[twosteppingboi82]

I've been having a lot of trouble lately with my Airport Extreme sending a constant signal with my mac mini. It's not the mac mini-shaped airport, it's the one you plug into a wall socket. When using my macbook I NEVER have problems and always have full strength (all bars) signal, but when I'm at home I prefer using my desktop. The signal varies from all bars (momentarily) to just the small dot, then NO signal at all. I'll try to get the signal back by toggling the icon on the top toolbar and many times I'll have to toggle it several times before my airport extreme shows up. When it appears I select it, I'll get the signal back, then the signal is gone. When I open Network in System Preferences and try to do diagnostics on my device it asks for a WEP password. I don't recall ever putting a password on it, I've tried every password I would use, and nothing works.

What the hell is going on with this thing?? It is really starting to drive me up the wall! Is this something I can fix myself (with fellow mac-users' advice) or is this something I have to go to an apple store to fix....or could they even do anything b/c apparently there's a password set up on it? All of my software updates for my mac mini are up-to-date so it shouldnt be anything like that....

Please help :( Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

[SSGoku]

Just a few comments.

1) You do not have an Airport Extreme. What you have is an Airport Express.

2) NEVER ever use a wireless network without security. At the very least you should be using WEP. Better still, you should be using WPA2. WPA2 is better than WPA and WPA is better than WEP.

From Wikipedia:
-> Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a deprecated algorithm to secure IEEE 802.11 wireless networks.
-> Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA and WPA2) is a certification program administered by the Wi-Fi Alliance to indicate compliance with the security protocol created by the Wi-Fi Alliance to secure wireless computer networks.

3) With the MacBook, you have no problem. With the Mac Mini, there is a problem. So by a simple matter of deduction, it sounds like the problem is with the Mac Mini not the Express. If the problem is with the Mini, then more info is required to deduce the problem. What kind of Mac Mini do you have? What CPU does it use, PPC or Intel? What version of OS X does it have? Where is it located in relation to the Express?

[twosteppingboi82]

If the problem is with the Mini, then more info is required to deduce the problem. What kind of Mac Mini do you have? What CPU does it use, PPC or Intel? What version of OS X does it have? Where is it located in relation to the Express?

1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Due
1GB 667 Mhz DDR2 SDRAM
Mac OSX Version 10.5.4 (the Macbook is running 10.4)

The Mac Mini is about 20 feet away in the front of the apartment.

I just checked for software updates and it showed that nothing is available.