Our wireless connections keep dropping

1666 Views 7 Replies 6 Participants Last post by mguertin, May 23, 2007

jmlachance

Discussion Starter · May 19, 2007

I have an Imac G5 and my sister an Ibook G4. Both of us are running Tiger and using Apple Airport Extreme base stations (newest) on DSL internet lines.

I gave her the base station as a gift and told her it's the best unit for wireless networks and helped her set it up over the phone about a week ago.

Spoke to her today and she says her connection keeps dropping and eventually comes back on it's own. My connection keeps dropping every now and then and I reset the modem by pressing the power button off/on and the connection comes back, I've been doing this for a few weeks and figured my line was bad, thinking I'll get it tested by Bell eventually.
Now I'm thinking, since we're both having the same problem, it's either a coincidence or something in our setup that's not right.
Our software is up to date. I've got Interference robustness checked and using channel 3. My signal strength is very good (the base station is close to my computer) and she says the same about signal strength. I set my and her computers up using the Airport Utility and the only thing I didn't bother with was the MAC address menu, since I wasn't sure what to choose and found that I could connect use the internet without it. Obviously, I set this up as best as I could with the bit of network knowledge i have. Anyone care to give me a hand with solving these problems?

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guytoronto

· #2 · May 19, 2007

1. Try a different channel.

or

2. Get rid of the Apple router and get something better. I've had so many problems with Apple base stations.

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SINC

· #3 · May 19, 2007

guytoronto said:
2. Get rid of the Apple router and get something better. I've had so many problems with Apple base stations.

I have had my Apple Extreme and my Apple Express for three years now and they have performed flawlessly. Just sayin'

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jmlachance

Discussion Starter · #4 · May 19, 2007

guytoronto said:
1.

2. Get rid of the Apple router and get something better. I've had so many problems with Apple base stations.

I use to use a D-link but found it a hassle setting it up. My modem (Speedtouch 585) is actually a wireless gateway (modem-router) and have the same problem when using it. That's why i bought the Apple router.

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macsackbut

· #5 · May 23, 2007

Also, make sure you have interference robustness activated.

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HowEver

· #6 · May 23, 2007

macsackbut said:
Also, make sure you have interference robustness activated.

Read his post again...

Are there are any new (or moved) 2.4Ghz cordless telephones nearby?

Are the base stations near microwaves?

Otherwise, gt had the easiest answer: change the channels of the routers. Intermittent signal is most often caused by interference.

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winwintoo

· #7 · May 23, 2007

Could be faulty cable leading to or entering your house.

I can't have DSL where I live - the ISP offers it, but it's not reliable enough for me. The TV cable ISP delivers over almost new fibreoptics cable and I never have a drop off.

When you think about it, some of that phone line was strung like 100 years ago but it's still good enough for phone service and works for hard-wired, because if there's a drop, your modem just picks it up again and carries on. When a wireless router loses a signal, it can't recover on it's own.

But what do I know.

Margaret

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· #8 · May 23, 2007

I'll add a me too for what However said ... are there 2.4Ghz phones anywhere near (even at a neighbours place) ... also set it to a specific channel. The default behaviour is it will auto search for a channel, so when one gets taken by another device it unceremoniously dumps you and goes searching for a new one .. each time.

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