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Dammit Apple!
November 2nd, 2018
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My Apple Airport Extrme (A1143) stopped working a couple of days ago,
I finally got around to seeing what was up with it last night and it
was not pretty: the status indicator LED on the front was flashing
between amber & green... According to the Apple docs:
> In some older versions of AirPort Utility, you can select the base
> station and choose Base Station > Identify from the menu bar, which
> causes this alternating light sequence. It helps you to identify the
> selected base station when multiple base stations are available.
Unfortunatly nobody on my network had done any such thing... Assuming
it was just a system hang, I went to unplug the power brick and plug it
back in... The power brick literally crumbled in my hand exposing live
interals. Scary.
As I have never been satisifed with the A1143 (it's dual band, but only
supports one band at a time, LOL), I have decided to replace it...
While I am at it, the ASUS RT-N66U that I am using elsewhere is also
having issues, the 5 GHz radio on it is basically unusable, and the 2.4
GHz radio randomly kicks off all clients briefly, which is a real PITA
when I am on a WhatsApp call... This time I will be going with
professional gear, I'll replace both flaky APs with the Ubiquiti UAP
AC LR, it has some sweet long range radios in it on both bands, and it
is supports 802.3af power over ethernet (PoE). Good time to get more
switch ports too while I am at it for future expansion, on my RT-N66U
I am using every available port already.
Part of my network includes some wireless bridges that are powered by
24v passive PoE, so I nabbed some adapters to plug them into the new
PoE switches as well... Less power bricks laying around, for the win!
Now for the bill:
Ubiquiti UniFi UAP AC Long Range (UAP-AC-LR) x 2 $192.66
TRENDNet TPE-TG44G Gigabit PoE+ GREENnet PoE+ Switch x 1 $ 74.89
TP-Link TL-SG51005P 5-port gigabit switch w/4-port PoE x 1 $ 64.19
Ubiquiti Instant 802.3AF adapter (gigabit) INS-3AF-O-G x 2 $ 38.76
$370.50, ouch, my poor wallet! :o
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