Graphite airport station. Dead?

Ifrit

Ifrit

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Today I rearragended my room and I had to reposition my airport base station. I unplugged it (Ethernet, power) but after plugged it back but it just keeps cycling through the strange light patterns: 3 orange, 1 red, 1 orange, 3 orange, 1 green (for 1 sec), then it repeats the process.
Is it dead? Its not reachable through the ethernet connection and doesn't show up in the airport station manager. I did a reset too but this didn't brought any results. It seems I have to buy a new one...
 
Well, at least the prices went down and now you have an excuse to get an airport express. Sometimes just unplugging all external sources and putting it into a drawer for a few hours works miracles. Yesterday, my ibook trackpad wouldn't work at all. Called Apple and they said something went wrong, we tried zapping pram, memory manager, vram, pmu, wiping with alcohol, shaking the baby, and even a little massage, nothing so they said send the the thing in and we'll repair it. I had to resort to my trusty old mouse. Well, i got fed up since I wanted to use it on the couch so, I threw the ibook on the floor and went to bed. This morning I need to check some things on the net so I plugged in the mouse to surf the net and low and behold the darn trackpad came back to life.

If the drawer trick still doesn't work try putting some C4 in their makes a cool looking bomb
 
He, he, no sorry, the drawer trick didn't work but I've looked around the web other forums, did a google search etc. and apparently I am not the only one who had this kind of problem with the graphite airport station. In the first batch of these, electronic components of inferior quality were used. Apple even had a replacement program, unfortunally this was around 1999 and 2000. I puchased it around 3 months ago, the packaging was still original and unopened. Besides that, I got it for a low price 'cause noboddy was interessted in buying it. So far I beleive it is still covered by the shop's warranty (sp?). I even know which internal component is broken and could easily fix it myself. But as long I have the warranty and the chance to get a new one (replacement) I don't dare to mess around with it. (Unfortunally I have to wait for 1 1/2 weeks 'cause the shop owner is on vacation)

Regarding airport express, does it have the same performance as a normal airport station (transmission power > around 40 feet)? My ibook is an older model which only supports the old airport card. So, do I get my full 11Mbit transfer rate if I am within the 40 - 50 feet range?
 
Did you unplug it for a minute or so? Try that. Also, you can use your AirPort Admin Utility and reset the station from there, or even create a new network and see if that works.
 
My graphite station died after about three years. Yah, not much you could do I suppose, except go get another new one.
 
You could try a hard reset of the base station...

Caution: you might need three hands for this one.

Shut down the base station and unplug it. Get a paper clip, straighten it, and stick the end in the small reset hole on the bottom of the Airport. You should feel it depress a small button. Hold the paperclip in place and plug the power back into the Airport. When the light goes from red to amber, remove the paperclip and the Airport should be reset to factory specs. You should then be able to get in, reenter your network settings and reboot it. Reconfiguring it might require connecting via ethernet rather than wireless the first time.

:D Ideally, this should be performed under a full moon with a live chicken.
 
Here is what you want. This is a common problem with the graphite basestation. The capacitors that make up the power supply aren't capable of handling the power requirements, so they burn out eventually. If you don't mind soldering capacitors to a printed circuit board, you can revive your old graphite basestation, and it will only set you back a couple of bucks.

I did this with my graphite basestation, and it's been working fine for over a year. And this was using the Radio Shack capacitors. :)

It's not that hard to do if you follow the directions and aren't afraid of soldering. Let us know how it all turns out if you decide to go this route.
 
Yes you are right nixgeek, but I'll better wait 'til the store owner returns from vacation, maybe I'll get a replacement (airport express) :D. As I already said, I purchased it 1/2 years ago and it is still covered by the warranty.

EvenStranger:
Thats one of the first things I did after the 'station didn't behaved. Unfortunally I still get the dancing lights of death.
 
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