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New Airport Extreme (6th Gen) Dropping Connection from Time to Time.

Problem:

6th Generation Airport Extreme drops connection intermittently at random times.


Set Up:

6th Generation Airport Extreme (main router - no hard drive/not a time capsule) located center of house on the main floor. 2 Range extenders each approximately 30+ feet away from main router. First range extender (Airport Express - newest generation) located on the third floor parallel to main. Second range extender (Airport Express - new generation) is located at the end of the kitchen (main floor).


Main Router is connected straight from a Motorolla Surfboard modem on a foyer table at the center of the house.


Range extenders connected to Main Router wirelessly and at wall outlett height.

Previous Setup:

Same setup as above but, with the 5th Generation Airport Extreme instead of the 6th Generation.


Firmware:

All current versions.


Devices:

  • 1 SONY VAIO VGN-FW490J
  • HP Notebook G60
  • Several WEMO outlets
  • 1 iPad Mini
  • 1 iPad 2
  • 1 iPhone 5
  • 1 Motorolla RAZR MAXX
  • Macbook Pro
  • iMac (wired from main router on foyer table)


Note: All of these routers/range extenders/modem/computers are plugged into surge protected outlets.


-----


Notes:


With the new Airport Extreme my family and I have been experiencing intermettent connection drops. The amber light on the main router turns on and within a few minutes turns green and connection resumes again. This has been happening for a few days now ever since I purchased the new router. This has not happened before with the 5th generation router, which I donated to our church.


I have not exchanged the product yet. I will be initiating a Complete Power Recycle after some suggested solutions in a bit. I have contacted my Internet Service Provider (Comcast) for a line check and found no problems.


Has anyone found any solutions to resolve the intermittent connection drops? Is reverting to the previous firmware going to solve this?


I would like some insights before trying to do all this. Thank you all for your time.


P.s.

I've done a detailed post since posts like these is frequently asked questions on set-up, devices, connections, etc:

Posted on Jun 27, 2013 6:45 PM

Reply
92 replies

Jul 9, 2013 1:18 PM in response to Flippuccino

Update:


Before I went to exchange my 6th Gen Extreme, I ran through all possible solutions from complete power recycle to no devices connected. I even went out of my way to my cousin's house to test it out. The same problem still kept coming.


I was able to exchange my 6th Gen Airprt Extreme with another 6th Gen Extreme the other day. I set it up how the instructions told me and within an hour it did the exact same problem as the previous 6th Gen Extreme. I gave up and decided to get the ASUS RT-AC66R (ASUS RT-AC66U is the same, just the 'R' is Best Buy's model.)


The ASUS router is just as great as the 6th Gen Router. You can actually get it down to $180 by price matching to Amazon. The ASUS router has 3 antennas that you can adjust according to where the signal is used more. I pointed them more towards the backyard, upstairs, and the living room. The range is by far better than the Extreme because of this. I was able to drive down a good block (3-4 houses down) and still connected to my router. Also it has 2 USB ports which was fantastic for me so I can plug in my external hard drive and a non-wireless printer. It has many more features that I really liked that I didn't even know was possible. The router utility interface is a bit confusing at first but, it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it.


Some features that I liked with the ASUS was the ability to have multiple guest network with time limits. 3 for 2.4gHz and 3 for 5gHz. I think that Airport guest accounts are only allowed 2.4gHz but not a 5gHz. Though I only needed 1 for each but, I can see this working well for businesses.


Another feature is traffic manager. I am able to set specific bandwith for different types of use such as, high priority 80%-100% bandwith for gaming, medium priority badwith 70%-90% for HD media streaming/data transfer, and 50%-80% low bandwith for casual web surfing. It also has it's own "beamforming" so that data isn't free roamed.


Lastly it has AiCloud sync which is basically like having a hard drive into your router but, much like having a Dropbox at the same time.



More or less I think I'll stick with the ASUS router rather than going with the new Airport Extreme. I think that it's more on firmware issue than it is hardware. If you are not willing to switch to another brand and want to keep staying with Apple, I recommend going back to the 5th generation until a new firmware or rebuilt 6th gen extreme is out.


I have not found any problem with the ASUS router and no intermittent connectivity issues.


Now I am not trying to make you buy the ASUS router. I'm merely expressing how great the product is.


I do have 60 days from Best Buy return policy to try out the ASUS (and report of any malfuntions) and if within that time a new firmware is out for the Extreme. I highly doubt I'll go back to the extreme though. 😀


Hope this helped!!

Aug 15, 2013 8:17 AM in response to lsteyn

I too experienced the exact same issues as the OP. I have the same set-up. I was unable to get the new AEac to work reliably. I fortunately did not get rid of the old AE, so I re setup the network with the old AE as the wired connection (to the cable modem) and the new AEac as an extension....we'll see how this works.

Aug 17, 2013 11:14 AM in response to Flippuccino

After reading this thread, I called Apple Support. They had it fixed in no time.

Here's what they had me do. I have the new Airport Extreme which had been dropping out and this week's firmware update only works for earlier Extremes.

Here's the solution:

Open Airport Utility...you should have the latest version.

Click on your Airport Extreme icon.

Hit the edit button.

Click on the Internect tab.

Inside that tab....click on Internet Options at the bottom of the page.

At the IPv6......change the setting to link-local only...and save.

Airport Extreme will reboot.

When it does....all of you IOS devices will work fine. I'm no longer getting any drop outs on the family Iphone, Ipads, laptops or Mac Pros.

Which I had called sooner.

Hope this helps everyone else.

Aug 20, 2013 8:24 PM in response to Flippuccino

Mine was doing that and the wifi signals were worse than the piece of crap router my ISP forced on me so I returned it. The new one works as it should though I'm still not thrilled with the strength and distance of the signals. I'd return it, if you can, and hope you get a non-defective one next time.


EDIT: Just saw your update about IPv6. I did that on the defective one and the new working one just for security reasons. It didn't fix the defective one.

New Airport Extreme (6th Gen) Dropping Connection from Time to Time.

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