![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Airport Extreme router adventures
Oct. 25th, 2018 05:28 pmI have had an Airport Extreme router since June 2014, and mostly happily ignored it. It sits silently on the high shelf over my desk, and I get reasonable wifi upstairs, downstairs, and in my basement office. A couple of times I noticed that its small green light was blinking amber, and downloaded a firmware update for it.
It abruptly came to my attention two mornings ago with an ongoing loud rumbling noise. At first I thought it was part of the endless construction happening up and down the block, but no, I tracked it down to the unassuming white tower on the shelf. At least wifi still worked!
A bit of online searching revealed that it was probably an internal fan making the noise, that removing dust from inside might help, and that I was certainly not going to attempt to take it apart myself.
First shoutout goes to Zachary at GadgetFix, who used their high power compressed air to clean out dust through the bottom vents for free, and declined to take it apart because he was worried about damaging it, too. He thought it might be a bearing causing the noise.
After that, it still rumbled, but intermittently rather than constantly, and not as loud.
Second shoutout goes to Regina at Apple Support. Also at no charge, she talked me through resetting the router and made an appointment at the local Apple Store for me for further troubleshooting.
It still rumbled intermittently after that, but when I came upstairs after seeing a couple of clients, I realized it has gone back to its silent self. WHEW! I canceled my Apple Store appointment (the only part of this process that was annoying!) and I'm hoping that's that. I will make sure dust doesn't clog the intake vents underneath in the future. Maybe there was a little leftover dust in there that gradually worked itself out.
Zachary recommended the Netgear Nighthawk as a replacement, but it's unclear whether it would cover the whole house as thoroughly, and it just seems knobblier and more trouble to deal with than the Airport Extreme. I see that Apple has discontinued it, but they're still available. I'm almost tempted to buy a backup, but I think I will trust that this one will keep going a while longer, and hope that the technology will have improved further by the time I need a new one.
ETA: Argh, noisy again. :-( I guess it's going to be intermittent. :-(
ETA2: The router was silent today, of course, because I was taking it in to the Apple store. The tech was very nice, but couldn't do much. Then later this evening it started making a terrible high-pitched screeching noise and I hurriedly unplugged it. The tech did suggest directly connecting the modem and computer to get online, and I did get that working, after connecting them with an ethernet cable and then turning the modem off and back on again. Oy!
It abruptly came to my attention two mornings ago with an ongoing loud rumbling noise. At first I thought it was part of the endless construction happening up and down the block, but no, I tracked it down to the unassuming white tower on the shelf. At least wifi still worked!
A bit of online searching revealed that it was probably an internal fan making the noise, that removing dust from inside might help, and that I was certainly not going to attempt to take it apart myself.
First shoutout goes to Zachary at GadgetFix, who used their high power compressed air to clean out dust through the bottom vents for free, and declined to take it apart because he was worried about damaging it, too. He thought it might be a bearing causing the noise.
After that, it still rumbled, but intermittently rather than constantly, and not as loud.
Second shoutout goes to Regina at Apple Support. Also at no charge, she talked me through resetting the router and made an appointment at the local Apple Store for me for further troubleshooting.
It still rumbled intermittently after that, but when I came upstairs after seeing a couple of clients, I realized it has gone back to its silent self. WHEW! I canceled my Apple Store appointment (the only part of this process that was annoying!) and I'm hoping that's that. I will make sure dust doesn't clog the intake vents underneath in the future. Maybe there was a little leftover dust in there that gradually worked itself out.
Zachary recommended the Netgear Nighthawk as a replacement, but it's unclear whether it would cover the whole house as thoroughly, and it just seems knobblier and more trouble to deal with than the Airport Extreme. I see that Apple has discontinued it, but they're still available. I'm almost tempted to buy a backup, but I think I will trust that this one will keep going a while longer, and hope that the technology will have improved further by the time I need a new one.
ETA: Argh, noisy again. :-( I guess it's going to be intermittent. :-(
ETA2: The router was silent today, of course, because I was taking it in to the Apple store. The tech was very nice, but couldn't do much. Then later this evening it started making a terrible high-pitched screeching noise and I hurriedly unplugged it. The tech did suggest directly connecting the modem and computer to get online, and I did get that working, after connecting them with an ethernet cable and then turning the modem off and back on again. Oy!
