Airport Extreme

it is slightly warm but not overheating

This is a fairly common problem. Although the fan can get clogged with dust and a fair number of people have fan issues.. often it is a mistaken reading.

Let me suggest you turn off sharing on the disks tab in airport utility.

This is the disk tab on my Time Capsule.. assuming you don't actually have a disk plugged into the USB.. just uncheck the

enable file sharing box.

This is a solution you will find often used.. it has absolutely nothing to do with overheating which I think is a false reading.

If you have the same thing happen in the future after a power down and the overheat warning comes up.. turn file sharing back on. If the overheat goes away then you know it just needs you to force the stupid box to restart without a power cycle.

On the Time Capsule I have the same problem but cannot turn off file sharing so I change the secondary DNS on the Internet tab.. each time I reboot I will get the issue again so change it back and forth all the time.

You basically have a few choices:

• Vacuum the vents on the bottom of the base station.
• Open the base station up to attempt to remove any other form of dust/debris and inspect the fan to see if it can rotate without any obstructions. Care must be taken to avoid damaging any components.
• You can monitor the actual operating temperature, but that most likely will only confirm if the temperature sensor is faulty or not.

Which exact model is your AirPort Extreme? For the "tower" models, it may be possible that dust/debris has collected in the air vents on the bottom of the unit or a sufficient amount is now inside the unit preventing proper air circulation to keep the base station cool ... or the unit's fan may be faulty or has failed.