I have an imac g4 purchased Dec 2003 runnung OS 10.5.8. It runs fine with airport off, but when I turn airport on it freezes with the black page, "restart by holding power key . . ." I swapped the airport extreme card with the one in my ibook G4 (purch

Question

i have an imac g4 purchased Dec 2003 runnung OS 10.5.8.  It runs fine with airport off, but when I turn airport on it freezes with the black page,  "restart by holding power key . . ."  I swapped the airport extreme card with the one in my ibook G4 (purchased same date and running same OS).  No change in operation.
I am running wifi from verizon.  Recently changed from mifi2200 to jetpak 4620 in a 3G location.  Ibook running fine, desktop freezes.  If I can boot desktop in safe mode and get airport turned off in time. then I can reboot regularly and imac runs flawlessly with no wireless.Have run disk utilities and TechTool Pro rebuild etc, but nothing has worked.  How do I fine the culprit?

Answer 1

the power logix thing was really sad. apple changed so much after 10.4.8 that there wasn't a viable way to patch the software.
That statement is precisely why I don't believe in blindly updating the OS, especially in a non-standard machine.
We can't expect third parties to support us forever, and it is shameful to break something that works fine, except that we updated the OS....
I think that any upgrade or modification to a machine or the OS greatly increases the risk of trouble or incompatibility with current configuration and "new" system files.
After all, the component or software could only be tested as far as the current OS version when the component or software was released.
Beyond that, we are all "beta testing".
Following a beta tester protocol, and applying updates to a cloned system drive first, is a prudent way to approach updates, and not only for older, heavily modified machines.
After 10.4.8 and moreso with Leopard, the focus is primarily on Intel architecture, not PPC architecture.
Like it or not, we are all updating to the abyss of the extinction of our machines, unless we can be satisfied with the last stable version of OS that works well with our hardware and software.
I wish they would include the latest pkgs at least with software update.
Yes, having individual packages, rather than lump "OS X 10.x.x" updates would be nice.
This way, one could update as one sees fit. That is to say, for example, fix the Quicktime, but leave my Network alone, etc., etc.
In all fairness, Apple does provide for some breakdown of updates, but I believe there is much room for improvement, especially, as you point out, with regard to the core services portion of the OS.
Until then, I'll leave Software Update disabled.......