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Apple Releases AirPort and Time Capsule Firmware and Utility Updates

Wednesday March 31, 2010 2:16 pm PDT by Eric Slivka

Apple today released a series of updates for its AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule wireless base stations, addressing wireless performance issues in its latest models and offering several other bug fixes.

- Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme Base Station Firmware Update 7.5.1 brings fixes for a pair of issues on Apple's latest AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule base stations released last October.

This update provides several fixes for the latest Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme Base Station (Late 2009) including:

- An issue with wireless performance in the 5GHz band
- An issue with creating a Guest Network in the 5GHz band

Issues with 5 GHz performance on the new base stations had been well-documented, and users noted earlier this month that models had begun shipping with the 7.5.1 firmware version that seemed to address the problem. Today's release, which is accessible through AirPort Utility, extends the fix to existing devices.

In order to support the new firmware version, Apple has also released AirPort Utility 5.5.1 for Mac OS X (10.24 MB) and Windows (10.70 MB). The updates also offer fixes for several other minor issues.

AirPort Utility 5.5.1 includes general bug fixes and addresses the following issues:

- Not importing all settings when importing a configuration.
- Not propagating MAC address control lists when using an extended network.

The Mac OS X version of AirPort Utility 5.5.1 requires Mac OS X 10.5.7 or later, while the Windows version requires Windows 7, Vista SP1 or later, or XP SP3 or later. Users are encouraged to update AirPort Utility before applying the base station firmware update to AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule models.
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paulyras
25 months ago
Wow- Lots of updates over the last week or so. Good stuff.
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jglavin
24 months ago
Been waiting for a while for this one... my TC has been having performance issues for months now, hopefully this fixes it.

Edit: Applied the 7.5.1 update, and so far so good...able to sustain over 10mbytes/sec (peak over 15) throughput when before I had constant hiccups and slow transfers. I just copied 5 gigs wirelessly to my laptop in 6 minutes. Methinks streaming videos will no longer be an issue.
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revs
24 months ago
FINALLY!! Been waiting months for this! Was about to give up on apple fixing the 5Ghz issue! So very happy!
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ccoulson
24 months ago
I can download the Airport Utility 5.5.1 update, but when I run it it tells me there's no firmware update (7.5.1) available?? The latest firmware my Airport Utility has downloaded is 7.4.2...
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squirrelist
24 months ago

I can download the Airport Utility 5.5.1 update, but when I run it it tells me there's no firmware update (7.5.1) available?? The latest firmware my Airport Utility has downloaded is 7.4.2...


I also only have that version. I assume it's because we have the older one-band-at-a time model. I think this is for the newer one that lets you run on dual frequencies simultaneously, with different SSIDs if you want.
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page3
24 months ago

I also only have that version. I assume it's because we have the older one-band-at-a time model. I think this is for the newer one that lets you run on dual frequencies simultaneously, with different SSIDs if you want.

New simultaneous dual-band model here, and only version 7.4.2 is found.
:confused:
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Switched2aMac
24 months ago
D-loaded and Airport Utility 5.5.1 but base station still says 7.4.2.

I have the first generation Time Capsule.
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calderone
24 months ago
Finally an update to Airport Utility. There has been a bug in 5.5 where there was no scroll bar available for viewing DHCP Reservations.

They haven't fixed the DHCP Reservations text though, it is still up where it shouldn't be.

New simultaneous dual-band model here, and only version 7.4.2 is found.
:confused:


Does it say Simultaneous Dual-Band II in Airport Utility?
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ccoulson
24 months ago
I have the dual band TC - only showing 7.4.2 with no new firmware available...
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robotspacer
24 months ago

New simultaneous dual-band model here, and only version 7.4.2 is found.
:confused:

I have the dual-band model too and it's tell me there's no update. Very confusing…

Then I remembered there was an update late last year that improved the antenna or something. This only applies to those models. Hopefully we're not getting this update because we don't have the problems this fixes, and not because we made the mistake of using something an entire year old.
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