Aeons Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 (edited) I've actually been looking for a product that I could stream mp3s to my system for quite sometime. The fact that this product not only does that, but will be a wireless access point and print server made it a definite buy in my mind. I received this last Wednesday. When I got the package, I thought it quite small. But it then occurred to me - how big does the box need to be? Anyways, what comes in the box is the Airport Express, installation cd, and documentation. Well, setup was easy, but I had some issues. First and foremost, as far as I can tell, on a pc you must have a computer that has a wireless card using Window?s WZC (Wireless Zero Configuration) utility for setup of your card. If you don?t it will not save changes to the access point. Secondly, my laptop would crash when it was using the wireless and I?d save cha:angry:angry: (Sucky Centrino wireless drivers I suspect.) So to get around this, I shut down my antenna on my laptop and used a wired connection which seemed to work perfect. On the pc side, you must use the Airport Utility that comes with the cd; the one from Apple?s site is not updated. (it maybe now, I?m not sure, haven?t looked today). Getting it setup is really easy, I won?t go into detail except that on the last tab, if you want music over Ethernet, not just wireless, you must enable Airtunes over Ethernet. This took me a few minutes to figure out. Before I did, I said a few choice words about how it sucked that you couldn?t stream music over just your wired network. Range from the access point is good. I can get about 100 feet from it and still get a pretty decent signal. Sound is great. My 128bit encoded mp3s sound pretty darn good. I?m using a toslink cable so it?s purely digital to my stereo. Bandwidth is good, over Ethernet, I couldn?t get it to pause or skip or anything for that matter, it just played on. Over wireless the same thing. All in all, I would recommend this product to anyone who wants a good access point or way to get their music to a place in there house where it may be difficult to put a computer. The print server on it seems to work ok with my Mac, only set it up to test it out this way, and I forgot to test it with my pc. Anyways, great prod:yes:nd a great buy. :yes: edit: I forgot to mention you must use windows xp sp1, sp2 wzc utility will not work for inital airport setup assistant. Edited July 24, 2004 by Aeons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shining Arcanine Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 Secondly, my laptop would crash when it was using the wireless and I?d save changes:angry:y: (Sucky Centrino wireless drivers I suspect.) So to get around this, I shut down my antenna on my laptop and used a wired connection which seemed to work perfect. Are you sure that they're installed properly? Using Windows XP Zero config with mutiple access points or encryption can be a pain, if either is the case, wait for SP2, it will resolve that. It will also never let you hear the end of it when you install patches and do not reboot:p:p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aeons Posted July 24, 2004 Author Share Posted July 24, 2004 I am using windows xp sp2. I know it's the drivers cause I get an irq_not_less_or_equal error, or something to that effect. These drivers have always kinda sucked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FatCat Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 wow, apple's packaging is beutiful for everything they put out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Si Veteran Posted July 24, 2004 Veteran Share Posted July 24, 2004 Nice review! Apple just sold another one :happy: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sebaz Posted July 24, 2004 Share Posted July 24, 2004 what stereo are u using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dejon Posted July 25, 2004 Share Posted July 25, 2004 Nice review, I'll most likely order mine in a few days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aeons Posted July 25, 2004 Author Share Posted July 25, 2004 what stereo are u using? Onkyo TX-SR701 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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