Airport express keeps disconnecting from wifi

As an Express ages, trying to have it connect using WiFi becomes more and more unreliable. The problem vanishes if you can connect to the Express using an Ethernet cable.

What model of AirPort Express do you have?

How old is the Express?

If you have a Mac laptop, we can walk you through some basic steps to analyze the quality of signal that the Express is receiving, but frankly I doubt that this will help.

Temporarily, power off the Express

Move the Mac laptop as close to the physical location of the Express as possible

Hold down the option key on the Mac while you click on the WiFi menu at the top of the screen

Post back on the values that you see for.......

Channel

RSSI

Noise

Tx Rate

PHY Mode

We have asked you to provide some basic information that will allow us to take a look at the quality of the WiFi signal that the AirPort Express is receiving at its current location.

To do that, the Express needs to be temporarily powered off while you are checking the WiFi parameters......because the Express is communicating with the WiFi network when it is powered on, which may conflict with readings that we have asked you to check.

You can power the Express back up when you have run the checks.

First, Apple does not really want you to know that the "bars" at the top of the screen are pretty much meaningless because they only indicate signal strength and tell you nothing about the noise or interference on the network. So, you have to dig deeper to find out more about what the WiFi signal quality might really be.

The really important info here is the signal-to-noise ratio, which is determined by taking the RSSI (Signal strength) and substacting the Noise number.

So, -61 - (-87) = 26 db

That is a borderline number as far as WiFi quality is concerned. You want to see a reading of 30 db or higher to have a better chance of a reliable connection.

The Express needs to be moved closer to the main router, or the main router needs to be moved closer to the Express, or they both need to be moved closer together.

See if you can get the signal-to-noise up to about 30 or higher.

Next, the average useful life of the Express is about 5 years. That is about the point where the performance of the Express begins to slowly decline.

As my Expresses aged to around 4 years, I found that the only way to keep them working reliably for AirPlay was to connect them to the network using a permanent wired Ethernet cable connection.

Or, add a "repeater" or "extender" to improve the WiFi signal strength. I'm not fond of this type of device, because they slow down the network considerably while adding more noise to the WiFi signal.

If you decide to try one of these devices, locate the repeater about half way between the main router and the Express. The more that you have line-of-sight between the main router and the repeater, the better the network will perform.

An Ethernet cable has zero signal loss up to about 326 feet or 100 meters. Kind of says it all.