Panther - Airport card disappeared

1. Recently we installed a new iMac on our home net using the same wireless modem we were using for our Emac. . After it was done, our old Emac which worked perfectly up til then cannot join the netwrork. It says there is no airport card. If you go to network it shows airport is off, you cannot turn it on. Anyone have an idea what might have happened to cause eMac to lose the airport card? Threads in discussions on airport have suggested zapping the PRAM but my understanding is that in Panther the Network settings were not stored in the PRAM.
2. Can OSX Leopard beinstalled on a old (2002) Emac? Would installing the new system possibly revive the airport card?

Alas, the current AirPort Extreme cards are unsuitable.
If you're confident, you may want to check to see if the AirPort card currently installed has become dislodged, there's no reason, other than a drop (or someone removing the card) that it would stop working.
Otherwise you have three choices,
- live with an Ethernet connection, but this might not be possible.
- an original AirPort card, from somewhere like eBay. They used to cost a fortune, more than the value of the eMac, but they're reasonable now.
- a wireless router, that supports WDS (wireless distribution system), or wireless bridging in particular (which is a subset of WDS). And preferably a wireless 'n' model over a wireless 'g' version.
You would then connect this by a short length of Ethernet cable (probably come in the box with the wireless router) and configure it to operate as a wireless bridge. This would mean the eMac would use its Ethernet connection to communicate with the WDS wireless router, which would then communicate wirelessly with whatever wireless you are trying to connect to with the original AirPort.
A second hand original AirPort card might set you back $30-$60, a WDS wireless router (from new) might be $70-$120. The AirPort Express is a $99 WDS wireless router, BUT it has a minimum OS requirement to configure it, OSX 10.4. Most manufacturers make WDS wireless routers, Netgear, Linksys, Belkin and Zyxel are adequate.
If you go for the AirPort Express (or Time Capsule which offers similar functionality but more demanding OS requirement) it has first rate instructions available on the Apple site. No matter which (if any) model you get, there would be adequate instructions once you understand that you are setting up the router as a "remote" WDS (other choices are "main" or "relay").
AirPort Express main page is here:
http://www.apple.com/support/airport/
You may want the designing networks manual here (the link is on the page above):
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/DesigningAirPort_Networks10.5-Windows.pdf
In particular, the WDS setup section starting at page 42, with the exact step-by-step details on page 44 - called "To set up additional remote devices".
But here's hoping that you find either the card loose or the wireless antenna (thin black cable with screw in connector to attach to the card) loose when you open the eMac and check it. All you need is a Philips screwdriver and the manual:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2596
Let us know what you find.

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Airport card disappears in OS9?

Hello all
I just acquired a G4 cube. It has 640MB RAM (more is on order) and a stock 16MB video card (got a new one on the way...) and the Airport card. I just did a clean install of OS 9, and updated to 9.2.2. The entire system, including the Airport card works flawlessly under Tiger (I'm using it to type this message), but the Airport card disappears in OS 9. On initial boot in OS 9, the Airport card will show up, with four "bars" of signal in the control strip, showing it is connected to my home network (which is temporarily secured with WEP, so it will play nice with OS 9 - I've also tried it with an unsecured network). However, whenever I try to actually use the network (software update, web browsing, whatever), the bars go blank, then the Airport icon greys out and disappears. I click on it and get the message "there is no Airport card installed". Occasionally, it gives me a number "3278" and nothing else.
I don't know if this is related, but OS 9 feels a LOT slower than it should on this G4. Tiger runs a lot smoother and faster, yet there is considerable mouse lag when dragging the pointer across the screen, and a definite lag when opening applications or documents in OS 9.
Any ideas on why I can see my Airport card in X and not in OS 9?
thanks,
Rich

OK, more weirdness...
Before I received our last message, I got a strange error - I came back to the computer and there was an error box saying something like "This computer can not go to sleep because it is missing some of the system software. Please reinstall the system software.". Gulp! Sounds like a corrupted OS install...so, I wiped the drive. I repartitioned it (120GB WD drive - 4096MB for OS 9, the rest for X) and formatted it using the OS 9 disk utility software. I then booted from the "Software Install" disk and let 'er rip. I wound up with an OS 9.1 partition...and...all of the original Airport card problems were back!!! I tried to put the machine to sleep, and got the above error again.
So I reformatted again, and this time used the "PowerMac G4 Cube System Restore" disk, which reset everything to factory defaults from a disk image. Again....no Airport, and no sleeping due to "missing system software". What in the name of the Force is going on here...?
I am now running extended Apple Hardware Tests and will report back.
Of course, everything works perfectly in OS X, so I'll probably just let it live in Tiger land...but this is seriously challenging my Mac geek cred...LOL
And just a side note - OS 9 installs SO much more quickly than X! I've been able to completely reinstall twice now in rather little time!
Rich

Airport Card "disappeared"

I've been using wireless on my Powerbook G4 very happily for months and months, when suddenly, the airport indicator just disappeared one day from the top menu. When I try to figure out what is going on by looking at my settings, it says I have no airport card installed! Not sure what happened and have no idea what to do.

Oh, and the failing to boot thing. Have you tried reseating the AirPort card? Here are some instructions on how to install a card. They can be used to figure out how to access the card to make sure it's in securely.

Airport Card Disappeared After Turning Airport Off

I successfully used my MacBook Pro to connect wirelessly to the 'net for 2 hours, then turned Airport off for security purposes. I came home and tried several times -- unsuccessfully -- to turn Airport back on (to use my home Airport Express.) The wireless transmitter was functioning, as established by a successful connection by my iPhone. I rebooted and attempted to turn it on several times -- no joy. I tried removing /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist and restarting, and the menubar icon (and About This Mac - More Info) claim that no Airport Card is installed. It seems unlikely that the card would die just because I turned it off. Any ideas?

What Mac are you referring to? (Part of your info at the bottom should at least say what model). Turning it off for security purposes? In any case check System Profiler>Network>Airport Card and see if it shows up there. You might want to post in your Mac model specific forum area.

Airport Card Disappears (since 10.4.9 update)

Ever since the 10.4.9 update, my airport card sometimes won't show up as installed on my PB 17". Sometimes Restarting fixes this, or a complete shutdown is needed. Sometimes that doesn't seem to help.
I had reinstalled the COMBO updater version of 10.4.9 to compensate for problems with the delta updater, and that fixed the problem. Once.
Have run AppleJack, Repair Permissions, but for some reason the card won't show up (I've run system profiler -- and under AirPort card it just says "no information found".
Anyone else seen this problem, or have suggestions?

Here's what I've found:
Coincidentally, I had just purchased a new copy of DiskWarrior 4.0, which arrived yesterday. I ran the "Repair Disk Permissions" and "Check All Files and Folders" scan, which found two damaged plist files in my system preferences -- completely unrelated to Airport. One was a com.apple file but seemed to be two years since last modification and related to europe. I manually deleted the damaged .plist files.
Upon restarting -- AIRPORT CARD WAS SUDDENLY BACK! (and worked).
And it worked -- except for this constant problem since 10.4.9 of forgetting about the "preferred network" list and not connecting to my recent network.
So was it:
1) Repair Disk Permissions? I had already run Apple's Disk Utility and repaired permissions, as well as AppleJack, PRIOR to DiskWarrior.
2) Deleting the damaged .plist files?
3) Just coincidence, and the card inside the Powerbook that has been loose became reseated?
Unknown. Maybe other users with similar problems will opine.
Stephen

My airport card disappeared?

Was at the pub, got a strange IP error message, started looking at the settings, stopped, went home, checked the numbers, internet w a hardline works fine, when I open up airport setup assistant it says there's no card and won't let me turn it on.

Internet Connect is a Tiger thing, sig. Brockman is using Leopard.
The same functions are now found in "System preferences / Network" in Leopard.
So Pacifist won't be any use here.
First step is to head to System Preferences / Network and see what the airport settings are.
Cheers
Rod
Message was edited by: Rod Hagen

AirPort card has disappeared how to recover on mac os x 10.5.5

Hi all,
suddenly my Airport card has disappeared.... how can I get it back? I tried to restart the mac with opt command R-P but nothing... can some one please help this desperate mac user?? thank you so much.

In addition to running Hardware Test as suggested by Jolly Giant, have you tried reinstalling the 10.5.5 combo update?
As a side issue, is there a particular reason that you have not upgraded to 10.5.8? This might be a good time to do so.

Airport extreme card disappeared!

I've struggled with using my Macbook Pro's airport for a while, and I finally got it to a maintain a steady signal for about two weeks. Then, today when I came home and turned on my MBP, there was no icon for the Airport card at the top. I looked in Preferences/Network to manually turn it on, and found this disturbing message: "No Airport Hardware Found." After that, I looked in "About this Mac" and found the same info. Anyone run into anything like this before?

There is an interesting discussion on this problem found at:
http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-173155.html
It seemed the best solution was to reset your Mac's NVRAM - see the instructions at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42642

Panther Pismo can't detect airport card

Hi, I just bought a used Pismo on eBay running 10.3.9. I plugged in the airport card I'd been using in my iMac and the Pismo can't see it, not even in the system profiler. I ran a search under "airport" and I can't find any software installed with that name. What do I need to do? Will the Pismo see the card even if there's no airport software installed? Any other ideas?
Thanks!
-Ian

Ian,
You could try downloading all the AirPort software you need:
http://www.apple.com/airport/
Or reformatting the disk and reinstalling everything you'll need. Highly recommended as you have no idea what is installed, keyloggers and all.
Is the AirPort card in the AirPort card slot, or is it in the PCMCIA card slot ?

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.

Kernel panic / Internet access with a bad AirPort card

My iBook G4 started suffering kernel panics just over a week ago. They have rapidly increased in frequency to the extent that it can take several attempts to boot up because they have started occurring during the boot up process (originally they occurred after the iBook had been on for a while).
I've looked through the forum and have seen that there seem to be some common causes -RAM, AirPort card, or something to do with the HD. I ran disk utility on the HD and it didn't find any problems and I also successfully ran the 'repair disk permissions'. I have tried taking out the RAM -that didn't do anything. The kernel panic does frequently occur when I am either using Mail or Safari, but as I've said, it also occurs when I'm booting up -does the fact that it happens when I boot up mean that it cannot be the AirPort card (which incidentally is not under the keyboard -so it must be inside)?
Earlier today I switched off AirPort and was able to work on the computer for almost three hours without any kernel panic (but also without internet access). Less than a minute after switching it back on, it froze again.
If this does mean that the problem is with the AirPort card, I have a question about internet access. I use the iBook on a wireless network that stems from a modem with a Mac downstairs and I do not have any internet cables, or a phone line, in the room where the iBook is used. Is it possible to use something like AirPort Express even with a bad AirPort card? And does AirPort Express connect to the iBook, or to the main modem downstairs?
Apologies for so many questions and many thanks for any help you are able to give -this has been driving me around the bend for the past week?

Update:
An acquaintance who works for Apple suggested that before assuming that the problem was the AirPort card / buying further equipment, I should boot up with the original installation disk in and use the disk utility function to 'repair disk'. I did that and got a 'Volume Header needs minor repair' message. It repaired that & I restarted the iBook. I was able to do an update back-up to my external hard drive & all was fine until I switched AirPort back on -there was an instant kernel panic.
I figured that it couldn't hurt to run the Apple Hardware Test -did that and restarted again. Was able to open Mail (AirPort was on) but then the AirPort connection disappeared and the pointer froze, but there was no kernel panic screen. I had to force quit -restarted again. This time I was able to use Mail, downloaded a song on iTunes, and was on the internet for about 45mins before the connection disappeared and the pointer froze again. I could force quit the app but with a frozen pointer I ended up having to force quit again.
I waited a while and then booted up again (without problem) but this time I was told that there was no Airport card present! Shut down and reran the Hardware Test (which said that AirPort 'Passed'). When I restarted AirPort was briefly there but disappeared when I opened AirPort Utility and at this point the pointer also froze. I did force quit to get out of the app and then there was a kernel panic. Is this now pretty conclusive that the AirPort card is the problem?
I would appreciate any feedback -I've had a very frustrating week with this.
Thanks.

Airport card is not recognized by G3 iMac

I recently acquired a G3 600 MHz iMac, running OS X 10.4.11, and I want to join the iMac to my wireless network. So I purchased an Airport card ( tested card on a ibook running 10.4.11 and it works fine.) and seated it in the G3 iMac. For some reason the iMac does not recognize it one bit. I checked profiler and System Preferences and no sign of an Airport Card. I then opened the iMac and reseated the card, I even changed out the adapter with another adapter I had. After researching online, some people suggested an archival OS restore. Although I would try that but unfortunately I do not have any of the original install disks. So my question is: does anyone know how I can make the os recognize the card?
Greatly appreciate the help.

There are two versions of the original AirPort card, and their identify can be determined using the information below.
The poster you replied to may be referring to this post quoted below, though even if he had the initially issued card, it would not explain why the card is not recognized. Though incapable of supporting advanced security, it would otherwise be recognized and operate as expected if seated properly, as you have described.
The original AirPort card was equivalent to a WaveLAN Silver card, and supported only 40-bit WEP or 64-bit encryption, and did not support WPA.
The original AirPort Base Station which shipped with these cards on board was limited to 10 clients, had only a 10BbaseT LAN port, and supported only 40-bit WEP. Later cards which looked physically identical, supported 104 bit WEP, or 128-bit encryption, as did the AirPort Base Stations which included them. This second card, also manufactured initially in the Netherlands for Apple by AT&T's Lucent unit—later know as ORiNOCO—was equivalent to the WaveLAN Gold card.
The 661-2219 part number is distinguished by the M7600LL/* marketing designator screened on the label, as well as engineering revision part number 825-4889 and worldwide procurement part number 630-2883. EEE code G3G is embedded right-most in the last four characters of each part's serial number. *This character is typically A, B or C.
The 661-2569, on the other hand, is distinguished by an M7600LL/D or later marketing designator, engineering revision part number 825-5620, the same worldwide procurement part number 630-2883 and typically the phrase '128 bits' along the lower center of the label. EEE codes LH8, M6Y or QAC are embedded right-most in the last four characters of each part's serial number.
While a procurement number generally changes when a service part number change is made, this product did not, as Lucent remained its sole supplier, the 'change' to the card involved different firmware and not a physical change to the product, and Apple personnel largely considered them equivalent, though they were and are not.
Graphite AirPort base station models initially used the M7600LL/A, B or C cards, and was itself designated the M7601LL/A and later, the M7601LL/B. Both base stations were also designated as 661-2265 whole unit service replacement parts. Every card we've ever seen in a Graphite base station was a 661-2219 and was marked as described above.
Apple did not adequately document many of these parts and there applications at the time they were still in use, and all have disappeared from their inventory—except in limited cases—as has much of what existed for documentation. Given their personnel changes over the years, it's quite likely that no one there now can recall the subtle differences or properly identify these products. Once there are designated vintage, then obsolete, they drop quickly off of the radar.
While any properly functioning iMac compatible AirPort card properly mounted in a 076-0804 adapter would show up in the System Profiler without the antenna connected, the performance of such a card would be poor to abysmal.
I believe that you are completely correct when you indicate that either the adapter is not seated properly, that it is not working properly, or that the logic board is defective. The latter two scenarios are quite unlikely, though possible.

"No airport card is installed" when power adapter is not connected

Hi
I am getting the "No Airport Card is Installed' message whenever my Macbook Pro does not have the power adapter connected. When the power is connected everything works fine. If it is disconnected, the airport icon turns grey, airport disappears, and I can't turn on airport anymore.
Thanks

Hi, and welcome to Apple Discussions.
Are you using an original AirPort card and not an AirPort Extreme card? The AirPort Extreme card is not compatible with a G3 iBook and installation of an AirPort Extreme card can, in fact, damage the iBook's logic board beyond repair.
Are you following the installation instructions, as outlined in this Apple Knowledge Base article?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=111919

Airport Extreme disappears after waking from sleep.

Here is a strange one for the experts out there...
I recently purchased an Airport Extreme card for my G4 Powermac (FW800). It is the Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (4.170.25.8). It installs easy, and it works great. I can connect to my Airport Express with no problem, and to my 2009 MacBook.
The problem occurs after the computer goes to sleep. After I wake it (even if it's only after a minute), the Airport Icon disappears and the Spinning Beach Ball of Death appears over the title bar, and the dock. I can click on windows and move them, but not use them.
If I use the Special Menu and tell the computer to sleep I don't have any problems. I'm using the latest update for Leopard, but this happened with Tiger, too.
Any thoughts?

I had this problem just recently and seem to have fixed it today. I made the following changes:
I changed security from WPA2 to WPA using the Airport Admin Utility.
I went to the Network Preferences panel and found that the network was still listed as WPA2, so I deleted it.
I then added the WPA network to my preferred network list.
The computer now reconnects automatically after sleep or shutdown.
I don't know whether changing from WPA2 to WPA was necessary. It may be that all you need to do is delete and re-add the network.
Hope that helps!

Original Airport Card Firmware Update?

I have been trying to update the firmware on my airport original card. Even though I installed the 4.2 update via panther, I still found the firmware to be the same. Is this wrong? It says the airport card firmware is 8.7 something. I think the latest wpa compliant version for the airport original is 9. something. I can't seem to figure out why this didn't work. (P.S. I realize this is supposed to be for airport extreme cards, but I can't seem to find out where to post this.)

If you have installed all of the updates available in Software Update the firmware is up to date.
If your Mac has OS 10.3 or beyond, it has the ability to connect to a WPA protected network.

Panther - Airport card disappeared

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