2007 iMac OS X 10.4.11 - How to use Wifi AirPort Extreme?

[Racineur]

Hello. I was given and old 2007 iMac 20inch, Core2Duo. It runs OS X 10.4.11. I'd only use it for watching YouTube at breakfast. If I could have AirPort Extreme to work. It sees all networks including my 2.4 and 5 ghz. First, didn't recognize the password, then did but can't keep the connexion alive. Runs through 2.4 and 5 ghz and then dies. Its there something I'm doing wrong or I'm not doing at all? If I can have it to work, the little guy goes to recycling. what else to do with it? Thanks for cues and tricks.

 

[Nermal]

First of all, I'd upgrade it to OS 10.6 unless you have a good reason not to. I have no idea whether that'll improve Wi-Fi compatibility, but 10.4 is very old (in fact, it's the version that the computer originally shipped with).

You may need to change router settings and drop down from e.g. WPA3 to something older, but I don't know the specifics there.

 

[theMarble]

It runs OS X 10.4.11. I'd only use it for watching YouTube at breakfast. If I could have AirPort Extreme to work. It sees all networks including my 2.4 and 5 ghz. First, didn't recognize the password, then did but can't keep the connexion alive. Runs through 2.4 and 5 ghz and then dies. Its there something I'm doing wrong or I'm not doing at all? If I can have it to work, the little guy goes to recycling. what else to do with it? Thanks for cues and tricks.

There's nearly no way that you would be able to watch YouTube videos at a somewhat tolerable framerate on Tiger. As @Nermal said, upgrade to 10.6 or maybe 10.7. Note that while your iMac can run Ventura (the latest release of macOS currently), you will need to upgrade to an SSD and to a Penryn-based C2D.

In my opinion, if you want to run 10.7 (Lion) or newer, an SSD is necessary, not optional. Snow Leopard (10.6) runs fine enough on a mechanical hard drive, but know that there is currently no up-to-date browser as InterWeb for 10.6 has been discontinued. 10.7+ has Chromium Legacy, which is a modern browser, but in my opinion needs an SSD to run decently.

If you want to keep 10.4, I suggest trying making an older network on your router. My router (which uses WPA2) works on my Tiger machines just fine.

 

[Racineur]

Thanks thanks all. That's what I thought and was afraid of. Too much hassle and you make me realize there won't be a viable browser. I use daily a 2013 27 iMac that came with Lion on a Fusion drive. Now uses Catalina on an external SSD an it runs fast. I can boot Lion with Firefox Legacy or old Chrome but neither does the job. Comes a time when too old is too old. Nah, I'll get rid of that little beauty and move on. Better be back to watching YT vids on my less old but not recent 17 inch Acer laptop after all. Now Neds to learn how to delete my user account on this old iMac.

 

[Slix]

Thanks thanks all. That's what I thought and was afraid of. Too much hassle and you make me realize there won't be a viable browser. I use daily a 2013 27 iMac that came with Lion on a Fusion drive. Now uses Catalina on an external SSD an it runs fast. I can boot Lion with Firefox Legacy or old Chrome but neither does the job. Comes a time when too old is too old. Nah, I'll get rid of that little beauty and move on. Better be back to watching YT vids on my less old but not recent 17 inch Acer laptop after all. Now Neds to learn how to delete my user account on this old iMac.

I use a 2008 iMac 24" running 10.9 and InterWeb to watch YouTube while I exercise downstairs every week. Aside from it being a bit sluggish when the page first loads, it runs fine for simple playback of YouTube videos right now in my opinion. 10.6 with InterWeb would probably be even faster, since the OS has less overhead. If you don't want to deal with the hassle of tweaking an older Mac, see if you can give the iMac to someone who would like to instead! It's always nice to give them a new home if you can!

 

[Racineur]

I use a 2008 iMac 24" running 10.9 and InterWeb to watch YouTube while I exercise downstairs every week. Aside from it being a bit sluggish when the page first loads, it runs fine for simple playback of YouTube videos right now in my opinion. 10.6 with InterWeb would probably be even faster, since the OS has less overhead. If you don't want to deal with the hassle of tweaking an older Mac, see if you can give the iMac to someone who would like to instead! It's always nice to give them a new home if you can!

I would prefer to have it work for my YT routine when I have my breakfast of course. So where would I start? An external SSD, find OS X 10.6, install on SSD then download InterWeb. Is that it? And you tell me YT videos will play just fine. That's all I want to do rally. No Word, no Pages. Maybe some email with the 10.6 version of Mail. So it's a go?

 

[Slix]

I would prefer to have it work for my YT routine when I have my breakfast of course. So where would I start? An external SSD, find OS X 10.6, install on SSD then download InterWeb. Is that it? And you tell me YT videos will play just fine. That's all I want to do rally. No Word, no Pages. Maybe some email with the 10.6 version of Mail. So it's a go?

Yeah, like I said it’s a bit slow at first page load but it works fine once the video is playing. I use the Apple Remote to control volume from across the room too. That should work for your needs to install 10.6. I forget exactly but I think there’s a few InterWeb tweaks you can apply to make browsing smoother, like uMatrix and you might need the MP4 player add-on for it. But I think those things are in the download for InterWeb. It’s been a little while since I set it up, so I can’t remember all what was involved but I can try to look when I’m at home sometime.