Can't get Airport Extreme to work

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Recently bought an older Airport Extreme on Ebay. Came to me in the original box and looked like it had never been used. Problem is, I can't seem to get it to work. I have an older G5 single processor. I get my internet by cable modem from Cox Communications in Tucson. I installed the Airport and the computer recognizes it and says everything is fine. Airport is on. When I switch the ethernet cable from the cable modem to the Airport, nothing happens except that I lose connection to the internet. The G5 has an Airport Extreme card installed. What am I doing wrong?
 
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One possibility, are you powering down the cablemodem when you connect it to the Airport?

I have Cox as well (in OKC) and the modem grabs the MAC address of the device connected to it on powerup, and only talks to that MAC. If you want to change devices (go from a computer to the Airport) you have to restart the cablemodem so it will release the old MAC and grab the new one.

(MAC being the hardware ID of a given Ethernet card, not Mac as in Apple Mac!)
 
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Thanks, Joe. Tried what you said, still no connection. When I go into Airport Utility and it looks for wireless devices, it brings up the Airport base station and says it is working just fine, but there is no internet connection. I thought when you installed an Airport, it would pretty much connect automatically.

There must be some settings that I am missing.
 

cwa107


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Recently bought an older Airport Extreme on Ebay. Came to me in the original box and looked like it had never been used. Problem is, I can't seem to get it to work. I have an older G5 single processor. I get my internet by cable modem from Cox Communications in Tucson. I installed the Airport and the computer recognizes it and says everything is fine. Airport is on. When I switch the ethernet cable from the cable modem to the Airport, nothing happens except that I lose connection to the internet. The G5 has an Airport Extreme card installed. What am I doing wrong?

Let's start with cabling - this might seem like a silly question, but there are four ports along the back of the AirPort Extreme. Are you plugging the Eithernet cable coming from the modem into the WAN port? It looks very much like the other three ports, but it is the port you need to be plugging the Ethernet cable into.

The back of your AE should look like this - the correct port is noted in the image:

2010-12-18_2108.png
 
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Good morning and thank you for your response. Yes, I am plugging the ethernet cable from my cable modem into the WAN port on the AEBS. My Airport is the original version that looks like a flying saucer, but the connection ports are basically the same. After doing this, I have a steady power light (center) and the lights on both sides of the center light are constantly flashing.
 

cwa107


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Good morning and thank you for your response. Yes, I am plugging the ethernet cable from my cable modem into the WAN port on the AEBS. My Airport is the original version that looks like a flying saucer, but the connection ports are basically the same. After doing this, I have a steady power light (center) and the lights on both sides of the center light are constantly flashing.

OK. Leave the Ethernet cable connected between the AEBS and the modem. Pull the power to both the AEBS and the modem. Leave the power off to the modem for 30 seconds. Plug the power back in.

Now, we're going to do a factory reset on the AEBS. Straighten a paperclip and press the reset button (which is recessed into a hole). Continue holding and plug the power in. Wait about 5 seconds until you see the three status lights glow, then release.

Allow the AEBS about 30 seconds to initialize, then test again. If this doesn't do the trick, you may need to contact Cox and ask them if they require a special configuration for wireless routers. For example, you may need to duplicate the MAC address of your computer if it's specifically provisioned in the modem (I doubt this is the case as most ISPs have move away from this strategy as wireless routers have become so common).

The only other possibility I can think of would be that they use static IP for client devices, but if that were true, you would likely be aware of it.

And of course, there's the possibility that you've just got a bad AEBS. I hope that's not true, but it happens.
 
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Good News! ;D Airport now functioning normally.

First, I replaced the Airport Extreme card with an extra one that I had to eliminate that possibility. No change.

Next, I went into system preferences and reset the AEBS to factory default settings. I then used the assistant to set up a new wireless connection with a new password. I then unplugged power to my cable modem, waited a minute or so and restored power to the modem. Ran a diagnostic and bingo, everything working perfectly.

Thanks to all who tried to help. I hope the thread is of some help to others with similar problems. I have found restoring to factory settings and making use of the assistant is a good fix for a lot of things.

Thanks again to Mac-Forums.
 

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Thanks so much for returning and telling what got it working as this info will for sure help someone else later down the line.

Congratulations on getting it working.

Also excellent help CWA.
 

cwa107


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Good news. Thanks for reporting back and have a nice holiday.
 
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Thanks to you, cwa and Happy Holidays. The forums are great. What a vast resource of experience to draw upon. This one was simple. The next one might not be. That's where the forums prove themselves.
 

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