Airport Extreme (802.11n) - Connection drops (no auto-reset)

I am hoping to have found the possible main reason why I am having the sudden interruption of the wireless connection on my wife's computer.
First I have to add that I got rid of the Apple Airport Extreme base long time ago for many reasons, and I have had great luck with the Belkin N1 wireless router.

Going back to the constant dropping of the internet connection with my wife's computer, I decided to spend all the time necessary to witness it personally.
Her office is on another side of the house and it appears that her computer is picking up another wireless connection from a neighbor house that is lock with a password we obviously do not have.
Some how it automatically tries to connect to it without success dropping the one it should stay on. I was trying to identify the type of router the neighbor has, and it might be the same Belkin we have with a different name.
I am not sure why it deliberately tries to switch and I am wondering if there is a way to prevent it.
I tried to delete it in the network preferences but I couldn't.

It might not be much but I hope this helps.
Simon

Yes, I found two kinds of network conflicts that triggered problems. 1.) AEBS on the same network and 2.) nearby networks on the same channel.

My solution: throw all the AEBSs away and forget about air tunes; pick a channel that's different from your neighbors

Thank you I will try your suggestions and will post the results.
Simon

I have come to the conclusion, with the problem of the unit completely freezing (dropping all connections, and unable to access AEBS with AirPort Utility) is a heat issue.

When running high traffic applications like BitTorrent (tried both Azureus and Transmission) or when there's a lot of network traffic in general, and the unit fails and needs a hard reset, the unit is extremely hot.

Turning the wireless off makes it a little bit cooler. Throw that bad boy in the freezer for a few minutes and you can BitTorrent away for awhile before it heats back up and fails again.

There are a lot of things I love about this unit, but I should be able to have a lot of network traffic and this thing not freak out on me. Why oh why can I not get a different router with 5ghz support?

So, I have the opposite issue. My 802.11n works flawlessly (MBP and 3 MB's, nothing plugged in via wire). But I have an older Gigabit Airport (last of the rounded ones) and it has this issue. It has a printer plugged in to it via a switch, as well as another printer on the USB port. Due to the layout of my house, we are on the older AEBS more often. And it dies every few days. Remove/Replace power and its all good. :shrug:

Another failure to add to the ever growing list I'm afraid. Tried all of the fixes mentioned (including those on the macfixit forum) and no joy whatsoever thus far.

In my particular case I've haven't been able to get the AE stable for more than about fifteen minutes since I upgraded the firmware to version 7.2.1 (not that it was particularly stable before then...here was me thinking the upgrade might fix a few problems).

Normally after a few minutes the AE just disappears (from both the Airport menu and the Airport Utility) and the only way of getting it back it to do a forced reset, i.e. power-cycling the unit often doesn't remedy the problem.

It also usually crashes out after making any settings changes at all and isn't seen again unless I reset. FYI - LED still shining bright green whenever this happens...

Needless to say when I replace the Airport with my old DWL900AP+ there are no problems at all and I'm online without a moment hassle 😟

You say "AE" is that Airport Extreme or is it an Express Base Station?

Apologies...that was an Airport Extreme Base Station (Part # MA073B/A), just Fast Ethernet

Add me to the list.
Cable modem to Airport Extreme Base Station.
Most of the time it works as advertised. And then there are the annoying dropouts. Anywhere from once every few days to a couple of times a day. Airport Extreme Base Station just disappears on all of our computers at once. Restart it and it comes back. VERY annoying.
Also have an Epson 2200 plugged into the USB port. That goes away as well. Print jobs get disrupted mid-stream and then you have to reset the Base Station and start over.
I am considering a different wireless router if Apple doesn't come up with a fix.

Ditto. I came from the dark side and thought that Apple would have vetted the Airport. I use a mix of two Dell laptops, one Dell server and two Apple laptops. I have a slingbox connected on the network and that seems to be able to set off the the connection drops. Since my network hadn't changed except for adding the Airport Extreme I disconnected the Airport and replaced it with my old Netgear WGR614. Interestingly ... No drops, no disconnects, AND my slingbox actually runs faster, by 200-300KBPS, on my MacBook Pro, Mozy.com is transmitting faster that when I used the Airport Extreme.

Thanks BlindShepherd,

I was having all kinds of problems with my new AEBS and nothing worked until I saw this post. Switching to local link only has made it run perfectly with a USB hard drive (previously formatted FAT32 but now working much faster as HFS+). I was ready to go back to the Apple Store for a refund, but thankfully it seems as though it's all OK.

I'm guessing that local link means that I can't access my AEBS from a remote location? I tried connecting with my IP and setting up Port Forwarding, but no luck.

I'm also very disappointed at the lack of response from Apple on this discussion.

thanks again,

Matthew

Just a follow-up really. I finally managed to get the AEBS working for about an hour running (in bridged mode). No packet loss, connected no problem.

However, returned the following morning. I could still see the network still, but it wouldn't let me connect (brought up the 'Try again' or 'Ok' dialogue box').

I tried power cycling the AEBS, but not joy, still got the same response. Pretty bored of this now, so think I'll return the unit and start over with something that does actually work out of the box.

Hey guys,

Well after a while I finally found a combo thats been working pretty good for me so far.

Initial problem: Wireless connection seemingly dropped inconsistently (2-3 times a day or more). Noticed possible DHCP leasing issue (IP leasing constantly reset to default until drops discontinued). Issue noticed on both fast ethernet and gigabit AEBS "N"

Current "working" settings: (Note: I currently have a gigabit version)

1: revert AEBS to original 7.2 firmware (hold down option key (Ctrl key in Windows) when clicking on update selection)
2: set DHCP lease time to 24hrs
3: decrease # of DHCP leasable IP's from 10.0.1."200" to 10.0.1."5" (up or down depending on # of clients)
4: set all clients under DHCP reservations (specify IP address by MAC address)(do for all clients)
5: set WPA/WPA2 Key (mine is set at about 25 characters long, really random)
6: set timed MAC address filtering for all wireless clients.

Thats it, no more drops. Been running smooth for about 2 weeks now. My printer works great and I havent had to screw with any radio settings or anything. So hopefully this will help somebody else out too.

Dan

HI Dan,

Thanks for the tip. I figured I'd give it one last shot and see what happens.

I managed to bring up the firmware download dialogue, but can you clarify how I actually go about revert to the older version of the FastEthernet firmware (7.1.1) if I've already upgraded to version 7.2.1? I've tried downloading and then clicking update, but the AEBS keeps coming back with version 7.2.1.

Thanks!

Stuart

Hey Stuart,

All I did to revert to the former firmware (since mine came with 7.2.1) was:

In the airport utility
Hold down the ctrl key and click on "File --> Check for Updates" (continue holding down the ctrl key)
Wait for the airport software update menu to show up
click "show details" and scroll down to find your desired firmware.

(oh and Im currently on PC's only. If I remember right the "Apple Option" Key is the same as the "ctrl" on pc's)

Hope this works for yah!

Dan