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Last weekend I replaced the venerable LinkSys WRT54g router with the completely awesome AirPort Extreme.

The week prior I had noticed a whine coming from the LinkSys. That was strange as routers don’t have a spinning hard drive. What could be making that noise? So to shut it up, I unplugged it to reboot. That did the job no more whine.

I went about doing house chores for an hour before I had the chance to use a computer. When I did use my computers, I found that I couldn’t access the internet. I quickly glanced at the lights on the LinkSys. It looked okay.

I tried to access LinkSys’s browser-based configuration screen. “No route to host.” I tried pinging its IP address. “100% packet loss.” I looked closer at the router’s lights and noticed that the LAN LED wasn’t on. Since it was next to another LED that was on, it looked alright but, sadly, wasn’t.

The LinkSys router was kaput.

Luckily, I have had an AirportExtreme in my possession for a year now. I was going to replace the LinkSys a year ago, but was too lazy to shut down all computing devices, change out the router, then reboot all computing devices and configure them. Out of necessity, I now had to do it.

I shut down all laptops, except my main MBP. I took the Mac Mini down, too. IPhone can stay on but I switched to just the cellular network. The 0G iPhone I didn’t bother. Using the MBP, I began configuring the replacement network.

Apple’s Airport utilities make this easy. You could just follow the wizard to set it up, but I liked to have control of my configuration. Manually, I went about configuring the AirportExtreme router. Lots of same settings, I ported from the defunct LinkSys — network IP addressing, MAC address filtering. Others I changed — new wireless ID.

I brought online all computing devices and reconfigured them for the new wireless network. The TiBook gave me trouble because, I think OSX Tiger, didn’t like to remember the new wireless network name until I created a new Location for it.

Overall, it went smoothly. At work, I have to deal with networked software nodes, and it is a pain in the ass to debug network trouble. Who’s causing what to whom all happens in the invisible ethernet and it takes some understanding of how networks work to find and fix the trouble. My new house wireless network was stood up without too much hassles.

The sole issue I have with my new wireless network is what to do about the AirportExpress. I had originally used this to extend the LinkSys network via bridging, because I couldn’t get wireless coverage throughout the house with just the LinkSys router. With the new AirportExtreme, I don’t need it, but I didn’t know when I started reconfiguring the network. I tried configuring the Express for bridging, but it cause conflicts on the Extreme. Only when I abandoned the Express did I realize that the Extreme is powerful enough to provide coverage throughout my house (and my neighbors, too). Therefore, the Express sits silent on the floor waiting for a use. I’ll probably try to configure it with my stereo system so I can stream music through it.

The new network is up. I’m planning to put a network drive off of it, perhaps SSD. I want to try that back to my Mac feature. It’s also faster since there is only one wireless station.

I’m back online thanks to the Apple’s AirportExtreme router; it’s cold white face and unblinking, green LED comforts me.