Member Avatar for salinae

I have installed an AirPort Extreme card into a G4, and straight afterwards the CD drive and power button stop working. I take the card out, and the drive and button work again. I've gone round the loop several times, and the same thing keeps happening.

Has anyone else come across this? Why is it happening? How can it be avoided? Surely I should be able to fit an AirPort card into the G4 (467 MHz) without any conflicts arising.

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Short summary and immediate cause (what went wrong)
The behavior reported — CD drive and front‑panel power button failing only while the AirPort Extreme card is fitted — is a classic symptom of an unsupported wireless card being installed. Apple used two different, incompatible card families: the original AirPort (802.11b) and the later AirPort Extreme (802.11g), and the Extreme cards are not physically/firmware‑compatible with many older G3/G4 iMacs. Fitting the wrong card can stop the machine from completing power/PMU initialization, so removing it restores normal I/O. (en.wikipedia.org)

Why OS upgrades alone usually won’t help
Compatibility is primarily a hardware/slot/antenna/firmware issue on these PowerPC Macs — a newer OS can add driver/crypto features (for example, Apple later shipped AirPort software updates that added WPA to some older AirPort cards), but it cannot change a physical connector or the motherboard wiring. In short: check “AirPort‑ready / AirPort Extreme‑ready” for the exact Mac model first; software is secondary. (tidbits.com)

Practical options for the mixed network you described

  • Easiest: put the correct original AirPort (802.11b) card into the older G4 and G3, and use any 802.11b/g router set to mixed (b/g) mode — Apple base stations are not required; third‑party routers (Linksys/Netgear etc.) work fine.
  • If the older Macs can run OS X 10.3+ and have the right AirPort revision, update AirPort firmware/software to get better security (WPA) — otherwise they may only support WEP (insecure).
  • Alternatives: use a wired Ethernet connection to the router, a USB Wi‑Fi adapter that has Mac OS X drivers for the PPC, or a PC‑Card/CardBus Wi‑Fi adapter (some Broadcom cards appear as AirPort to OS X). (macworld.com)

Concrete troubleshooting steps (grounded in Apple tech notes and the thread)

  1. Remove the Extreme card; try booting. 2) With the card out, reset the iMac’s PMU/PRAM (Apple tech notes cover the PMU reset procedure for slot‑load iMacs). 3) Inspect the card/socket for bent pins or grounding clips and the antenna connector. 4) If wireless is still wanted, either buy the correct original AirPort card for that model or use an external solution (Ethernet, USB, CardBus). Apple service docs show safe removal and PMU reset steps for these iMac models. (til-2001.mirror.kb1max.com)

Notes tied to earlier replies

  • was correct that the model line limits which card to use; his suggestion to try third‑party base stations is also correct and often the simplest path for mixed networks.
  • In response to : compatibility depends first on hardware (model/slot/antenna), second on OS/firmware; a newer OS alone will not make an AirPort Extreme card usable in a machine that never had the proper AirPort‑Extreme slot. (macworld.com)

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for yellow

Seems to be because that model of Mac can only use an AirPort (802.11b) card.

Here is the compatible computer list for Airport Extreme cards:

Here is the compatible computer list for Airport cards.

Note that your computer is on the latter list..

Member Avatar for salinae

And I thought I'd done my research. Thank you so much for these links. I've grumbled to Apple, pointing out that the product pages in their online Store do not give links to these supporting pages, and that their compatibility para is ambiguous. He says he will pass my comments on . . . mmmm.

Meanwhile, a full refund is promised against the returned goods.

That leaves me with a home wireless network still to set up:

PPC G4 (467 MHz) + iMac PPC G3 (500 MHz) + PC (Windows XP, with Wi-Fi card fitted)

How would you network them? Do I have to use AirPort equipment (the 'original' that is, not Extreme!), or can I use non-Mac stuff? A very basic question.

Feeling very confused by it all.

Many thanks for your time and trouble.

Member Avatar for yellow

I concur, the pages for AirPort are ambigious about what hardware supports what wifi hardware. I had to dig a little to find what I did.

No, you don't have to use Apple's AirPort Base Station stuff at all. I'd just go ahead and buy the AirPort (802.11b) cards from Apple, install them in your Macs. Supposedly they are rebranded Orinoco (sp?) WiFi cards, but I'm totally unsure of that, and don't want to steer you in the wrong direction. I can tell you, unequovocably, that AirPort and AirPort Extreme cards work just fine with 3rd party wifi acess points/wifi routers. I have a NetGear WGR614v3 (It's a mixed 802.11b & 802.11g) at home that does a pretty good job doing the wifi router thing for my APExtreme equipped PowerBook.

Member Avatar for rabskins

I have an old i Mac that is on the list for compatibility with the AirPort card, however, on the apple support website article for 'AirPort Extreme Card: Compatible Macintosh computers' it says "The AirPort Extreme Card works with the computers listed below(mine isn't listed on the compatible i macs link) and with Mac OS X 10.2.3 or later (which mine does have)."

so my question is, does the compatibility for the AirPort extreme card rely on if your computer is new enough to use it, or does having a later operating system mean that it will work?

Thanks,
rabskins

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