Tag: airport express

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It just stopped…

Airport Express

My Airport Express working. Actually what happened was my TV which was connected to the Airport Express by wire couldn’t access the internet (so no BBC iPlayer for me then).

What I couldn’t fathom out was why it had stopped working, as I hadn’t done anything, I hadn’t done any updating, no re-configuration or changed any wires.

It was still broadcasting the SSID, so I first checked the wireless, devices connected to the Airport Express fine, however they got no internet access.

First did a hard reboot of the Airport Express, that didn’t work. So I did try and reboot the router and that didn’t work either. I was using a static IP address with the Airport Express, so I changed that to dynamic and the Airport Express ended up with a 169 IP address, a self-assigned address. So it wasn’t getting an IP address from the router, so I rebooted the router. No joy there.

The Airport Express isn’t directly connected to the router, it’s connected to an Airport Extreme which in turn is connected to the router. The reason is that there wasn’t a spare ethernet port on the router when I added the Airport Express to the network.

In the end I changed the ethernet port it was connected to on the Airport Extreme and guess what? Yes it all started working! So there was nothing wrong with the Airport Express, it was something else; the ethernet port on the Airport Extreme.

I have no idea why the ethernet port stopped working on the Airport Extreme. Well my network’s working now.

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ADSL Modem Woes

I have now been back on ADSL for six months and it’s not been a smooth ride. I moved house in June and as a result my phone line was linked to a different cabinet, even though it was the same exchange. The exchange was upgraded for FTTC, but the cabinet I was connected to wasn’t part of the upgrade plan. As a result I was booted back down to an ADSL internet connection.

My connection is certainly better than the one I had just before I moved onto FTTC. What I have noticed is two things, firstly, the connection goes down a lot more than it ever did on FTTC. Now this could be the connection, but I am slightly suspicious that the fault lies with the Netgear ADSL Modem/Router I am using rather than an issue with the connection itself.

Netgear DGN1000 Wireless-N150 ADSL Modem Router

This is reinforced with the second thing I have noticed. When we’ve had a power cut (or as I did the other day turn off the power to do some electrical work) it seems to be really problematic to get the three Apple Airport base stations I have back up and running. After reconfiguring the base stations and failing, I did a software reboot of the Netgear Router through the admin screen (as opposed to turning the thing off and back on again) and this time the Airport wireless base stations did sort themselves out.

The main problem I was having with the Airport base stations was that they couldn’t get an IP address from the router through DHCP and when I gave them a static IP address, the DNS didn’t work as expected.

When I had FTTC, as it uses PPPoE I was able to use my Apple Airport base station as the main router for the home network. When I moved back to ADSL I needed to get a new ADSL Modem/Router that supported PPPoA. I did have one in the loft that I got out, but I think it was fried or just too old because I couldn’t get it to work or even configure it. So I went out and bought a Netgear ADSL Modem/Router from my local PCWorld. With hindsight this was probably a mistake!

After blaming ADSL for my lost connections I am now basically convinced that the fault is not with ADSL, but may well be with the Modem/Router. The issue with the DHCP is I think a separate but connected issue.

As a result I am thinking about getting a new ADSL Modem/Router, so do you have any suggestions?

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Happy with the Airport Extreme

I am pleased with my new Airport Extreme which I recently installed to replace an unreliable old Airport Express. Since I installed it, it has remained up and broadcasting (and accessible) without any problems.

My old Airport Express, configured for legacy 802.11g devices, would often “disappear” from the network and even though it was still broadcasting, the Airport Express wouldn’t accept connections, nor could it be found via the Airport Admin Utility. As a result my 802.11g devices (such as the iPhone) wouldn’t be able to connect to the network and wouldn’t be able to stream video or download stuff. My main challenge was with my wireless Canon printer which was 802.11g and not been able to print was very annoying. It got to the point where the Airport Express was failing on a daily basis and needed to be unplugged and plugged back in again.

I did consider replacing the Airport Express with the new 802.11n Airport Express, but having had two Expresses go on me, I decided to stump the extra cash and get an Airport Extreme. I had a few reasons, the main was that if my existing Airport Extreme failed I had a replacement on hand. It comes with three ethernet ports and I can then have a few more wired gigabit ethernet devices on the network which is of course much faster than wireless and means more stable Skype and video streaming on more devices, as well as faster file transfers. I can also add a USB hard drive as network storage too.

I didn’t get a Time Capsule as they seemed to add very little to the equation, cost more money and have in my mind more things to go wrong.

So, so far I am pleased with the Extreme and it is doing what I need it to do.

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“Replaced” my Airport Express


In Bristol yesterday I took the plunge and replaced my Airport Express. I have had ongoing issues with the Airport Express for a while now.

The main problem I was having with the Airport Express was that it just stopped working and then “vanishing” from the network. As a result it would need to be power cycled to get it working again. I have an Airport Express, even though I also have an Airport Extreme, as the Extreme is the router on my network, which broadcasts at 5GHz 802.11n. I use the Airport Express in 802.11b/g mode for legacy and mobile devices.

The reason for two wireless networks is that the 802.11n network can work at the full 300Mbps speed, whilst legacy and mobile devices will work just fine on a slower network. If I had a single wireless network it would be “slow” for all devices. This usually isn’t too much of a problem, however I do stream video across my network, and when I use to do this in the past (with standard definition video) on an 802.11g network, I found that due to network congestion I would get buffering which was annoying. iPlayer wouldn’t work either very well over the wireless. With 802.11n I can stream high definition video easily across the network to my Apple TV or my iPad. It also works well in moving large files across the network. 802.11n also makes much more sense when using FTTC (fibre) for internet with its higher speeds.

Looking back I did write something similar about the older Airport Express it replaced. Part of me thinks that there may be an underlying technological reason or flaw for the constant failures of the Express on my network. I am wondering if the setup I have is the problem and there is a flaw in the Airport Express in bridge mode which means that it “vanishes” now and again. I can’t see why and I’ve not always had this problem. Looking at dates I am now wondering if the move to FTTC was the issue, at that point I configured the Airport Extreme for PPPoE whereas before it was a bridge with an ageing Netgear ADSL Modem acting as the DHCP router using PPPoA. However as I can’t turn off PPPoE not sure if that is a road worth going down. Also the Airport Express is about six years old.

I did consider replacing it with the new 802.11n Airport Express, but having had two Expresses go on me, I decided to stump the extra cash and get an Airport Extreme. I had a few reasons, the main was that if my existing Airport Extreme failed I had a replacement on hand. It comes with three ethernet ports and I can then have a few more wired gigabit ethernet devices on the network which is of course much faster than wireless and means more stable Skype and video streaming on more devices, as well as faster file transfers. I can also add a USB hard drive as network storage too.

I didn’t get a Time Capsule as they seemed to add very little to the equation, cost more money and have in my mind more things to go wrong.

Have not yet replaced the Express at this time, so the Extreme is still shrink-wrapped.

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Airport Express Reliability

Despite upgrading my Airport Express to the latest firmware, I have still been having continuing reliability problems with the Airport Express “disappearing” from my network. As a result certain devices (such as my iPhone and my printer) which rely on the 802.11g network can not find the wireless network. The only solution is to unplug the Express and plug it back in again.

There appears to be no pattern to it falling over and as I don’t print that often and I am less likely to need connectivity on my iPhone at home, I am not always aware that it has fallen over and needs rebooting.

I am going to at this point not replace it just yet, but if it continues to fail then I think I will need to get a new one.

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Upgraded the Airport Express

After having a few problems with the Airport Express, usually resolved by unplugging it and plugging it back in again, I took the plunge and upgraded the firmware to version 6.3

I was having issues with it failing too often. Though most of my Mac hardware and the iPad run off my 802.11n Airport Extreme, I still have some hardware that can only use 802.11g and that is what I was using the Airport Express for. The iPhone is one example, but as it has 3G it was less noticable when the Express failed and the wifi didn’t work. However my Canon printer also connected to the 802.11g Express network and when the Express fell over, no one was able to print!

I generally don’t upgrade unless there are security issues or as in this case I am having problems with the hardware. The upgrade went fine and it would appear after a few days now to have solved the issue. The Express has stayed up without falling over, so I am keen to see if this will continue.

If it keeps falling over then I may need to get a new one, of course it would have to be the AirPort Express 802.11n model.

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Replaced my Airport Express

After another session of “not working” I have replaced my aging Airport Express. Though I would like to have replaced it with a new model, I used one that I had got for AirTunes but in the end found wasn’t needed. So it was still sealed, as I hadn’t got around to opening it, or selling it on eBay.

Configuring it was pretty simple using Apple’s Airport Utility, though did forget to put it into Bridge Mode so at first it didn’t work.

Bridge Mode was necessary as my Airport Extreme is the router on my network, which broadcasts at 5GHz 802.11n. I use the Airport Express in 802.11b/g mode for legacy and mobile devices. As the Airport Extreme acts as the DHCP router, adding a second router on the network would mean that devices could connect to the wifi, but wouldn’t be able to access the internet or “connect” with other devices on my network.

The reason for two wireless networks is that the 802.11n network can work at the full 300Mbps speed, whilst legacy and mobile devices will work just fine on a slower network. If I had a single wireless network it would be “slow” for all devices. This usually isn’t too much of a problem, however I do stream video across my network, and when I use to do this in the past (with standard definition video) on an 802.11g network, I found that due to network congestion I would get buffering which was annoying. With 802.11n I can stream high definition video easily across the network to my Apple TV or my iPad. It also works well in moving large files across the network.

802.11n also makes much more sense when using FTTC (fibre) for internet with its higher speeds.

The main problem I was having with the old Airport Express was that it just stopped working and “vanishing” from the network. As a result it would need to be power cycled to get it working again.

So far so good.

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Airport Extreme Reliability

At the beginning of September, I wrote:

…my Airport Extreme is becoming less reliable. I am having to reboot it at least once a week now. There is no warning before it goes dodgy.

I said at the time that when I upgraded to FTTC I would probably upgrade the Airport Extreme

I am going to wait before replacing it, as we are getting BT Infinity later this month and I am not sure if I will need a new router. If I do need a specific type of router then I will get a new 802.11n router.

However in the end I found out from BT that I could use my Airport Extreme with FTTC. So before I was upgraded I did update the firmware on my Airport Extreme to firmware 7.4.2

I don’t usually recommend updating your Airport base stations unless there is a security issue, or in my case you are having problems.

Updating the firmware seems to have resolved the issue and I have not had a problem since I updated. However the Airport Express has stopped working properly at least once, though that is much older than the Airport Extreme.

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Airport Express fell over…

Today despite a strong green light the Airport 802.11g network that my Airport Express provides was nowhere to be seen.

I couldn’t see the Airport Express in the Airport Utility either, despite it been connected to my network via cable and I was using my 802.11n network.

In the end I power cycled the Airport Express, twice and this resolved the issue.

This happens now and again with Airport base stations, mainly the older the 802.11g base stations in my experience.

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Applications on the iPod touch

I have been trying out and installing some applications on the iPod touch now that firmware 2.0 is available.

Very pleased with Remote which allows your iPod to control your Mac’s iTunes collection which makes it perfect for using with an Airport Express.

Also tried the Evernote application which works really well for me.

Still to try out some others.

I haven’t bought one yet, but may do so soon.