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Alternative to AirPort on iBook G4?

J

Jamiet361

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 20, 2013
67
48
Leeds, UK
Hey guys, picked up a nice 800mhz iBook G4 for £20 last week, which I have since maxed out the RAM and upgraded the 10 years old failing hard drive :rolleyes:.

Anyway, I've also got an AirPort extreme card but inserting it causes the laptop to make a boot chime, but nothing more; no display, no spinning hard drive etc. My guess is that the AirPort socket is probably dead and is causing some kind of short circuit on the logic board.

So, are there any alternatives to get WiFi on this old G4? Perhaps a USB device known to work?

I'm running 10.5.8 Leopard if it helps!

Thanks!
 
Zotaccian

Zotaccian

macrumors 6502a
Apr 25, 2012
645
7
I have used Tenda W311u, it works with 10.5.8. Common thing is the horrible management software many of these USB WiFi dongles need, looks cr*p and pops up on every boot.... But works.
 
SkyBell

SkyBell

macrumors 604
Sep 7, 2006
6,603
219
Texas, unfortunately.
Agreed with the poster above, I have used cheap USB dongles bought off eBay with my iBooks and eMac, and they do (generally) work. However, it has been quite a while since I have bought one - I'm not sure how easy it would be to find one that still supports PowerPC these days.
 
jrsx

jrsx

macrumors 65816
Nov 2, 2013
1,057
18
Tacoma, Washington
Many of the iBook G4 models before 2005 had an airport issue that shut off the computer on bootup, but the problem was actually within the motherboard. It was a flawed design. However simply removing the airport card fixes the issue. A USB dongle can be picked up pretty cheap, $3-$5, and is better than constant crashing!
 
J

Jamiet361

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 20, 2013
67
48
Leeds, UK
Thanks for the help guys! I ended up buying a USB dongle. The software is pretty clunky, but it does the job and supports 802.11n, so thats always a plus!
 
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