My old PowerMac G5 Dual 2Ghz finally needs to go wireless, but I don't want to spend $80 for a refurb Airport card. Are there any third party wireless cards for my box out there *with drivers*?!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Inexpensive wireless solution for PowerMac G5?
- Thread starter Cooknn
- Start date
-
- Tags
- power mac g5
- Sort by reaction score
You could do a search for fully Leopard compatible netbooks and then figure out what wireless card they use.
went to newegg, then their wireless adapters, filtered by price, then searched the term "mac"
This has 4 eggs and is cheap:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166037
Lists OS X as a supported operating system.
This has 4 eggs and is cheap:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166037
Lists OS X as a supported operating system.
$25, AirPort compatible, PCI. So is this USB-Stick for $18. Both are from AirLink 101.
If you have a later PowerMac G5, you'd need that stuff anyways:
If everything except the WiFi/Bluetooth daughterboard is already in the machine, those daughterboards cost $8 on eBay, shipped from the US as used spare parts.
If you however have to use this:
then you may get it for $25 incl. shipping from Hong Kong.
As you are insured via PayPal, it's kind of safe these days to order from far east.
If you have a later PowerMac G5, you'd need that stuff anyways:
If everything except the WiFi/Bluetooth daughterboard is already in the machine, those daughterboards cost $8 on eBay, shipped from the US as used spare parts.
If you however have to use this:
then you may get it for $25 incl. shipping from Hong Kong.
As you are insured via PayPal, it's kind of safe these days to order from far east.
Don't mean to threadjack, but are there any USB wifi cards that use the Airport interface natively?
I've got a PCI card working on my girlfriend's hackintosh natively by adding the IDs to the plists, but are there any USB versions?
I've got a PCI card working on my girlfriend's hackintosh natively by adding the IDs to the plists, but are there any USB versions?
If you have a later PowerMac G5, you'd need that stuff anyways:
How do I mount this Mezzanine board inside a late 2005 Power Mac G5?
This is an old thread, but that is not the correct board for a late '05 G5. The one pictured there looks like it's out of a Mac Mini, or at least the antenna does.
I've heard the G5 called the "runway" card. In any case, it mounts near the front of the logic board. The interface on it is-I think-mini-PCI. It's actually the same slot as the gray "Airport Extreme" card uses. You can even use an Airport Extreme card in the late '05 provided that you can figure out a way to rig up the antenna connection and you don't mind not having Bluetooth.
I'll try to remember to take a photo of a factory installed card in a Quad at work tomorrow.
The Netgear WNA1000M USB adapter is quite affordable, wireless N, and sleek with great compatibility with 10.4 and 10.5.
I've never owned a G5 before, but when I had to use my PC that only had an ethernet card, I just used a TP-Link Wifi range extender, hooked it up to the computer's ethernet port, and set it to a certain mode that basically turned it into a wireless adapter. More bulky and requires its own power, but it still works fine. Or, if you're really short on cash, you can just use an old laptop.
Indeed, it's from Mac Mini.
Exactly, the board is called a runway card. The problem is they're almost unavailable to purchase and even if, they're pretty hell expensive. That's why I'm looking for a cheaper solution, that could take use of an original bluetooth/WiFi card.
I would recommend a PCI Bluetooth and wireless card, it will be much cheaper than the runway card
Thanks for your advices!
I'm wondering, if there's any wifi/bluetooth USB dongle which is compatible with airport interface?
The thing is Power Mac G5 works mostly on linux, that's why I'm trying to check all the Apple solutions before going third-party.
I'm wondering, if there's any wifi/bluetooth USB dongle which is compatible with airport interface?
The thing is Power Mac G5 works mostly on linux, that's why I'm trying to check all the Apple solutions before going third-party.
Not USB for WiFi as far as I can remember for PPC OSX but there are some PCIe cards that do work. I have one in mine at the moment and that gives 802.11n in both Tiger and Leopard. You just need to make sure they have the relevant Broadcom WiFi chip. I believe the Atheros drivers in Leopard are for Intel OSX only.
As for Bluetooth, it would probably be a Cambridge Silicon chip you need and many cheap usb dongles use those. However, if you want to use a bluetooth keyboard or mouse with the boot selector screen in Open Firmware, then you would need the runway card with Apple's own combo WiFi/Bluetooth card. I think the card from the A1138/A1139 PowerBooks is identical but, as bunnspecial has mentioned, the runway card is hard to find and very expensive when you do.
[doublepost=1470955139][/doublepost]This vendor claims to have a runway card and is selling it at a relatively giveaway price
http://www.macpalace.com/922-7152-runway-card-power-mac-g5-late-2005-820-1830-a-630-7054.html
I would check out reviews before proceeding. That price is too good to be true unless demand for these has plummeted since I last looked.
As for Bluetooth, it would probably be a Cambridge Silicon chip you need and many cheap usb dongles use those. However, if you want to use a bluetooth keyboard or mouse with the boot selector screen in Open Firmware, then you would need the runway card with Apple's own combo WiFi/Bluetooth card. I think the card from the A1138/A1139 PowerBooks is identical but, as bunnspecial has mentioned, the runway card is hard to find and very expensive when you do.
[doublepost=1470955139][/doublepost]This vendor claims to have a runway card and is selling it at a relatively giveaway price
http://www.macpalace.com/922-7152-runway-card-power-mac-g5-late-2005-820-1830-a-630-7054.html
I would check out reviews before proceeding. That price is too good to be true unless demand for these has plummeted since I last looked.
Thanks for the answer!
Could you tell me, which one do you have? I'd like to avoid buying bunch of different cards that don't work till I finally find the right one. I've seen lots of them on ebay, but almost every one of them eighter works like the older Airport card or was made for Intel based macs.
Yeah, I've already seen it, but shipping cost to Europe makes it more expensive that computer itself :/
Could you tell me, which one do you have? I'd like to avoid buying bunch of different cards that don't work till I finally find the right one. I've seen lots of them on ebay, but almost every one of them eighter works like the older Airport card or was made for Intel based macs.
Yeah, I've already seen it, but shipping cost to Europe makes it more expensive that computer itself :/
One of my Quads is using a Broadcom Airport card from an earlyish Intel Mac.
The Apple Mini PCIe airport cards are easy to tell apart-the Atheros ones have a p/n starting in A and the Broadcom ones start with B. I can confirm first-hand from experimenting that I couldn't get an Atheros card working in a G5(I was using a dual core 2.0 at the time, although everything from it was "transplanted" to a Quad).
I bought a cheap mini-PCIe to PCIe adapter board from China. It was under $10, as was the card itself. Apparently this sort of thing is a common use for these cards, as the one I bought(and virtually every one I looked at) had antenna leads that lead to a pair of standard coax-type antenna connectors on the faceplate of the card.
The Apple Mini PCIe airport cards are easy to tell apart-the Atheros ones have a p/n starting in A and the Broadcom ones start with B. I can confirm first-hand from experimenting that I couldn't get an Atheros card working in a G5(I was using a dual core 2.0 at the time, although everything from it was "transplanted" to a Quad).
I bought a cheap mini-PCIe to PCIe adapter board from China. It was under $10, as was the card itself. Apparently this sort of thing is a common use for these cards, as the one I bought(and virtually every one I looked at) had antenna leads that lead to a pair of standard coax-type antenna connectors on the faceplate of the card.
I use a Wi-Fi to Ethernet bridge. Everything is configured through a webgui and the connection is presented as a standard Ethernet connection.
No fuss or guessing at which device will work. And I get access to modern standards like 802.11ac 5ghz. I bought mine used for 50 USD.
No fuss or guessing at which device will work. And I get access to modern standards like 802.11ac 5ghz. I bought mine used for 50 USD.
I did what bunnspecial said in his last reply. If you drill down into the IO80211Family.kext in Leopard, you will see in the PlugIns folder all of the drivers for AirPort compatible cards. Drilling down into the individual kexts and running the file command in Terminal against their MacOS code will tell you which are Intel only or Universal drivers. I just grabbed a suitable AirPort card from an early MacBook and put in a cheap generic PCIe adapter. If your main focus is Linux, you are better served getting a supported card for whatever distro you are running.
Do you have to install any drivers on Tiger/Leopard to get it to work or is it just plug and play? And if so, where do you get the drivers because I only see windows downloads no their site. I'm thinking about one of these for my iBook G3 since the original airport doesn't support modern standards.
Yes. To my knowledge, there are no USB plug and play wireless adapters as that would require them to be "AirPort compatible" in OS X. Netgear themselves do not offer drivers, but fortunately with a little digging on the USB adapter you can find that the chipset inside is the Realtek RTL8188CUS! The drivers are a direct download right from Realtek here. Make sure you download the one for the RTL8188CUS only.
Thanks for the link! I think I'll give one of these a shot and see how it works with my iBook, I might even use it in the future for the PowerBook for wireless N networks.