very weak signal on A1354

Question

very weak signal on A1354

I have the A1034 (the one that looks like a spaceship). I updated to the newest airport extreme A1354 because it's supposed to be faster. My problem is the new airport does not have the range as the old one. My old airport signal reach the other rooms with a good signal. The new one will not reach the other rooms.It has a 25 foot radius.Very short range. Do I have a bad airport or did they lower the quality? Or am I setting it up wrong.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.6), intel 2.8 quad

Posted on Mar 17, 2011 10:09 AM

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Answer 1

Tesserax

Level 10

158,664 points

Mar 17, 2011 10:41 AM in response to Jeffrey Johnston

Is it possible that your Mac is trying to connect to the new AEBSn's 5 GHz network instead of the 2.4 GHz one? The higher frequency network will have a more difficult time penetrating through objects like walls.

One way to test this is to purposely rename the 5 GHz network with a different Network Name. Then try connecting your Mac to both networks, one at a time, to determine if it has better connectivity to one over the other.

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Answer 2

Mar 17, 2011 3:28 PM in response to Tesserax

I set the 5 GHz network up with a password and then I set the 2.4 GHz as a guest network on the new airport with no password. I have a netflix player in the next room and it doesn't see either oneof the networks, whereas my old airport worked in all the rooms. I got the new airport because my old one is 9 years old and I was hoping to see faster downloads. Do you think the older airports had better signals? Thanks

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Answer 3

Tesserax

Level 10

158,664 points

Mar 17, 2011 9:38 PM in response to Jeffrey Johnston

I set the 5 GHz network up with a password and then I set the 2.4 GHz as a guest network on the new airport with no password.

Just to make sure I understand, did you enable the Guest Network feature of your new AEBSn? If so, even though you can give it a different Network Name or use a different wireless encryption type, the Guest Network actually operates on both radio bands, not just the 2.4 GHz one.

If you did enable the Guest Network feature, I would recommend that you disable it, and instead, use the AirPort Utility to configure the 5 GHz radio to use a different Network Name from that used by the 2.4 GHz radio. The reason I would like for you to try this is to see if your Mac can access either network from the desired location. Again, I suspect that you will have better luck with the 2.4 GHz radio.

We can then try using different radio channels on either radio to find one that provides the best connectivity. By default, your AEBSn will have both radios using "Automatic" for the channel choices.

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Answer 4

Apr 22, 2011 4:08 PM in response to Tesserax

I went back to my 9 year old airport express A1034. It works better than the new one and the signal is way stronger and it goes into the other rooms. I haven't decided if I will keep the new one in a box in case my old one breaks or sell it. I'm really disappointed in the quality of the new one A1354. It has only a 25 foot radious and won't go through walls. Maybe it's defective. Do you think a apple store would be able to check it? Thanks for trying to help. Jeffrey

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