why is my airport extreme overheating?

Hi Folks,

I have never posted to any of those… but I know how to fix this, I fixed it - I'd like to share. I might copy & paste this to other message boards.

All you need is five things: Micro spatula, Exacto, T8, T10, and machine oil.

You probably have seen the iFixit article about disassembling Airport Extreme. You just need to go a little bit further.

After you take out the fan, inspect it - it consists of two plastic "shells," combined with four small plastic clips. Carefully open those clips with Exacto, and open the casing.

Gently pull out the rotating part (the fins). The metal shaft comes out with the fins, and on the casing, you see the hole (surrounded with the brushless motor electromagnetic units) where the metal shaft used to be in.

Apply ONE DROP of machine oil on the hole where the metal shaft used to be in.

Apply a very small amount of machine oil on the metal shaft.

Insert / pull out the shaft from the hole a few times, and finally fully insert the shaft. Turn the fins by flicking it with your finger a few times. It might not turn much first, but after a few "flicks" it should start spinning like those fans are supposed to.

Re-assemble everything, carefully, not to pinch or sever any small wires.

That's it.

I hope this works for you. I'm certainly not saying 100% of all the overheating cases can be fixed with this method, but - it makes sense. Fans break after a while. They need lubrication. My Airport Extreme has been happily working WITHOUT ANY CHANGES IN SETTINGS since I did this. This worked for an old graphic card, even worked for a very old battery charger that "broke" three years ago.

Good luck! 🙂

Unchecking the "Enable File Sharing" fixed my problem of AirPort Extreme overheating message !!!

Light is now green.

Thank you.

This solution worked like a charm for me as well - Airport Utility / Edit / Disks Tab / Uncheck "Enable File Sharing"

One more Airport Extreme that was fixed by turning off File Sharing. Thanks very much!!!

New products like the extreme have 3months phone support from Apple.. (as I remember the sales pitch)..

Just ring Apple and get them to help.. this is brand new item and should not overheat in the first month of operation.

Thanks! Was having same overheating error message and the file sharing setting fixed it. Strange but it worked!!

I had the same issue and Apple replaced it with a refurbished that started having the same problem within a month.

Today, I pulled it out again and updated the firmware. Amber light came on again.

I checked out the settings and turned off enable file sharing (In Airport Utility, click on the icon of your base station and then select Edit from the popup window, then select Disks tab). I thought I would turn this off since my model does not have the internal disk.

Low and behold, the light went green and is staying that way.

I shut off File Sharing on my Airport Extreme Settings and amber light disappeared. No More Potential Overheating Message. ( Which always bothered me because the airport was fairly new, on a open wire shelf, in an cool room, without any other equipment near it.)

but I’d like to know what’s causing this.

Tesserax gave you his best guess.

if there is a "run-away" process taking up the base station's CPU resources. Having file sharing enabled, would be one of these processes.

As a person who knows a lot about network and routers I think he is on the right track. Just like your computer.. if you run google chrome at some point the CPU activity will go to 100% and the fan will start roaring.

The CPU in the AE is a dual core 1ghz.. and will get really warm if a process goes messy and starts running 100% CPU.

BUT there are other possibles like power consumption and the sensor getting false readings.

If you use iOS version or earlier airport utility before Sierra you can look yourself at the fan and sensor readings.. although they are not in clear.. simple to understand .. but here are mine as way to compare.

Open the setup on your AE.. and go here.

As something useful this was removed from Sierra I heard.. Airport Utility should be as toy like as possible before Apple will be satisfied.

You will see a stack of info in various logs

Open ThermalInfo .. last one on the bottom of the list.

I cannot easily translate those numbers for you.. The Tmps Internal are the key ones..

But I do have access most don't so I can tell you the real numbers so this might be something that helps.

envstat

Current CritMax WarnMax WarnMin CritMin Unit

[accel0]

Accl X-Axis: 1049 0 0 0 0 none

Accl Y-Axis: 47 0 0 0 0 none

Accl Z-Axis: -7 0 0 0 0 none

Accl Temp: 19 0 0 0 0 none

[applfan0]

Fan_rpm: 1750 RPM

T_hdd: 0.000 degC

Fan_dcy: 57 0 0 0 0 none

[emc141x0]

T_internal: 40.875 degC

T_external1: 38.625 degC

T_external2: 45.000 degC

T_external3: 46.500 degC

As you can see the 4 internal temps are from 38-46

Inside house temp is around 15C so the temp are 30deg above ambient..

Same issue with 2 Airport Extreme bought around XMas 2017.

Thanks!! It works.

Actually my light turned back on the other day so I had to check the file sharing option then the light turned off again.

Interesting. File sharing should not be enabled by default on the AirPort Extreme base stations. Not sure if having it enabled without an external USB drive attached would cause this, but of course, anything is possible.

Yes, I can verify that it does. Turing off File Sharing got it working again, but now I can no longer back up to the external drive attached to the Airport... It makes no sense since the drive is not inside the device.... Any ideas?

The "overheating" symptom may also occur if there is a "run-away" process taking up the base station's CPU resources. Having file sharing enabled, would be one of these processes.

Which exact model is your AirPort base station?