Help Fixed WiFi issue with Airport Extreme

[mulveyr]

Hi All:

I've been having the same WiFi connectivity issues mentioned by other people. With my Airport Extreme Simultaneous Dual Band, I couldn't even run the Speedtest app to completion more than once or twice before the X would drop the connection.

Other people have mentioned that it seems to be related to 802.11n - that 802.11g access points weren't having issues.

Many people with Airport's aren't aware that you can configure the radios in a much more fine-grained fashion than is immediately obvious. You can set it up so that it runs 802.11n only on the 5Ghz band, and 802.11g on the 2.4Ghz band.

To do so, start up the Airport Utility, then go to the "Wireless" tab. There's a drop-down for "Radio Mode", which normally only shows three radio options.

On a Mac, hold down the Option key ( Presumably Alt on Windows ), and THEN click Radio Mode. You'll see about a dozen new options.

I chose "802.11n only ( 5 Ghz ) - 802.11 b/g"

This should ensure that clients that have have 5Ghz receivers still get the benefit of having the high speeds from 802.11n, but that 2.4Ghz clients see only a B/G access point.

After making this change, my X has NEVER dropped the Wifi signal. I've run literally dozens of Speedtest checks and it works every time.

So, if you have an Airport Dual Band, you might want to try it out. People with other AP's should see if theirs offers equivalent functionality.

 

[Travisimo]

I have an Airport Extreme and I was only having problems with WIFI on my Droid X when I was also using it with Bluetooth headphones. WIFI would work fine with Bluetooth off, but as soon as I connected my headphones and started streaming music, the WIFI connection would freeze. Nothing would work over WIFI even though it still said it was connected. If I switched to 3G, the music would stream fine again via Bluetooth. If I turned off WIFI and then turned it back on, it would work fine again until I started playing music. I presumed that there was some interference going on or something.

Anyway, I tried your fix and so far it seems to be working! I am connected via WIFI right now using your radio setting. I am also connected to my Bluetooth headphones and it is not cutting out or freezing the WIFI. But it's only been playing for a couple of minutes, so I'll reserve judgement for now. Every time it's done it in the past, however, it would happen within a minute, so it appears to be fixed!

Thanks!

EDIT: There's still something going on. If I run a speed test with WIFI and Bluetooth turned on, I only get about 512 kbps down/up. If I turn Bluetooth off, then it jumps up to nearly 10 mpbs down and 2 mbps up (my ISP limit). So far, however, I am not getting disconnected or frozen. Will keep reporting back.

EDIT2: So with Bluetooth turned off, I am connecting at a rate of 54 as displayed in the Airport's Wireless Clients page. If I turned Blueooth on and connect to my headphones, the rate goes down. Disconnect Bluetooth, rate goes back up to 54. Why would this be?

 

[mulveyr]

Bluetooth and WiFi are both operating in the 2.4GHz band. Early Bluetooth implementations ( 1.0/1.1 ) had exactly that same problem - Bluetooth and Wifi had huge problems co-existing together simultaneously.

Apparently the X is having the same problem.

 

[purple95]

mulveyr,

Thanks for the tip. I use the WiFi off my TimeCapsule but did not know about the trick for finding the other radio options.

I have two WiFi's in my home. I had solved the problem earlier by setting by setting one to 811g 2.4 ghz and one to 811n 5ghz.

For some reason, the TimeCapsule set as you suggested is a wee bit faster than the other (2Wire) WiFi.

Your solution is much better.

Thanks again,
dan

 

[maxwellimus]

to the OP:

Do you know if thee is a similar function on the airport express? Because I'm having issues with wifi as well

 

[humungus]

This increased my download speed with my AEBS from about 6Mbs to about 8.5Mbs. I can't speak to this solving the connection-dropping problem, but it looks good so far. Thanks.

 

[brewmoon]

I just got my DX and I can't connect to my airport extreme at all. It sees the network fine but when I connect it says obtaining IP address and then says unsuccessful. I've tried the fix on here and have tried switching the security settings and have even turned them off. Same problem every time. Anyone else have this problem at all?