# Do Airport Extremes Wear Out???



## supernov7 (Jun 30, 2007)

Hey There! :wave: a Mac Newbie who has an Airport Extreme (the old one about 4 years old which looks like a snow UFO.)

I have a home wireless network with an eMac, iBook and 3 pc's. (ugh, I know...)

Everything was running great until recently the pc's starting disconnecting from my APX. Now the extreme has only one light blinking, the right hand one, the center one is dark, barely visible and stays steadily dim and the left one hardly comes on at all.

I'm wondering if the APX might be wearing out but my support person says they never wear out, just to get a new Extreme and use it to boost connectivity. Is there any truth to this??? :4-dontkno


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

well, with it being solid state, you tech guy is correct in that it will not ware out. but it is an electronic device, and after time, they do stop working. the main reason is due to heat. heat over time will more or less cook the parts until they quit. if it has been on for most of those 4 years, it may stop working. there can be internal shorts that keep it from working right. i have seen lots of things like this just quit working over time. but before calling it dead, i'd log in to make sure that the settings are all still correct, just incase someone else managed to log into it and tried to reconfigure it.


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## supernov7 (Jun 30, 2007)

thanks sinclair...i appreciate your response...my tech checked everything out and said everything was working fine but suggested i add another extreme and form a relay from the first extreme to the new one...


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

i don't buy that. if it had been working just fine for almost 4 years, and then stops working, then it means that something has changed, either with the base going bad, or something wrong on the computer side. but than, i'm not the one there looking at it, am i...


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## supernov7 (Jun 30, 2007)

Hey sinclair, I tend to agree with you because the base had been blinking on and off all three lights brightly...now it suddenly down to the right hand one blinking brightly, the middle one a very dark stable blink and then the left hand one hardly ever comes on....does this give a clue?


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

the light do mean something, but not having one, i don't know what. maybe the owner's manual has something to say.


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## temporos (Jul 14, 2007)

Hey there, supernov7. :wave:

I had a problem similar to this a few months ago. To answer your question about the lights on the APX, the left light indicates action between the computer and the APX, the right light indicates action between the APX and the modem, and the centre light is a status indicator that _should_ be on if the APX is functioning properly.

Try power-cycling the APX unit. You don't need to push the reset button on the back, just unplug it and leave it unplugged for about five minutes. This gives any residual charge in the circuitry a chance to dissipate. Plug it back in and wait for the unit to start up. It should be obvious if the lights are on or off (they'll be really bright, or completely dark). What happens?

If this doesn't work, use a paper clip or some other small object (do *NOT* use a pencil tip) to press the reset button on the back. Allow the unit to reset itself. This can take a couple minutes, during which all three lights may flash seemingly randomly. Resetting the APX restores all the settings to their factory defaults. What happens this time?

First try these steps. We'll go from there if they don't work.


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## supernov7 (Jun 30, 2007)

Thank you temporos.. really appreciate your input and advice....will post it to Macmentor.org as well as it seems others may have had the same problem. :4-wave:

You people are great!


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## temporos (Jul 14, 2007)

Hey, no problem. I'm glad I could help. Did it work? :laugh:


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## supernov7 (Jun 30, 2007)

I haven't been able to try it out yet temporos. My cable company has been down experiencing outages and it may have very well been that. :4-dontkno

But I'm observing the behavior and will be able to tell later. Thanks a lot:wink:


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