Extend Airport Extreme Network via Ethernet to Airport Express

Bob's method worked great for me! Great speeds everywhere in the house. 😀

I have an Airport Extreme connected by ethernet to my router and it has worked well for some time. I recently bought the latest Airport Express and configured it to extend my network. Using the Airport Utility eveything seems to be good apart from the fact that none of my devices will connect to the Express which is quite frustrating.

I bought an AQ portable Airplay speaker (brilliant piece of equipment) to work in various locations around the house and in the garden and I have tried everything to get it to connect to the Express (which is in the kitchen and close to where I want the speaker to work) but it stays locked into the main Airport Extreme upstairs.

Any help, advice or guideance would be much appreciated

Worked just like Bob T said. Very easy. Perfect solution. I had tried the same thing with an Airport Extreme, but will not extend via ethernet. Thanks, Bob.

Worked just like Bob T said as well. Thanks you so much for advise. This was not an obvious fix. You'd think simply extending an existing wireless network would be easier.

Regarding the AQ speakers... I have had 4 of them for about 10 months. I have managed to have them set up in a few configurations. I too have just purchaced a Airport Express and finally came across this thread and have followed Bob T's setup and it works perfect... Thanks so much mate. What i did for the AQ speakers was change the name of the Airport Express network (im conected by ethernet to a Time capsual on the 5Ghz) and pluged my ipod into the AQ speaker ( can be any IOS device ) making sure its on the Airport Express network and press in the two volume buttons on the speaker breifly at the same time. You should see the speaker going through a set up and once you get a green solid light diconect the IOS device and now the speaker should be running wirelessly out of the Airport Express.

I now have 5 speaker running, 4 of them are the AQ wireless speakers.

Good luck.

Bob,

This was a perfect response, thanks. I was having a lot of difficulty getting my forerly WiFi Airport express, hard wired, and your process was perfect, and very simpe. My home is up and running with a ethernet hard wired WiFi on multiple floors.

Thanks,
Mark

That article was exactly what I needed. Thanks Joseph. My problem was the setting of the primary unit.

This was what I needed. Connecting my airport express via ethernet while it was setup to extend my network via wifi disturbed it all. Now I have set it up the right way my network is working better than before.

Bob has supplied the needed instructions that are not mentioned anywhere I could find in Apple's manuals. Granted it's an uncommon need for most Airport Express users, but it's just great that Apple's engineers built this into the Airport Express. Why is this not published outside of a support forum is a bit strange.

That written, this was easier than pie (which is not so easy really).

Kudo's to Apple. Now, perhaps they should write a proper support article and link to it where it makes sense.

What a great chain detailing the Airport setup!

Bob's core method is solid and easy. I think it also throws the proper switches for IP6 and even correctly configures the secondary Guest network.

I found something else using OSX 10.9 and APE 7.64. If someone could confirm the following for Mavericks I would appreciate it:

When using this method to "extend" an exisiting wirelesss network via the wire the machine running the Airport Utility has to be on the wire during the configuration. If it is not the setup errors out after clicking on the Airport Express under Other AirPort BaseStations.

The good news on this possible find is that if you want to wirelessly extend the wireless network you can follow the same steps Bob details without using a wire on either the Airport Express or the machine running Airport Utility.

If this is true, it is elegant and so Apple. Another one of those hidden and not very well documented powerful little insider tweeks.

If the signal strength is just below -60 dbm, signal-to-noise unknown, will adding an ethernet-connected Airport Express like this to an Airport Extreme Base Station help?

The issue hasn't particularly been speed - it's been dropouts, as if we lose the Internet for a few minutes several times a day. It's a small thing but maddening. Our ISP states firmly that it's not them, and the Airport Utility sometimes shows the Internet down but sometimes not; sometimes it's our Airport Extreme which goes "yellow", although then we may be still able to surf the Net and/or to connect to other computers on our network - or not: it isn't consistent.

Secondary details:

We use our computers at two opposite corners of a 2-story house: awkward. But that's the way the house is designed.

If I put a laptop right beside the Airport Extreme, the signal strength goes up to -35 dbm. In the family room, through several walls, it's -62 dbm. (Fortunately, in the study, it remains -40 dbm, passing up through one floor without any wires or heating ducts inbetween.)

I have moved the Airport Extreme to an intermediate location between the two computer-locations, and the phone-line there is also "cleaner" - not branching to telephones and fax machines. And it's a bit closer to the "demarcation point" of the phone line (at which, by the way, our overall Internet speed is the same as with the DSL modem and Airport Extreme anywhere else in the house, downloading at about 1.48 Mbps, which is just below what our stated line speed is, limited by our distance from the phone switching station - we should perhaps switch to cable Internet).

Moving the Airport Extreme to that intermediate location seems to have helped - fewer if any dropouts.

I will probably end up just leaving it as it, unless someone can convince me that adding an Airport Express in the -62 Dbm room will help ...

... and then clearly I have learned today that would be better as a wired roaming network than a wireless extended network (haven't I?) ...

... and then I would have to figure out how to run the ethernet cables. I'm thinking of using the cold-air-return ducts

... and it sounds like the length of the ethernet cable will not be an issue.

Lots of factors.

Thanks to all.

Charles

"... and then I would have to figure out how to run the ethernet cables. I'm thinking of using the cold-air-return ducts"

Ethernet cables are the most reliable, but I've found that homeplug ethernet adapters are a very good substitute and probably a lot easier than running ethernet cables through your air ducts.

Trendnet's 500Mb kits have worked well for me. Plug and play with decent speed and not too expensive (about $40 a pair).

Thanks, Mat.

That would be as in Trendnet's Powerline series, under their "Connectivity" category.

I already have an ethernet cable in place, as of yesterday evening - some ingenuity required. I'm planning on putting the "roaming" Airport Express in the basement, right under the floor of the family room, in the middle of the room, where there are no ducts or wires nearby (although the ethernet cable will have to cross some) - just wood, carpet and a few nails.

However ... that's if I need it. I don't think I can do much about the speed (1.48 Mbps DSL download), because of the line quality at our distance from the telephone switching station, but am aiming at improving the reliability and decreasing the disconnects on a wireless network at a location in the house where I currently get about -60 dBm in signal strength, and don't wish to move the base Airport Extreme closer because then it's too far away from the other corner of the house.

The speed is marginal anyway, it seems, for streaming video downloads, even "regular" quality - lots of hesitation (although not with Netflix - they're very clever!) and long, long pauses.

By the way, I've also used InSSider by Metageek to find a new Airport Extreme transmitting frequency, and I don't think it's been a major factor - very little else around (excluding things like cell and cordless phones, microwaves, not detected by the entry-level version I bought), and all about 40 dBm lower in strength than my main signal ... but hasn't hurt.

I'm hoping that someone will comment on whether adding the Airport Express might help with that. I'm very tempted just to try it - had one in my hand yesterday afternoon at the store ...

I'm not familliar with Apple's latest offering, but I have paired a 2nd Generation Airport extreme with my 4th Generation Basestation using the 5Ghz spectrum set to channel 40 which provides high throuput to support my Home Theater PC in the basement. That can sustain 200mbs transfers reliably which I needed for some high definition video home movies on my media server. Better than homeplug. However, that's probably only good for short distances. Longer distances/impeded signals do better with 802.11G.

For my far flung corners of my home, I've used the same strategy you are doing with an older airport express tied into the base station via homeplug. It's in the basement and provides very good connectivity for wifi in the two floors above. If you are using ethernet, I'd expect you'll have good results, based on my own experience.

I am trying to extend a gen 4 Airport Extreme by hardwiring ethernet to a 2nd gen Airport Express and will add a second Airport Express if I can get the first one to work. I have a large network with a 24 port switch.

First question:

When expanding my network using the hardwired Airport Express can I name the new network anything I want or should it be exactly the same as the Extreme Network. I would prefer to name it differently so I can keep track of which network my devices are acturally joining but I will be happy simply to get this to work either way.

Second question:

After repeated attempts to configure my hardwired Aiport Extreme, I get the following yellow status error:

Yellow Internet Connetion

Yellow No DNS Servers

Yellow Conflicting DHCP Range

Observation:

Many of the suggestions here and the link posted in a previous post are not based upon the most recent Airport Untility software so that may contribute to my lack of success so far. I am using the most recent version.