link sucks.
The Apple Extreme should be pretty amazing.

 

[queshy]

a router is something that I HATE dealing with. I want it to work and thats it. My linksys worked for 5 straight years almost before giving me some problems, which I fixed (took 2 days...) and then worked for another few months and then boom , died. But I forgive her, she was old.

I replaced it with a d link g router and what a p.o.c.! I even returned it and bought the n D link for more money and it was still garbage. the AEBS works perfectly and I don't ever have to deal with it. I also find the fact that its so easy to set up a wireless printer and how it works so great is amazing!

 

[aphexacid]

I can whole heartedly recommend the Linksys WRT54GL. its an excellent router. it never drops connection, has oodles of features even from the factory, and is expanded 10 fold with the custom hyperwrt thibor firmware.
I have 2 macs, 2 pc laptops, a desktop, PS3, Wii, and xbox 360 hooked up to it at all times, absoltely no problems ever. I get phenomenal speed and strength everywhere in my house. this is however on the GL model, i have heard less than stellar reliability stories on the standard model. the GL runs Linux.

i myself purchased the Airport Extreme Base Station, the GigE version. it was a great router also, but its so pricey its just not worth it unless you want to run 802.11n all the time.
Thats actually one of the reasons i bought it, but i didnt find out i couldnt configure it how i wanted until i got it home. i wanted a A/G/N setup, but you cant do that. you can only select A/N or B/G/N.

if you want a router that will give you ZERO headache, and not even dent your wallet, get thte WRT54GL!

 

[technicolor]

It really depends... there are a number of causes of dropped signals...

- Obstructive interference -- the arrangement of walls and solid furniture in your home (you can tell this is the issue if you can stay connected within a 5-10' / 2-3m of the router in line of sight)

Its almost straight shot its going through one wall. I just moved into this apartment last week. I was having this problem in the old place too with no walls. The router was in the same room that I used my laptop in almost all the time.

- RF interference -- other devices that emit radio frequency near the wavelength of the router (this can be a toughie... if you live in an apartment, this is a big one; if you live in a home, it can be difficult to tease out if you have something making RFI that you wouldn't expect as a traditional culprit... if this is the issue, then moving to an 802.11n router like the AEBS and the 5GHz frequency band may also help substantially)

There are 8 networks in this building and often wonder if that is exacerbating the problem. My last building had 2 and it wasnt this bad.

- Improper setup -- such as if you are using a modem that drops inactive leases and so keeps dropping the AEBS, forcing it to reconnect and in the meantime, acting like it isn't working... this happened to me when I first got Yahoo DSL in Michigan)

Modem is good works fine with other laptops.

- Wiring harness problem in your MB (the easiest way to rule this one out is to find out if the MBP works flawlessly on other networks).

Works well on my school's network.

- Freak OS X stuff -- I actually had an odd issue just over the past couple of days with my iBook where it would keep dropping the AEBS connection when there was a bulk transfer. For instance, I couldn't do software update because, a few MB in, it would drop my Airport connection... Grr... I couldn't figure out what was causing this, and it's never happened before... a reboot oddly made it go away, as far as I can tell.

Could be this. I had no problems with this router with my core duo MBP. It wasnt until I upgraded to the SR MBP that this became an issue.

if you want a router that will give you ZERO headache, and not even dent your wallet, get thte WRT54GL!

Thanks for the rec. I have a store credit and there is a refurb on on the apple store so it would cost me 39 bucks for AE.

 

[balamw]

There are 8 networks in this building and often wonder if that is exacerbating the problem. My last building had 2 and it wasnt this bad.

Time to run a network scan and see what you see. iStumbler is a great tool for this.

Your goal is to make sure you are not using the same channel as any of the other 8 networks, or at least to park your network on the same channel as one of the weakest networks you see.

The Airport Extreme will help if you can move to 5 GHz, i.e. use the 802.11n for all the devices you want to connect.

B

 

[mkrishnan]

Time to run a network scan and see what you see. iStumbler is a great tool for this.

Good reminder! I just got and ran iStumbler... there are 11 other networks I can see... every single one of them is on channel 11, 6, or 1. So I'm running on 4 right now....