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36 points

internet connection loss after a few minutes

Here's a weird one I can't figure out. My internet connection over my network only seems to last for a few minutes. I've noticed that when I'll leave it all night, and all day, once I return home from work, I can get on the internet for about 10 to 20 minutes, then it stops working. So here's the details, and what I've done:

- Everything else network wise works fine, it connects to my AppleTV and syncs with that just fine
- Everything can join the network fine with the current password
- I've noticed that file transfers still work, downloads from Soulseek, BitTorrent, etc. Just not e-mail, or web pages, or anything else that uses the web (ex. Nintendo Wii)
- Connection straight from my cable modem via ethernet works just fine, so I know it's not my internet connection.
- I have a closed network
- Using WPA/WPA2 Personal security
- Using interference robustness
- Channel selection is automatic
- Only 1 base station
- It gets an legit IP, Subnet, Gateway, and DNS server from my cable modem using DHCP
- I've power cycled the Airport, the cable modem, my computer
- I don't have anything else set up, no port mapping etc set up
- Turned off set time automatically
- Set to b/g compatible

That's about all I can think of. I just don't get it. I'm leaning towards maybe a bad Airport, but wanted to see if anyone else can think of anything. Thanks in advance.

Power Mac G5, Macbook Pro 17", Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Apr 17, 2007 1:37 PM

20 replies

May 6, 2007 7:31 AM in response to John Frank

Found something interesting yesterday...
I have the extreme base station in bridge mode connected to a linksys which is connected to my cable modem.
Somehow my MBP obtained an IP address lower than that of my AEB, the MBP had a suffix of .100 while the base station was .101, how does this happen?

After shutting everything down and recycling one at a time beginning with the cable modem, linksys, AEB and finally the MBP which now has a suffix of .101 and the AEB .100, all has been working flawlessly, not one connection dropped since yesterday afternoon, go figure...

May 7, 2007 1:27 PM in response to John Frank

- Everything can join the network fine with the
current password

I was experiencing apparently the same problem (dropouts every 2-5 min.) after the AEBS 7.1 update.

What seems to have done the trick for me was reasserting the wireless security settings.

Open Airport Utility, turn off wireless security (WPA/WPA2), restart, and then turn security back on.

I've been 2 hours now without a hang, finally, after hours of flakiness. I tried to be systematic, and test the connection after each isolated change, but I can't be sure because I can't recreate the problem now.

My other settings are:

802.11n (802.11b/g compatible)
WPA/WPA2 Personal
Closed network: NO (ie, open network)
Interfence robustness: NO
time server: NO

My test hardware is:
Linksys befsr41 router, AEBS in bridge mode, an Airport Express w/ Airtunes.

May 7, 2007 1:36 PM in response to Johnny Sharman

If you try resetting the security, please post the results. I'd like to know if the problem's gone, or just lurking on my computer.

May 7, 2007 3:14 PM in response to John Frank

I tried all the troubleshooting steps thus far.

I can still consistently reproduce the router flakiness with my Vista machines joined to an Active Directory Domain. Every single time.

Grrrr...

May 10, 2007 11:18 AM in response to John Frank

Similar to what others are reporting here as soon as I upgraded my Apple Airport Extreme Base Station from v 7.0 firmware to v 7.1, we started to experience continuous connection disconnects from Windows Vista and Ubuntu machines connected to the basestation.

My Macintosh Powerbook G4 still works fine and can access the internet but in the Airport Extreme Log you can see the two Vista machines and the Linux box continually trying to connect and getting disassociated.

By turning off all security settings on the AEBS the Vista machines are now stable and are keeping their connections along with the Powerbook still but the Ubuntu machine is still continually losing its connection regardless.

This seems to be very consistent with others reporting problems as soon as they upgrade from 7.0 to 7.1 and then partial fixes by turning off, toggling or changing security settings. Things are still not right. Here's hoping for a fix or solution soon and certainly don't upgrade to 7.1 in the meantime.

Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

internet connection loss after a few minutes