AE signal at nothing after being sporadic. Update firmware made it worse.

I'm pulling out my hair here - we've had intermittent internet signal for a while now, and as of late our old dual G4 in our office can't connect to it reliably at all. I had a few issues with my old G4 and after repairing permissions they were resolved but internet was still choppy. I noted there was a firmware update for the AE so I installed it with my Macbook Pro laptop...and now we have NO internet. No signal at all.
So I tried restoring it to factory settings with my laptop and setting up the network and AE from scratch and with much headbanging it is back to the settings it was before-green light. The signal was very intermittent but after a time I managed to get a hold of a signal long enough to set up our 2 laptops to the wireless network and use it on the laptop...for about 5 minutes. (even with them 2 feet from the AE). As I went up stairs with my laptop to our G4 tower to reset up the network on it as well the signal went to nothing and hasn't come back. I can't set up the network upstairs as I get no signal.
The internet itself is fine - I hook up manually to it through the AE and I can surf the net no problem.
I thought perhaps it was an interference issue and so I looked up how to change the channel of the airport - I opened the software I needed to do it and it said it was not the right software for my airport. So in installed the software form the disc it came with. Same thing. I got the program form the Mac site. Same thing.
I am ready to chuck the thing out the window. Intermittent wireless was better than no wireless at all, but ideally I would like it to work WELL.
How in the world to I get in to my AE to reset the channel it broadcasts on if I can't get the program I use to do that to work? Cane I revert to previous firmware? DId resetting it to factory settings restore the old firmware?
I'm pretty computer savvy but I am jsut frustrated beyond belief. I am just beyond my 1 year warranty so I'm on my own here.
Please help!!

Mac Dual G4

Posted on Jun 26, 2009 11:20 AM

Reply
2 replies

Jun 30, 2009 10:51 AM in response to Geosomin

Success!
After searching the boards for a solution I did the following and it solved my problems (knock on wood):

1. Dragged old airport utility software to the trash
2. Installed airport utililty software again from the CD that came with it
3. Opened and used the airport utility software to downgrade my firmware on my AE basestation from 7.4.2 back down to to 7.3.1. I read that a lot of people with older computers or varying signals had better success with this firmware.
4. I set the broadcast channel of the unit to channel 6

After doing this and resetting my airport, my airport base station began broadcaasting a signal again all over the house and I was able to get all the computers, both the old G4 and our 2 laptops to talk to it again and use it for wireless internet. Signal is not 100% all the time but is usually 3 or 4 bars - good enough for me. Signal is good 🙂

Hope that fix might help some of you with similar issues.

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AE signal at nothing after being sporadic. Update firmware made it worse.

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