2GB Time Capsule loses 5GHz network

5 GHz signals are faster, but you have to give up something in return for the speed. In the case of 5 GHz, it's distance and penetration power, so the 5 GHz signals are not nearly as strong as 2.4 GHz.

Most of us are finding that for really good, reliable performance that 5 GHz is...or is close to....a line-of-sight deal. That's because the higher frequency signals (which are weaker) are absorbed much more quickly by any obstructions.

Might that be one of the causes of your lost connections? Anything you can do to shorten the distance the signal must travel or allow a clear signal path will help your performance.

I have the same problem. Definitely not signal strength. Never had a single connection problem. Then one day...bam...5GHz is gone. Fiddling and rebooting worked (I think I switched from a/n, b/g to a,b/g and back). But now that doesn't fix it either.

Bob Timmons wrote:

5 GHz signals are faster, but you have to give up something in return for the speed. In the case of 5 GHz, it's distance and penetration power, so the 5 GHz signals are not nearly as strong as 2.4 GHz.

Most of us are finding that for really good, reliable performance that 5 GHz is...or is close to....a line-of-sight deal. That's because the higher frequency signals (which are weaker) are absorbed much more quickly by any obstructions.

Might that be one of the causes of your lost connections? Anything you can do to shorten the distance the signal must travel or allow a clear signal path will help your performance.

Well ..... Wireless N speed is not affected by transmission frequency, 5ghz and 2.4ghz send at the same rate, but everything else you said is correct 🙂

Consider yourself lucky on that front. Pulling the power and rebooting has stopped working for me. 5GHz is just gone, now.

I've been having the same issue. Computers can connect to the 5GHz network, which has a different name than the 2.4GHz network, for a few days at most. Then, in the middle of a session, the 5GHz network first stops working, then disappears completely. I believe the name is remaining in the list of networks only because it hasn't timed out yet.

I can reliably restore 5GHz service by rebooting the Time Capsule, but it's a pain to have to keep doing that.

This isn't related to signal strength, as it can happen when I am in the same room with the Time Capsule.

Same issue here.

Apple Time Capsule 2nd Gen. with firmware 7.5.2. Networks with separate names (channels 1 and 36, WPA2). The 2.4GHz network is extended via an Airport Express "n". A USB HD is attached to the Time Capsule. After some time (cannot quantify if hours or days) the 5GHz network disappears and pulling the power cord is the only way to have it reappear.

Clients of the 5GHz network are:

2 MacBooks

1 iPad2

1 Apple TV 2

Clients of the 2.4GHz network are:

1 Nintendo Wii

1 Samsung Blu-ray Player

2 iPhones 3Gs

1 HP printer

In the house we have a babyphone operating on the 5GHz band but from April to June it never created issues.

Roberta-b, that network setup is just about identical to mine, down to the Airport Express N extending the 2.4Ghz net. Plus a very similar arrangement of clients.

There's a bit of good data for Apple's engineers, I would think.

I had the same problem. Yesterday i downgraded to Image 7.5.1 and the 5GHz net reappeared again. (I'm currently connetcetd through 5GHz channel now)

Before I tried a lot of combination of extended and not, guest network active and not and different name for 5GHz, manual channel and automatic channel and not and no of those settings made the network at 5Ghz work. Just downgrading make the magic happen.

I also downgraded to firmware 7.5.1 and then upgraded again to 7.5.2.... since then (1 week ago) no problems!!!

Does anyone know if this problem with the 5 GHz network disappearing with the Time Capsule also happens with the Airport Extreme? I have been having the same problem and after trying everything else, it seems like the only option left is to downgrade my firmware. Like some others, I have also been experiencing very slow backups from my iMac to the TC even with a wired Ethernet connection and Wi-Fi turned off. By comparison Time Machine backs up my kids Mac Mini to a cheap Firewire drive so fast that it is almost unnoticeable. So I am thinking of simply dumping the TC and using an external drive or a new 2 TB Buffalo Linkstation Duo RAID NAS drive ($199 at Frys) instead. The Buffalo NAS works great especially as a Sonos music server. Thanks for any advice anyone may have. Andrew

Have had the same problem for well over a year now - well before 7.5.2. The issue is intermittant in that it seems to happen without other regular symptons or times. No solution - hard reboot is the only way to get the 5GHz back that I've found.

I don't have anything to suggest to fix, but I thought I'd chime in that as of a couple days ago I too am having the *exact* same issue. Second generation 2TB Time Capsule running 7.5.2 with the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands seperate, and an attached wireless N AirPort Express extending the 2.4GHz network. I haven't tried downgrading the firmware, but given that this literally only started three days ago and I've been on 7.5.2 since release, I'm not so sure it'll do anything. Maybe it's something hardware with these models that's starting to die?

I know this is an old thread but the problem is 802.11d which disables certain channels based on the first beacon the Wi-Fi sees when you wake up your Mac.

You need to set the 5GHz channel on your Time Capsule to a channel that is supported in all domains like 36 or 40. More info here: http://jeff-with-a-g.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/5ghz-wifi-on-your-mac-got-you-down. html