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I have an airport time capsule base station that is working good. I have poor wi-fi connectivity from remote parts of house. Need help setting up an older airport extreme as a wi-fi relay station.
Hopefully, your AirPort Extreme is not one of the older "round" or "dome" shaped models.
If your AirPort Extreme is one of the previous generation "flat" or "square" models, that version could be used to provide more wireless signal coverage and range.
Unfortunately, your post did not really provide much other information, so we don't know whether you want to set up the AirPort Extreme to "extend" the network by connecting back to the Time Capsule using a permanent, wired Ethernet cable connection......
Or
Whether you are going to try to setup the AirPort Extreme to wirelessly extend the network.
The wired method is far superior to the wireless method, since there is no speed loss on the network using an Ethernet cable to connect the Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme.
When you try to extend a network "wirelessly" you will typically lose about half of the potential speed on the network, so while your network will have better range, it will also be a significantly slower network.
If you want step by step instructions, we need to know what operating system that you are using on your Mac or PC. If you have a Mac and are not sure what operating system it is using, click the Apple icon in the upper left corner of the screen, then click About This Mac and post back with the OS X Version number that you see there.
Paying big bucks to wire my house is a last ditch effort if I can't get reliable wireless connection. My Airport Time Capsule is only a couple years old and includes the higher speed wireless capability. My Airport Extreme that I can't get to connect wirelessly to the time capsule is 3 or 4 years older but the flat square box you mentioned like the new ones. My MacBook is a little over a year old running the latest update for Yosemite Version 10.10.5. I update everything as updates become available. Airport Utility is V6.3.5. There is no link in AirPort Utility to check to see if there are newer updates available. Bottom line, I am trying to link wirelessly from the first floor middle of house (AirPort Extreme wireless relay) to second floor other end of house with AirPort Time Machine base station. Wireless devices further away in house cannot keep reliable connection.
I did a factory reset on the AirPort Extreme. When I power up I get a single green blink then solid amber then blinking amber after a couple of minutes. When I open Airport Utility I click on "Other Wi-Fi Devices" it tells me there are no new Wi-Fi devices discovered and no remote AirPort base stations detected. When I click on the Time Capsule icon in the AirPort Utility window if only sees our two iPhones connected to my existing wireless network. I have not been able to find any documentation that explains how this should be done except to plug it in with a network cable.
Any help will be appreciated.
My MacBook is a little over a year old running the latest update for Yosemite Version 10.10.5.
Thanks for the info. There are still some networking bugs in this version of Yosemite, so we are going to suggest a settings change on the MacBook.....if you have not already done this.....that might help the MacBook discover the AirPort Extreme.
If that does not help, you might be able to use an iPhone or iPad.....assuming that you have one....... for the setup of the AirPort Extreme, since the setup software on the iOS devices generally works better than the setup software on the Mac.
On your Mac......
Open System Preferences (gear icon on the dock)
Open Network
Click on WiFi on the left panel to highlight it
Click Advanced at the lower right of the window
Click the TCP/IP tab
Make sure that the setting for Configure iPv6 is set to Link Local Only
Click OK
Click Apply in the next window
Now click Ethernet on the left panel of the Network window to highlight it
Perform exactly the same steps as above
Restart the Mac
Perform a Factory Default Reset on the AirPort Extreme again, please.
Then, temporarily move the AirPort Extreme to the same room or close proximity to the Time Capsule
Click the WiFi icon at the top of the Mac's screen and look for a listing of New AirPort Base Station
Just below that, click directly on AirPort Extreme
When you click on AirPort Extreme......assuming that it now appears.....that will get the setup "wizard" up and running. The wizard will take a minute to suggest that the AirPort Extreme will be setup to extend the network that the Time Capsule is producing. The window will look similar to the illustration below, except that you will see your devices pictured.
Type in a short, simple device name that you want to call the AirPort Extreme. Mine is Extreme, for example
Click Next
The wizard will setup everything for you. When you see the message of Setup Complete, click Done.
Now move the AirPort Extreme to a point that is about half way between the Time Capsule and the area where you need more wireless coverage. In other words, if you need a better signal in an upstairs room that you normally use, locate the AirPort Extreme about half way between the Time Capsule and the upstairs room.
The more that you have line-of-sight between the Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme, the better the network will operate, and the faster the wireless speeds will be. Even with line-of-sight though, the potential speed of the entire wireless network will drop by about half. Chances are, the resulting speed might still be faster than your Internet connection, so you might not notice the slow down when using the Internet.
If you are copying files from one end of the network to the other, it will take about twice as long for the process to complete compared to having your Mac in the same room with the Time Capsule. That's just a nature of the beast with wireless. If the speed loss is significant to you , the only way to regain the speed will be to establish a permanent wired Ethernet cable connection between the Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme.
One of the upsides of doing this is that you can locate the AirPort Extreme exactly where it is needed, and you don't have to use a compromise location like you do when you try to wirelessly extend the network.
Please post back on your results.
Thank you very much for this very detailed explanation. I will save it for now in case I have more problems, but while I was waiting for your response I was all the way on the other end of the house with my brand new iPhone 6S. It was already connected to the base station before I hooked up the airport extreme and decided to disconnect and see if I could reconnect even though I thought it would start disconnecting because of the weak signal. To my surprise, the iPhone noticed the airport extreme with blinking amber light and offered to configure it for me. It did just that, the light on the airport extreme turned green and I had a strong signal. I then was able to reconnect my TiVo which was the device that was always having trouble staying connected and it also has a strong signal from that part of the house. It appears my problem has been solved. So, again, thank you very much for taking the time to respond but I will not try your suggestions on the Mac until I have another problem for fear of messing up a currently good thing. Both the AirPort Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme now appear in the Airport Utility window and each correctly shows what is connected to it. Thank you again.
I have an airport time capsule base station that is working good. I have poor wi-fi connectivity from remote parts of house. Need help setting up an older airport extreme as a wi-fi relay station.
