I have a six year old Airport Express. All of a sudden, just about 45 minutes ago, the Internet connection started crawling in an inconsistent way (it’d be slow on my laptop, but not on my iPad). Then it started crawling for everything.
I tried my VoIP phone — working just fine. Cable modem was lit up. So I unplugged my Airport Express (separated from my cable modem by the VoIP device) and tried connecting it directly to my computer. Zippy connection. Tried putting it back in the Airport Express. Crawl. Back to direct connection. Zippy.
Can I assume this means my Airport Express is on its last legs, or something’s wrong enough with it that I’d probably be better off replacing it? I’d noticed that its signal seemed to be reaching less strongly into my bedroom of late, but thought that might have something to do with neighbors and their wireless devices. I thought the router would just suddenly stop working entirely; is that not how it works?
I ran into this. Are you using a connection which relies on an ethernet cable?
If so, check the ethernet port on the computer - there should be no light or a green light. If there is a red or yellow led, the connection is bad and the modem/router is tying itself in knots trying to talk to the server.
It looks exactly like an exceeding slow connection.
I replaced the computer - and now suspect all I needed to do was replace the cable.
My setup is: cable modem -> VoIP device -> Router -> Wifi access to laptop.
I plugged the router back in and looked at the ethernet ports on the back of the VoIP device. Everything green. I tried refreshing this very thread. It took over half a minute to get anything on screen and it still wasn’t done after 40. I plugged the ethernet cable that once went into the router back directly into my computer. This same page refreshed in a couple of seconds.
Pick up a new (decent quality) cable next time you remember it.
I found that a direct (DSL) modem-to-PC was faster then using the router signal.
Still suspect that the cheapo cable I was using was the problem, not the laptop.
Don’t want to prove that - it would mean I bought a new computer (I can’t really afford) when all I needed was a new cable.
Well, NOW it works just fine on both my devices (I have an iPad, thus the router).
I saw a suggestion to just buy a new one, and return it should my experience with it indicate that there’s a problem elsewhere. If this happens again, I just might do that.