Hmm I have the current tower and Simultaneous Dual band and do not have that option. You most be using older airport software you were getting logs from? In theory that should work just as well if not better except if you need and 2.4 ghz clients.

At this point there are only a few possibilities..

1) IP conflict (you can manually do assignment, e.g. 192.168.1.15 or 16) and see what happens.

2) Defective wireless Airport Extreme

3) Defective wireless in device e.g. Macbook Pro (If you do not have disconnects on other routers has to be extreme)

4) Interference

Have we done an Air Port Extreme Reset to Factory Defaults?

You can also try taking your Extreme to an Apple Store if all else fails.

I think I am going to buy a new Airport Extreme from Apple and see if that fixes this. I can always return it if it doesn't.
I have just re-set my Airport Extreme to factory settings... Before I go out and I buy a new one, could you guys please take a look at my configuration and tell me if it looks ok? This is the default configuration, the only thing that I did is create a network with a WPA2 password.
Please see attached screenshots.

PS On a different notice, can a big battery create interference? I am asking because the only thing that is close to the Airport Extreme is my electric bike, which is of course off, but has a battery. All the other electronic devices in my house are at least 8 feet away (speakers) and microwave and oven are at least 20 feet away or more. Thanks

Thanks

here's more screenshots (the maximum number of uploads is 3 so I had to break it up into two posts)

Is the Router showing up Green in Airport status screen? Did you choose those settings or Did Apple's set up assistant? For many ISP provides a Switch/Router and your daisy chaining your Extreme onto their Switch/router the Network Tab would be set to OFF (Bridge Mode). If Apple choose the settings your probably fine..

You have used an Ethernet Patch Cord on the Lan Port of ISPs device to the WAN port of your Airport Extreme?

I would still use Opendns for the DNS settings.

Though not relevant I would also switch back to the current AirPort software. Radio wise depends on your equipment.

Good Luck.

To answer your questions:
- There is no router in my setup. There is only a modem and the Airport Extreme (which is my router)
- the Airport Extreme shows up Green when it works but goes to yellow when the internet drops out (and the world icon representing the internet goes to yellow as well during a dropout in connectivity).
- The settings you see are the default settings chosen by Apple's setup assistant.
- Yes I have a 1' cat 5 ethernet patch cord from the only port on my ISP's modem to the Airport Extreme port that has a star (the only one with a start out of the 5 ports)

- I have tried OpenDNS in the middle of all this troubleshooting but I saw now difference or improvement so when I reset the modem to factory settings I didn't bother to re-set that up but I might in the future.

2 questions:

- What do you mean by switching back to the current AirPort software? That is the most current airport utility software (6.3.2)

- Should I try setting the Switch/router setting in the Network Tab to Bridge Mode or leave it as Apple's assistant set it?

I would leave it on the Defaults as it pretty good at detecting the correct settings. I asked about the Patch cable to make sure it was "seeing" correctly:)

Could not see from screen shots the current version thought you had switched back to 5.x for testing.

Note that ISP equipment can be a router even if it does not do wireless. But I get it you have a "cable modem" with a single Ethernet port, so I believe all you have is correct.

Open Dns should speed up browsing but would not fix connectivity issues unless they were caused by DNS which they do not appear to be.

Note that my Internet/World Icon is Yellow sometimes when I first launch Airport software, seems to evaluate and display prior to checking real status.

Don't forget you can try Manual addressing as a test too. That is take note of your computers. Ip address, e.g. which I presume from your screen shot is somewhere between 10.0.1.2 to 200.

Hayne's theory was perhaps you were getting IP conflicts. Actually manual assignment is another way to get them. That said you can try (after testing your Extreme for a while assuming the problem is still present ) Manually on your computer changing the IP address to an address in the range above. I would try for the tail end of 190 to 200 to avoid conflicts. There is probably nothing in your home above 10.

Thanks for the reply.
I've been keeping Airport Utility open next to my browser and every once in a while, while it's open, not just when I first launch Airport Utility, the world icon or the Airport Extreme icon or both go yellow and the connectivity is lost.

As to your last point, are you saying I should put the three computers in the house as well as the ipad and the iphones on specific IP's and manually set them to something like 10.0.1.190? Would I do that from the Network/TCP/IP preferences? And would I have to set the IPv4 Address to that? or the Router address (which is currently 10.0.1.1)? And should I be doing this Manual configuration to the IPv4 or the IPv6 addresses?

Not sure you can trust what is displayed in Airpot Utility moment to moment. I believe I have seen similar, though not routinely had any "real" connectivity issues.

The manual addressing was following up what Hayne mentioned. And you would likely have gotten a message alerting you to an IP conflict if it was happening. The change if you want to make it would be from Network settings of each computer or iPad, etc. You would replace configure with DHCP with Configure with DHCP with manual address and then choose an address toward the end of the range that is unlikely to ever be handed out.... And Yes those are all IP4.

Since your only seeing the drop outs that I am aware of on your Macbook Pro, make the change there.

Just to clarify the dropouts are for all my home's devices. When it goes out it goes out for everyone and it stays out for between a few and as long as 10-20 min. All iPads, iPhones, macs and the one PC are down

Hmm and this behavior never exhibited at least on the Macbook Pro while wired to the Airport Extreme?

If it never occurred wired we can not blame the ISP.

And of course were back to devices are or Extreme. There is no harm in doing the manual IP test. You need only do it on one device you use frequently to be an effective test.

Then if your still having issues it makes sense to try another router. You certainly can bring yours to the Apple Store to inquire while your buying the new one to test with.

** Almost forgot did this always happen with this Extreme** ?

Yes this always happened with the same Extreme, which I bought back in 2007.
I took it to Apple and they said that because it's so old it's "vintage", hence unsupported, so they can't even fix it.
I bought a new one and I am not on it. There is a 14 day return policy so I will keep testing the connection on the new one and if it doesn't go out in the next 2 weeks I'll know it was the antenna of the old one (since it seemed to work when I used a cat5 into the old one).
I'll report back in a week or so... hopefully this works cause if it doesn't I have not idea what to do next!
Thanks for all your help, support and patience guys! You are all amazing to donate your time to strangers like me and I really appreciate that!

Good Luck. There are other pages but here is a breakdown on the different extremes...
7 years is a long time for a router. The age would explain some of the config differences I believe. Do not forget to flash the new one up its new firmware. You will get prompted from Airport Utility. Do note that there have been quite a number of different models of the Square (5) before the current 6th Gen Tower.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPort_Extreme

Big battery? No.

Microwave, yes possibly.

Things more than 20 feet away? Yes, definitely.

For example, a cordless phone. Bluetooth stuff. Wireless headphones. etc. etc. etc.

Trevor

The age and your link explain why it didn't do 2.4 and 5Ghz at the same time but only one or the other...

Thanks for the info Trevor.
My microwave has not been on any of the times the internet was lost.
I do have a cordless phone but I unplugged it for a few days as part of the testing.

I shall report back on the new latest tower extrme

I have a feeling you will do well with the new one.

Interference can come from way more then 20 feet away. All the Neighbors, Garage door openers, Microwaves, cordless phones, Baby monitors, wireless alarm systems, etc etc.

Unfortunately I have to report that my bad luck with this connection continues...
I've set up a new Aiport Extreme network at 5Ghz and one at 2.4Ghz. Right now I am on the 5Ghz one with my laptop and my partner is on her iPad with the 2.4GHz one and we have two iphones and the internet keeps cutting out (see attachment)... The only difference I notice is that with the new Airport Extreme the AirPort Extreme light never goes yellow (it stays green even when the Internet icon goes yellow).
I don't know what else to try... Please help...

I'd call your ISP for support since it seems likely that the problem is with the modem. Maybe you can get a new modem?

I've already called them, they came, tested the line and the modem and claimed everything was fine...

I don't know if this makes any sense, but it seems to me that it happens when both my partner and I are online at the same time, it almost never happens when I am browsing alone at home... weird

That sounds like it might be an issue with both of your computers trying to get an IP address from the ISP when the ISP only provides one IP address.

Make sure that your computers are configured to get their IP addresses from your Airport Extreme or other local router - not from the ISP. IP addresses are assigned by the DHCP server so it is the DHCP server settings that you want to check.

Check that your computers' IP addresses are in the range supplied by the local router (usually 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x)

Also check whether you have your Airport Extreme set up to do NAT or to "bridge" to some other router.

I would still keep a new router because your old one was really old....

Agree with Hayne, this goes back to trying manual addressing the outside of the range that is normally handed out. If I remember correctly you Airport is handing out addresses not the cable modem. Note the suggestion from prior about creating a second network was because of interference. Of course there is no harm in doing that if 5ghz reception is good but know that if it is not good that too will cause hiccups as the device that is on 5 network will not auto hop to 2.4 seamlessly.

I would also repeat your wired test periodically to make sure that the issue is really not the ISP.
***** Even if your line is supposedly fine some extended pleasant speaking can often net you new cable modems, which can help. It is still possible the cable modem and airport are not getting along perfectly.

Lastly though Airport auto detected the settings there is not harm in confirming the correct settings with provider, perhaps after they cough up the new equipment.