Hands-On Apple's AirPort Extreme Base Station Firmware v5.1.3 Update
It is available for download from this KBase article. Here are the enhancements:
- Enhanced security for handling unsolicited Internet traffic, including different types of denial-of-service attacks, that may be directed at an AirPort Extreme Base Station. The new protection mechanisms in this firmware will help prevent loss of Internet connectivity.
- Additional improvements in USB printing performance.
- Base station Interference Robustness, which provides improved performance when 2.4GHz devices like cordless phones and wireless video distribution system cause significant interference with the AirPort network.
- Simpler Wireless Distribution System (WDS) setup experience in AirPort Admin Utility
- Administrators have the ability to set the DHCP range on their base station when NAT is on
- Performance improvements between wired and wireless clients.
We installed it in our ABS Extreme with no problem. Unfortunately, the update does not fix the incompatibility with our Asante FriendlyNet router that somehow slows the ABS Extreme's throughput by over a factor of 10. Neither our original graphite nor snow ABS have this problem. [Update: We discovered that the issue is with a LinkSys 10/100 switch between the router and the Base Station and not the Asante router. We replaced the Linksys with an 8-port SMC switch and all is fine. We have no idea why the snow and graphite base stations did not have the same problem as the Extreme base station.]
Saw something? Send a tip
The archive ran on reader tips. What did you see, where, and do you want the credit?