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

This has driven me crazy for weeks. Here is the rundown of what I am working with and how I fixed it.

Airport Extreme 7.3.1 using WPA/WPA2 password

Connected to Network:

2 MacBooks
2 iPhones
AppleTV
XBOX 360
Nintendo Wii

I hard reset my Airport after the last dropping fiasco and changed the WPA Group Key Timeout option to 9999 Days. (Located in Manual Setup under AirPort/Wireless/Wireless Options) Then turned on each one of my items at a time and left them on until all had their own ip address. I did not change the ipv6 settings at all. Since I did this I have not had a single issue with any item on my network. Before I did this my AppleTV XBOX 360 and Wii were all acting crazy and my MacBooks and iPhones were constanly dropping connections.

I hope this helps. Because Apple is not coming up with anything for us.

Well, tried a different modem, worked fine for 3 days, just had a drop out just now. So modem theory is out the window.

Also, My MacBook Pro dropped out but my wife's powerbook is just fine, so I'm submitting another vote for it being a software issue. We're both running leopard however. Maybe it's a 802.11n issue?

I think what I am seeing is something quite specific.

802.11n + AEBSn + 5GHz + Wide Channels + Broadcom Chipset + Mac OS 10.5.2

= spontaneous connection drops.

A good way to cause the fault is to copy a single multi-gigabyte directory from your network to your Mac. If you have the problem, the network drops after about 10minutes of intensive copying.

There remain multiple problems with different machines, different wireless chipsets and Tiger or Leopard. Some time ago I reported in this thread that I had junked my Airport Extreme (gigabit), and replaced it with an older Apple UFO AirPort Extreme unit serving 2 computers and an Airport Express/Belkin F5L009/WD Elements HFS+ drive setup. This has worked flawlessy for several months, with no dropouts.

72 hours ago, I turned on the Airport Extreme (gigabit), and configured it for my WDS network with firmware 7.3.1. It has had 2 dropouts since.

Mileage seems to vary with this firmware upgrade. If this is Linux, Apple is using the worst network appliance programmer on the planet. I await the next firmware upgrade.

I made an incorrect assumption. OS is NetBSD. I'm surprised it is so brittle.

FWIW, I'm running on 2.4GHz (802.11g compatible), so the problem is not so "specific". I'm not sure what the "wide channels" or "broadcom chipset" is, but I'm running all Apple kit in my setup, and the AEBS itself seems to be the source of the trouble.

I've also noticed problems with intensive (single large file) copying. A 600mb file reports that it would take over an hour to copy to my macbook from another mac serving AFP on the network.

A final posting. I have inserted a relay into my wireless network, and the drop outs from the Airport Extreme (gigabit) have ceased. I suspect I have a result from firmware 7.3.1

A final comment. Apologies. Drop outs returned with firmware 7.3.1 and adequate signal strength. Base Station remains incapable of production use. Bowing out.

I tried out a long list of published fixes and workarounds.
I tested each one by copying a 7GB file and the dropout occurs halfway through.

Only one fix worked. Which is to turn off "wide channels".
This reduces the speed of the network.

This only relates to my problem. Which was spontaneous network drops since installing 10.5.2

Just upgraded (??) to Firmware 7.3.1. Hope that wasn't a mistake as my Extreme was working great with no drop-outs for quite a few months.

7.1.1 fixes it for me. Both 7.2.1 and 7.3.1 caused dropouts

I actually think it is the N network. I switched to a Belkin N Vision router and have had similar problems. Big packets of info seem to jam it. It stalls and then disappears. Or the network appears, but I keep getting the error that I am not connected to the internet. At least with the Belkin a simple reset fixes the problem, as opposed to the AEBS which seemed to become available again only when it wanted to.

That being said, just in case I go back to the AEBS, does anyone know where I can find 7.1.1? I can only downgrade to 7.2. Is thee a website to download 7.1.1?

I also have a G5 tower plugged into a Airport Extreme 802.11n router that has trouble connecting to the internet. I did not have this issue before updating to 7.3.1 as well.

I read that some people had luck going back to the 7.2.1 firmware, but it has not worked for me. I am very frustrated at this point! At this point I wish I was still using 10.4 with my Linksys router.

I had drop outs, and noticing advice about a tinfoil hat, I moved my Iomega hard drive from on top of the AEBS to the side, and now all works perfectly.