Airport Card versus Dongle?

Just inherited an iBook, G3, 500 MHz, dual USB, 10Gb with 256Mb RAM, it's really nice although the keyboard is a bit whiffey.
Anyway do I buy an Airport Card or a Dongle, and which type?
I have a Performa 5300, G4 iMac Anglepoise, G4 Macbook Pro, Intel Duo Macbook Pro, 17" iMac Duo and 20" iMac Duo all in perfect working order but nothing prepared me for this question.
H E L P...........please

Hi, and welcome to Apple Discussions.
"macgraveyard" sounds a bit ominous. I prefer to think of our house as a rest home for old Macs.
As far as the AirPort Card vs. dongle, I have always preferred the internal original AirPort Card to something dangling off the side of my iBook. However, more modern technology may offer a speed boost to the old iBook. (I'm not certain; I haven't tried this, myself.)
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/MXP2802GU2/
If you prefer the internal original AirPort Card, I do have _this source_ for the UK bookmarked.
Please let us know how things go.
(By the way, there is no such thing as a G4 MacBook Pro. If it's a G4, it would be a PowerBook.)

Similar Messages

Apple Airport Card versus alt USB Wireless

Hello,
I own a Graphite IBOOK Clamshell G3 366mhz and I would like to give it to my nephew for 1st year university. It is not wireless - it has the Airport software. He needs wireless.
Should I purchase an Apple Airport Card alt USB Wireless G3 G4 G5 OSX.3 or 4 from Ebay @ $39.99. Someone at a store in town stated that they were not reliable.
OR
Should I purchase NEW WIRELESS APPLE AIRPORT CARD - iBOOK iMAC G3 PB PM from Ebay @ $130.00
and
will that be all I need - aside from upgrading the system to 10.3.
Thank you for your help.
Hue

USB wireless adapters need drivers to work. I don't know if there are any for OS 9. Many people find that the drivers don't work well with OS X. Therefore many people who try USB wireless adapters give up on them.
The original AirPort card is the best solution.

My airport card in imac has stopped working. can i add a wireless dongle to achieve wireless access?

My airport card in i mac has failed and rather than replace it can I add a wireless dongle? just need to access wireless router in home.

Yes. Here is one suggestion: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/MXP3802NU2C/

I have a Power PC G4 which is running on OSX 10.5.8, it has the AirPort utility but cannot connect to the internet as my iMac can, I think I might need an AirPort Card? Is that the case or do I need something different to connect to a wireless modem?

I have a Power PC G4 which is running on OSX 10.5.8, it has the AirPort utility but cannot connect to the internet as my iMac can, I think I might need an AirPort Card? Is that the case or do I need something different to connect to a wireless modem?

Welcome!
Only one variant of the PowerMac G4 could use the faster Airport Extreme Card. The rest used the original Airport card that is pretty slow.
To get fast wireless without buying more than one thing, consider this:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Edimax/EW7722IN/
It goes in an available PCI slot
There are USB solutions also. However, all PowerMac G4 towers had only slower USB 1.1 ports, so any USB wireless adaptor can only run at about wireless 'B" speeds (slow) unless you also install a PCI USB 2.0 adaptor card. Doing that would allow a USB wireless adaptor to run at its maximum rated speed. These items working together would accomplish that:
USB wireless "dongle:"
Newer Technology MAXPower 802.11n/g/b USB Adapter + Plug and play direct or with extension cradle
USB PCI adaptor:
http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Search.cfm?Ntk=Primary&Ns=P_Popularity%7c1&Ne=5 000&N=7069&Ntt=USB+PCI
Each approach has its advantages. The PCI wireless card is a one-piece solution that takes up no desk space. The USB2 card+USB2 Dongle gives you more fast ports for transferring date from other external USB devices (primarily cameras and external hard drives) at hugely faster rates than can the original ports. I have a USB 2 PCI card in my G4 tower strictly for transferring images from my digital SLR camera in a timely manner.

I have a mid 2009 15" Macbook Pro that does not recognize there is an Airport card installed.

I bought the Macbook Pro secondhand and I'm sure I saw the Airport Icon when I first booted up, but then I did a clean install of 10.8 and since then I can not get Airport turned on again. The machine had damage to the clutch cover so I assumed the Airport card was faulty and replaced it but no joy, I then sourced a new WiFi / Camera cable and plugged that into the motherboard and tried each of the cards and still nothing. I've used Detectnewhardware and edited locations and still nothing. I am assuming that if the card was detected then I'd see the Airport option come up in Network settings but nothing I do triggers that. One thing I noticed is that with both cards and cables when connected in any combination the Airport card gets hot very quickly, which I find strange given it's allegedly not turned on.
Are there other settings that might be making the card invisable to my machine, it's possible this was a Corporate machine in an earlier life so I'm wondering if there's a low level setting that disables WiFi, although I'm sure I saw it come up the first time I used it but maybe my memory is playing triks.
I've also tried a USB WiFi dongle and that doesn't do anything either, but I think that could be a driver issue.
Other than the logic board I can't think of anything else to change, and I don't want to change that, so if anyone has ideas please let me know and put me out of my misery.
Thanks, Mark

Does anyone thing it's possible that installing the OS without the Airport card working has caused the system to completley ignore it even though it may now have a working card and cable, seems unlikely to me but really struggling to know where to look now.

Airport card for powerbook G4 12" Aluminum

I have a powerbook G4 12" aluminum and I have looked everywhere for an airport card. I have gotten two original airport cards and they did not fit,these cards are just a smidge too wide for the card slot. I know there is an apple card that will fit it because it had one installed at one point. I do recall a comment that there was a "small" airport card for the 12" aluminum but I have had no success in locating one. Can someone please help?

Yes, you could, but sometimes those people charge more than Apple does for its refurbished ones. And Apple's comes with a one-year warranty, while the eBay people usually don't, unless it's an eBay storefront seller. (Whatever they're called).
So, use your best judgment. Coming from me who buys things on eBay a lot, I'm not saying eBay is bad. But just comparing the two ($29 with a one-year warranty and straight from Apple, versus whatever price on eBay, same/higher/less than Apple's price, but possibly without warranty, etc., in this case, Apple would be the best bet).
The Apple Store (U.S.) - Refurbished AirPort Extreme Card
Message was edited by: Pismo 900
Just looked over at eBay and did a search for "Airport Extreme Card" and the prices for Buy It Now range from $24.00 to $40.00. Current bids for those that are bid-only range from $0.99 to $18.00. So $29 from Apple isn't bad at all. (I do not work for Apple, by the way).

Pin airport card to 802.11g

Is anyone aware of a way to lock an airport card to 802.11g?

Only if/when suitable third party USB Dongles and compatible drivers become available.
The internal cards differ and are not interchangable.

AirPort card not working ... mostly

This is one that has me a bit stumped. I have a G3 iBook with the original airport card installed. Yesterday, it stopped recognizing any wireless networks in the local area (I have one graphite ABS and one AirPort Express, plus there are one or two other wireless network around here I can normally at least see). My other portable (PowerBook G4 12") sees all these networks fine. I re-seated the card in the iBook, to no avail. I assumed it had conked out and started researching replacement cards (quite spendy, as you probably know).
Just today, my iBook started recognizing wireless nets again ... briefly. For about five or ten minutes, I saw a few networks and actually was able to access the WAN. After then, though, it's back to not working at all. Has this happened to anyone? Was it the last, final gasp of my venerable airport card? Or if this has happened to you, did you find that it was another problem entirely?
Thanks for any help.
iBook G3 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Appelfan,
I had gotten frustrated with the random behavior and posted a question about the possibility of an USB dongle wireless solution for the Mac. Duane answered me and gave me a very helpful suggestion - that I consider Ethernet Wireless Adapters, and even mentioned a couple of brands - just in case you may consider that route. I have copied his responses to me, below:
Thank you,
Gino
Duane
Re: Is there a USB Wireless Dongle or card for a Mac?
Posted: Mar 24, 2006 5:33 PM in response to: Gino La Pointe
An alternative to USB wireless adapters is Ethernet wireless adapters. Those require no drivers and therefore will work with any Ethernet device regardless of OS.
Duane
Re: Is there a USB Wireless Dongle or card for a Mac?
Posted: Mar 25, 2006 11:14 AM in response to: Gino La Pointe
Examples of Ethernet wireless adapters are the Linksys WET11 and Linksys WET54G. There are many more.

Upgrading OSX to 10.4, adding airport card basics...

Hi All,
Just wanted to make sure I had this right before I hunted down a purchase of 10.4. for my iMac G4 FP. It has 512 of ram.
I can go from my current 10.2.8 on it to 10.4 (skipping 10.3) or even 10.5 although I've read that 10.4 seems to run better on the FPimac? I need only find 10.4 DVD software? I am not sure of all the 10.4 iterations out there like updates versus full package etc..,
I can add a wireless airport card although they are hard to find and about $80.00?
Can anyone suggest a reputable seller for these 2 items?
Thanks,
Al

First identify which Flat Panel iMac you have:
http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n301724
If it is pre-1 Ghz, you need the original airport card from one of these vendors:
http://www.macwireless.com/html/products/wirelesscards/11g_11bcards/airportcard.php
http://www.a1acomputing.com/usorapaicam7.html
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Apple/M7600LLE/
If it is 1 Ghz or higher you can buy in the in store Airport Extreme card.
As for Tiger:
http://www.allmac.com/shop/productinfo.php?productsid=6899
Sometimes you can also call the Apple Store direct and ask for it by asking for their legacy software store.

WiFry + Macbook pro... circumventing the internal airport card?

Hi,
I'm trying to build an external WiFi parabolic antenna to extend the range of my MacBook pro (antenna as pictured here: http://www.instructables.com/id/EC0S9C3F0HPZCGN/)
Anyways, its a pretty simple construction, but I don't know how to get my laptp to use it. I need to figure out how to get my macbook pro to recognize and use a generic WiFi-G USB dongle as opposed to the internal airport card.
Is it possible that my USB dongle just isn't compatible with macs, and if so is there a specific usb wifi dongle you can recommend?
I would really love to get this working!
Thanks

Deepinside,
Are you trying to configure this with the dongle connected?
If a suitable driver is present, the dongle should be recognized when it is plugged in and powered. If it is not being recognized, you will need drivers.
My guess is that the only resident 802.11x drivers are those for the built-in interface, and any third-party devices must come with their own drivers. Also, some devices are more compatible than others; depends on the device and manufacturer.
I have been able to find one USB dongle listing on CompUSA that indicates that OS X drivers are available for download. It's not that OS X will not look for network connections via USB; it will. In fact, I use my mobile phone as a broadband modem via USB, and OS X doesn't care how the network connection is made (whether it's WiFi, WiMax, DUN, Ethernet, etc.). When I first configured my phone for use as a data modem, all I had to do was plug it in for it, and the network port, to be recognized.
It should be the same for you, provided you are using the right device, with the right drivers.
Scott

Creating a wireless connection on a Mac Pro with no airport card.

Hello
Forgive me if this has already been discussed but I am looking at all options to add wireless function to a mac pro with OS10.4 that does not currently have an airport card installed. My options so far are to either purchase a airport card, purchase a USB wireless dongle i.e.: D-Link DWA-140 (for which I am having trouble finding something that is compatible) or possibly using a airport express. The objective is to use it for presentations for lectures as I am using keynote and would very much like to use the keynote remote from my iPod touch (later with a iPad) so I can control my presentation wirelessly.
My question is this, will I be able to use an airport express, connect it via ethernet to the mac pro and create the wireless connection with my iPod touch? Will I require a wireless router? Or can anyone suggest an easy way to wireless control a keynote presentation with a non wireless mac.
Thank you so much.
Dave

This is not an exact answer to your question, but we had cable installed today (Virgin Media, UK) and the router is too far for my MacPro tower to connect. The engineer gave me a wireless dongle (the D-Link DWA-140) and said it would do the trick. After a few hours of searching online, I cannot make the dongle connect to the router, so I would recommend that you avoid this option for a MacPro. It may be possible to connect it but I'm certainly not finding it straightforward.

Airport Card no longer recognized by PowerBook

I always take my PowerBook G4 to class with me for the purpose of taking notes during class. I was connected to the internet there, over the wireless network (on campus) with no problem.
When I got back home, my PowerBook wasn't seeing the wireless network (at home, seperate from the wireless network on campus), but I knew it was working because my iMac is connected to it just fine, along with two other computers in my house. I tried restarting a couple of times, and actually typing the name of the network into the Airport drop-down menu. This all did nothing, as did repairing the disk permissions.
I find it very unlikely that the card is not seated correctly, because first of all, when I brought the PowerBook back from campus (when it was working properly) it was tranported in my TUMI bag, which has a dedicated padded holder for PowerBooks, and then immediately took it out and sat it on my desk next to my iMac only to find the PowerBook no longer seeing the wireless signal.
And at this point, I could still turn Airport on and off, and I restarted the computer a couple of times to see if it would pick up the signal, all the while Airport was still recognized by the system (I could still turn it off and on from the drop-down menu, but no wireless networks were present).
So, I popped in my OS X DVD to boot from it to use the Repair Disk feature. It came up with an error that said something to the tune of "incorrect number of threads." It repaired the disk without any probems, or so I thought (and so it thought).
Now, the computer wouldl not function because it runs into a kernal panic, forcing me to hard shut-down the computer. It happened everytime, sometimes during startup, sometimes not until I got into OS X, but always soon after the OS starts.
I then booted the computer as a "Safe boot" and this seemed to stop the kernal panics, and I shut down the computer and started it again with no panics. There was no longer any recognition of the Airport card, either. Not even through the Airport Setup Assistant. It keeps telling me there is no card installed.
I have tried two seperate cards, as I thought maybe the one went bad, but nothing came of this. I tried zapping the PRAM, booting into Open Firmware to reset to defaults, all leading to nothing. I even went so far as to completely erase the drive and do a clean install of OS X, which now drops my system down to 10.4. NOTHING.
Please, anyone willing to help that would be great, even if you would like to contact me through iChat and we can discuss this over iSight to get to the root of the problem. Screen name is CoreyAtMiamiU.
Sorry about the long post and thanks for taking the time to read it.

This is a user to user discussion area. So it is unpredictable as to when someone with a suggestion will respond to your post. An hour in the middle of a work day isn't a long time.
Since the card is recognized, there isn't anything wrong with that side of the card. If the card isn't receiving a signal, either the RF side of the card has failed, the antenna wire isn't connected properly, or the antenna in the PowerBook has failed.

What is needed to network 2 computers using Airport card

I know I need an airport card in my eMac, but is there any other cards that have to be in the computer? I want to network my eMac with an iMac using a DSL line. The eMac will be downstairs and the iMac will be upstairs. I'm waiting for delivery from Apple of the iMac. It has everything built in that is needed to network but my eMac doesn't. To make my eMac wireless is all I have to buy is an Airport Card and a Wireless Gateway for the iMac which is the computer connected to the DSL modem and Wireless USB adapter with connects to the eMac? What type of Airport Card do I need to buy for my eMac (model #'s etc.) It is the card that inserts above the super drive in the front of the computer. Is there any software that is needed to install Airport?

I am also doing some configuration changes (we have one Imac and two eMac's)
but one eMac does not have a airport card and is hardwired (ethernet) to the high speed cable modem then a apple airport. One Imac and the Emac with a airport card work fine, it is a bit tricky finding the correct airport card (or airport extreme card if you have a ATI graphics card (use about the mac/system profiler then click on more to see if you have a graphics card (which affects which airport card you need, there are alot of resellers on the net so you should find what you want.
If in doubt there is a free program mactracker which provides data on every mac made (available off off versiontracker.com (free site just register) it will guide
you on the type of card needed. I was quite amazed at the amount of different spec eMac's made in their relativealy short history.
Macwireless.com does sell eMac cards (for two models) but also antenna type
or flash drive appearing USB based wireless connectors that may help.
I found the mactracker program helpful (alot) as alot of web sites provide some vague info and I would hate to se you get stuck with a non returnable card.
The actual card install does not look hard (its done through the cd rom drive door.
I am not sure why we did not get a airport card for ours when we bought it.
Wish I did as it would have saved some $ (maybe) and surf time making sure I find the right one.
We did have a antenna wireless antenna for a "green" Imac (long gone) and it ran on OS9 but it was finicky when we had the airport base station upstairs
and the Imac and antenna in the basement (about 50-75 feet)
Best of luck
Hope this helps, I am not a expert, the serial number on the cd drawer will
nail down the model you have and what you need.
We have been working adding a laser printer and airport express and the two macs with cards work fine but the Emac with no card can not be set up yet. The laser printer will sure save on ink!

Airport card works in 10.1, HW test passes, but not detected at all in 10.4

Ok, Hi. I'll first admit this is my first post so go easy on me!
I just bought a used iBook G3 and it was working fine for a while until about a month ago when all kinds of weird things stared happening. Some of which those problems I solved from reading previous topics from these forums - but anyways, I'll skip all my other problems and get right to my current one.
First off here is the complete specs:
12.1" iBook G3 "dual USB series"
500MHz PPC processor
128+256MB ram = 384MB RAM
15GB hard drive (NOW 160GB HARD DRIVE!)
No Airport Card (NOW ONE HAS BEEN ADDED!)
Multiple OS's - OS9 and 10.1 were included (have original disks)
I also have a set of 10.4 Tiger CD-ROM disks
Anyways, here is basically what is happening. I bought an Airport card off eBay for my iBook. I installed it about a week ago. I booted into 10.4 Tiger and it did not detect the card. Tried to do the manual setup with the wizard and it said there was no card attached. I went into the system profiler and is said No info available under the airport section. I then booted to my "apple hardware test disk" and ran the full/extended test. It passed everything (including the Airport card) so I know that is not the problem. I then booted into OS X 10.1 and lone behold the card is detected and is working without any fooling around with! Instant wireless internet! So I know that the card is working, but I want to use it in Tiger as 10.1 is almost worthless. So I boot into Tiger again knowing that the card is working, and Tiger still does not recognize it! I even booted into OS 9 and it detected the card (although it was having some connection problems, but at least I know that it IS detecting it.)
Here is what I tried (so you can cross these suggestions off your list! lol)
I've deleted the Airport "ktext" files, etc. (can't remember the actual names of the files, but I've cleared all of those caches and still no luck.)
I've zapped PRAM
I rest NVRAM
I rest the PMU.
I did a Arcive and install of 10.4
...All of which did not help. Again, the card worked in 10.1, but 10.4 is completely blind and can't find it!
Now we are caught up to today. I was having many other odd problems and it all lead to my hard drive probably being bad. So toady I finally bit the bullet and bought a new hard drive from Best Buy. It took me forever to install it, but I did it, and it works! Now I have 160GB (make that only 128GB detected) of space. I partitioned it 4 ways as well:
"Tiger" - 80GB
"Other OS" - 30GB
"Extra Space 1" - 10GB
"Extra Space 2" - 8GB
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx- 128GB Total
So now that I have a new hard drive (that I was told would fix all of my problems because my old one was "bad" I thought I would have it working today, but no. So I put in the brand new drive, partitioned it, booted off my Tiger disk, installed it on the 80GB partition. The install went fine. So I now have 10.4 on the new drive. Seems to be a lot faster then my old drive! I did the combo updater (which I downloaded on my iMac and transfered to a flash drive and loaded on to my iBook) Ran the updater, and now it is running 10.4.11! But then I realized, the Airport card is STILL not detected in Tiger!!! - I thought the new hard drive would solve all my problems as I was staring from scratch, but no, there is still a problem!
I ran the Apple hardware test disk again, full test, and it said my Airport card is still fine. I didn't reinstall 10.1 yet (nor did I want to, I was hoping Tiger would work for what I wanted) but it seems now that I might have to go back and install 10.1 again. I don't know what it will prove - other then it will work again, but I don't want to use 10.1 so I'm not going to bother doing all that again.
Anyways, after looking into this further, I brought up the system boot log (of tiger) and found these lines interesting, and hopefully useful to you guys:
localhost kernel[0]: AirPortFirmware: start Sta f/w download
localhost kernel[0]: AirPortDriver: F/W download failed
localhost kernel[0]: AirPortFirmware: start Sta f/w download
localhost DirectoryService[64]: Lunched version 1.8 (v346)
localhost kernel[0]: AirPortDriver: F/W download failed
it then lists the eithernet address and then ramblers on about other nonsense. If anyone needs the other "stuff" i'll try and save the whole log file and attach it here if anyone needs it.
So could anyone please help? It seems as if i've done everything, and still can not get an answer on why it is doing this, and how to fix it!
Please Help!
Thanks you so much, and sorry for the long yet detailed message!!!
-Scott

Hey, just wanted to post an update to let everyone know what I ended up doing.
Bottom line with the airport card I had is that is was "bad" - well only kind of. I got an email from a guy from a local PC repair shop. He told me he had just gotten one of those cards in and had it for sale for only $25. So I was chatting with this guy and he said it would be alright if I brought my iBook right in his shop, swap the cards and try it before I buy it. So I did so. Very nice guy and we swapped out the cards no problem. Right away it recognized his card and worked! I then downloaded the Airport update and ran it. (remember before, when I tried to update my card, after it restarted it was no longer recognized.) So we did the update with HIS card in and after it restarted, it STILL worked! It also added WPA support as well! We then booted into to Tiger (remember the old card wasn't recognized at all in tiger) and it ALSO worked in Tiger! I also had WPA support right away! So I bought the card and was all happy that it was all working again! I then figured out what the problem was with the old one.
My original card was one of the "original" originals. Then, Apple "changed" the original cards and replaced ones with "128bit" support. (this is all before the extreme cards) I then found out that the newer original cards (the one the guy just sold me) are worth MORE because these are the cards that are compatible with the newer update (128bit WEP, and WPA) The cards looked exactly the same, but the newer card has "128 Bit" printed on the bottom of the card.
SO, it ended up, I was "asking too much" out of the card I had - as the card I had did not support what I was trying for it to do. Where as the newer card I bought IS compatible with the update, and worked like a piece of cake. So all in all, the first card I had isn't "dead" it just wasn't working with what I wanted it to. So I'm going to end up selling it. Hopefully craigslist, but I will get more for it on eBay. so that is what I'm going to do. I'll just make sure to tell people this "story" so they don't try and do the same thing I did. But for someone with an even older laptop, an older OS, or an older router, this card will work just fine for them.
So thats basically it! Looks like I got everything working!
-Scott
Message was edited by: sdschramm

Airport card and memory

hi im looking into puttin an airport card in to my mac g4 the lamp desktop and was wondering if i need extra memory and what osx it would run on
hope someone ca

Hello Aldric, welcome to discussions.
It's quite suspicious that your Airport card and one of your memory modules have suddenly "disappeared" at the same time.
This could certainly indicate a hardware issue, but I won't speculate as to what caused it. Sure, a power surge could do this... have you had one recently?
I would try taking the memory module, and the airport card out of your system, and then re-install them.
If your situation does not improve, then you should probably take your machine to an authorized Apple service center.

Airport Card versus Dongle?

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