Help pls. Have Old Power Mac (cheese grater) with dud network port - cannot set up wifi alternative

[MacWomble]

Hi,

I have a Power Mac which has lost the use of its inbuilt network port -its old and I suspect some kind of electrical fault. Since I want to use Wifi anyway to upgrade it from 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) I have borrowed a Tenda usb wifi dongle. This has drivers etc for Snow Leopard on its web site and as far as I can tell it works. I can connect to my router and see all the wifi networks available.

However the mac is locking up whenever I try and access the internet, Apple store or software update.

I don't get a beach ball, but the only thing that I can do is move the mouse pointer. I cannot run any apps after trying to connect to the .net. Everything is OK if I don't try to connect to the .net.

When I look at system prefs - network it shows the dud network board is connected, but it is not as its unplugged. Could this be causing the lock ups?

How can I test/fix? - I'm not bad with the command line but would prefer not to have to use it if possible.

Hope someone can help.

 

[Fishrrman]

Update the drivers for the wifi dongle?

Does it have expansion slots?
Is there any kind of wifi card that will fit into them?

 

[MacWomble]

Hi,

I'm not sure what cards are still compatible with Snow Leopard - I hope to upgrade the OS as much as I can so also don't want to spend money on a card that is not compatible with later OSX versions. Bit tricky which is why I went for the dongle.

The drivers are the only ones I can find on the Tenda web site for Snow Leopard - there are later drivers, but they are for later versions of the OS.

However this doesn't really help me find out why the dud network is saying its connected when it isn't (unless its because its dud) or find out if this is interfering with the wifi.