It was installed about six months ago by a colleague of mine, and I've had to maintain it since he left three months ago.
Basic layout. It's a 4 story facility, only 3 of which require APs at this point. There's a large central atrium spanning 3 floors, and roughly 7 studios/creative workspaces per floors, plus ten offices on one side. We've got one Airport Express per about 3 studios spread out.
The APs, originally, lasted about 2 weeks before crashing consistently. At this point, it looks like they go for a couple days and then lock up. Internet is provided by our company LAN, which is solid. Fiber backbone to our main facility, 10/100 Catalysts and 3Com switches per floor.
Each AP is connected to the network via ethernet; none function as repeaters.
We have WEP enabled on them. Not a secure option at all, true, but until they actually start enacting NAC and EAP, it'll have to do.
Clients. Overall, we probobly have between 20 and 40 people connecting to the wifi at any one time.
I do realize that interference and such is an issue as regards to overall wifi performance, but I don't understand why that would make the APs lock up. They do get somewhat warm at times, but they're designed to handle that, right? We bought most of them in one large batch, so it's possible that we've got a bad batch I suppose.
Peter...I actually like your idea, as far as power cycling them. I may have to look into that.
Any thoughts?
Thank you!