Resolved Extending AirPort Extreme AC with AirPort Extreme 3rd Gen

[MJedi]

Hello,

I recently got an AirPort Extreme AC to replace my AirPort Extreme Base Station (3rd Generation.) I now want to use that Airport 3rd Gen to wirelessly extend the Airport AC. I used the Airport Utility on my Mac to configure the Airport 3rd Gen, but it keeps failing after the utility sends the configuration to it. When I check the status, the utility says the Airport can't find the wireless network. It saw the network when I configured it initially. I don't know why it won't do it after. I've already reset the Airport 3rd Gen multiple times. I wonder if the Airport is faulty.

And I know my wireless network is able to be extended because I have another AirPort Extreme Base Station (1st Generation) that is extending it. So I don't know why I'm having trouble with the newer generation Airport.

Hope someone can help. Thanks.

 

[LiveM]

Before you do this, there are some important issues.

Firstly, your brand new ac router will never be able to offer ac Wi-Fi to anyone while a non-ac device is wirelessly extending it somewhere. Instead, it will be forced to run in g mode or whatever is the slowest Airport's standard.

Secondly, about half the throughout from extender to base will be lost due to overhead.

Besides slow theoretical speeds, performance is dropped even further by the reduced range of n or g Wi-Fi.

Shut off all your old Airports and try using just the latest Extreme. And if it's not enough, try avoiding the above issues by using powerline ethernet adaptors instead of linking Airports via Wi-Fi.

 

[MJedi]

I'm well aware of the cons of extending my wi-fi network. I'm just trying to get the AirPort Extreme 3rd Gen to extend it. I need this setup because I have devices in another room that are Ethernet only. I'm not transferring huge files between them so speed isn't a priority. And I already have the Airports, so why buy more network equipment?

The AirPort Extreme 3rd Gen is an N-capable device, so it won't drop everything to 802.11g. And my MBP (Late 2013) reports it connects to the AirPort Extreme AC router using 802.11ac.

As a test, I wired an Airport Express (802.11n 2nd Gen.) to the AC router and created a new wi-fi network. I then configured the AirPort Extreme 3rd Gen. to extend it, and it works fine.

I finally got it to work by connecting the Airport 3rd Gen to the Ethernet port to do the initial configuration. I should've realized I still need to use Ethernet to do the configuration, even if the Airport Utility allows us to do it wirelessly. Still, it was weird I could do the configuration for extending the Airport Express wirelessly.

 

[LiveM]

Unless you stop extending with the g Express, everything will be g.

You can put your old Extreme in client mode, which means resetting it to join or add to the network rather than extending it. This will allow an ethernet connection to it and wireless connection back to the new Extreme without hobbling the Wi-Fi performance of the network.

 

[MJedi]

Unless you stop extending with the g Express, everything will be g.

You can put your old Extreme in client mode, which means resetting it to join or add to the network rather than extending it. This will allow an ethernet connection to it and wireless connection back to the new Extreme without hobbling the Wi-Fi performance of the network.

I don't have a 802.11g-only Airport Express. All my Airports (Extremes and Express) are 802.11n capable devices.

I'm marking this as resolved since it's no longer a problem. Thanks for everyone's attention.

 

[LiveM]

Whoops - I meant Extreme. I thought the first generation was a g device.