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Why won't my airport express work with iPad and iPhone?

I have my internet line coming into the basement. Its been hardwired from the basement modem to an airport extreme upstairs, but we sleep in the basement and the wifi is bad. I have a 1st gen airport express. So my idea was to put the extreme down with the modem, and run the hardwire to the express upstairs. I did this and my laptops and iMac got the same signal as when the extreme was upstairs, but my iPad mini and iPhone only have two bars unless you stand 5 feet from the express. Macs get about 48mbps, iDevices about 20mbps. 15 feet away on the porch the iPad won't even pick up the signal. The apple store advised I put the extreme back upstairs, and the express downstairs wirelessly. They said the iDevices may have been ignoring the express and trying to get the signal from the extreme in the basement.


Is there any way to use the express and the extreme to get solid signals up and downstairs? My fear is apple once again boned me and wants me to buy a new express.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on May 1, 2015 4:41 PM

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Posted on May 1, 2015 7:52 PM

Your initial idea is the correct one. I don't know why it didn't work, so return to that configuration. "Hard reset" the Express and reconfigure it to "extend" your network "using Ethernet". You have to see those exact words to be sure that's what it's doing.


This assumes your Express is a first generation 802.11n Express and not the original 802.11b/g-only model. Those original models were discontinued over seven years ago and can no longer be configured with the current AirPort Utility.


Placing the Express downstairs and have it "wirelessly extend" the upstairs Extreme is not going to help at all. I think Apple sometimes tells people these things to make them go away.

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May 1, 2015 7:52 PM in response to JDecker1978

Your initial idea is the correct one. I don't know why it didn't work, so return to that configuration. "Hard reset" the Express and reconfigure it to "extend" your network "using Ethernet". You have to see those exact words to be sure that's what it's doing.


This assumes your Express is a first generation 802.11n Express and not the original 802.11b/g-only model. Those original models were discontinued over seven years ago and can no longer be configured with the current AirPort Utility.


Placing the Express downstairs and have it "wirelessly extend" the upstairs Extreme is not going to help at all. I think Apple sometimes tells people these things to make them go away.

May 1, 2015 7:56 PM in response to John Galt

Well to configure mine I had to plug it directly into my mac. For some reason I don't think I had the option to extend via ethernet. I set up the roaming style network and each airport had the identical settings. Thats the only way I could get it to work. Mine might be the old b/g one. I'll look into that. In the meantime can you tell me if its basically useless if its the old one?


Thanks for your time

May 1, 2015 8:06 PM in response to JDecker1978

If it's the original b/g only model its model number will be A1084 or A1088. It appears in the red box as shown below:


User uploaded file

To configure one of them requires an older version of AirPort Utility. Check its model number.

It should not be necessary to connect it to your Mac with an Ethernet cable. Connect it directly to the Extreme, "hard reset" it again if necessary, then launch AirPort Utility.

It should appear in your Mac's Wi-Fi menu as "New AirPort Express...". Select that and proceed to answer the questions.

The AirPort Utility setup page with the words "using Ethernet" is as shown:

User uploaded file

Its appearance in AirPort Utility will show it connected to the Extreme with a solid (not dashed) line.

Why won't my airport express work with iPad and iPhone?

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