Thread: Using an Airport Express to Connect to Network

Hey guys,

I just moved my old rig, the UD3P, into my Wife's office on the other side of the house. She had been working on our MacBook Pro, which of course has an Airport wifi card. She was initially using the MBP's wifi connection, via an ethernet cable between the two computers. I started looking into adding a wifi card of some sort to the UD3P, when I got the idea that I might be able to just get an Airport Express, and connect it to the computer (via Ethernet cable) to be able to connect to our home network being broadcast from an Airport Extreme Base Station.

I was thinking, "Do these things even work that way?"

I read up on them on the Apple website, but didn't see anything mentioning this type of configuration. I called an Apple store, and the 'genius' I spoke with assured me that this would work.

So, I just went out and picked one up, at Best Buy. (for easy returnability if it didn't work) Reading through the documentation that came with it, it did not mention the possibility of using it this way. It only showed how to use it to connect the AE to one's modem, and connect using a computer with a wifi card, and how to connect it to speakers to be able to listen to iTunes over wifi.

I went ahead and hooked it up, at this point not expecting to be able to get it to work. After fiddling around in Airport Utility for a bit, I did finally get it to work.

Anyway, I was curious as to why I hadn't heard others using this as a solution for wireless on their Hackintoshes. I know it is one of the more expensive solutions, but, after contemplating spending $50+ on a solution that may or may not work after each Apple update, I decided that the few extra $ was money well spent to avoid any future compatibility headaches,

Just sharing my thoughts on this in case anyone wasn't aware that this is a possibility.

Nothing beats a wired Ethernet connection, as usually there is so much interference on the 2.4GHz and now 5GHz bands.

I do a lot of file streaming to multiple devices and to use Cat6 cabling and Jumbo frames it does in one hour what takes three or four with WiFi.

If she just surfs the net etc, then WiFi is adequate. But nowt beats wired.

My original plan was to just run a cat6 cable underneath the house, but two issues came up. One, was that there turned out to be a crazy plywood/chickenwire/insulation situation underneath my wife's office... and Two, my 50ft cable is about 12 feet too short.

Suddenly $110 for an Airport Express didn't seem so bad.

Just to be clear, I have an Airport Extreme Base Station broadcasting WiFi on one side of the house, and on the other side of the house I have an Airport Express receiving that WiFi signal and passing it via ethernet cable to the UD3P.

(after reading my first post, I wasn't sure that I made it clear enough)

Originally Posted by Aargh-a-Knot

My original plan was to just run a cat6 cable underneath the house, but two issues came up. One, was that there turned out to be a crazy plywood/chickenwire/insulation situation underneath my wife's office... and Two, my 50ft cable is about 12 feet too short.

Suddenly $110 for an Airport Express didn't seem so bad.

Just to be clear, I have an Airport Extreme Base Station broadcasting WiFi on one side of the house, and on the other side of the house I have an Airport Express receiving that WiFi signal and passing it via ethernet cable to the UD3P.

(after reading my first post, I wasn't sure that I made it clear enough)

Guess that will be ok if you live in an isolated location, but I live 45 floors high and the amount of RF interference makes the Airport Extreme little better than useless due to the 80% noise (interference), if you are file crunching and storing data to and from servers. Are you using 2.4 or 5Ghz?
The new Airport Extreme are far better antenna wise but you cannot beat wired. You can buy an ethernet double female connector and another 4metres of cat6, for less than than your AExpress, and a very stable connection as AFP sharing is not always reliable.

Wireless for me would have been ideal as we have two Macs, a hack and two PCs and one MacPro laptop and a linux server, but I gave up after a couple of years with drop outs.

WiFi ok in close proximity but forget it for serious work. I would bet you take on the chicken wire and insulation b4 2 long.

Hey Knotty, I have a Linksys WMP54G wireless card in my setup. It works with no problem connecting to my wifi router from the Hack. It was a very cheap card on eBay. Less than $20. Return the airport and use the rest of the money to buy yourself another 1TB drive.... But I would also hard wire the computer... and take the money to buy the hard drive and take her out to lunch... to Mickey D's...

I have the airport extreme and 3 other airports located around the house. For me, they work great. Sometimes file transfers can take awhile (Large movies and the like), but I can sit in front of one of the airport computers and watch a movie from iTunes shared from another computer without any problems or skips or stalls. A fully wired network would be great, but i really haven't had any troubles with the airports. And they work with W7 as well. I also have remote printers on the airports and they seem to work very well. Streaming music other places in the house works well too.

I really can't complain too much.

hope this helps.

ive got a linksys WMP300N which is detected out of the box as a airport card... however as soon as it connects to a wireless network i get a kernel panic! anyone else had that issue and possibly a fix?

Hi Guys,

I'm using a Broadcom BCM4328 mini PCIe wlan card combined with one of those mini PCIe to PCIe adapter (I got my really cheap adapter on eBay - the dealer is called during-shanghai)
This setup works out of the box and the card is recognized as Airport Extreme.
So I can really recommend this setup if you wanna have wlan.

Mike

I already had an AirPort express card and antennae lying around. I used this card which is a lot cheaper than the one usually mentioned.

Recognized instantly with absolutely no hassle or kexts for PCI stuff. Truly plug and play on EP45-UD3R.

http://www.bplus.com.tw/Adapter/MP2W.html

EDIT: I forgot to mention the basic package (no antennae) comes with a normal and low profile slot back and an internal USB hookup if you don't want to use PCIe.However, PCIe is what I'm using and like I said, it's working great. Oh and I'm using an 802.11n AirPort card on an N network. I don't think that would matter, but I should throw it out there.

Please note: IT DOES NOT COME WITH SCREWS FOR SECURING THE MINI PCIE CARD. Shouldn't matter and an easy fix if you want to get some. Mine stays in just fine without them.

It did come with screws. I missed them in the package.