Help... Trying to use 802.11g on Powerbook 15" Titanium...

Originally posted by HollandX
Hi everyone! This is my first post, as you can probably tell... I bet this has been discussed here before, but I've tried using search for 30 minutes, and could not find any threads that answer my question... And this is the first time Google has failed me.

Long story short. I'm trying to update my Titanium PB 15" to 802.11g to take advantage of the new Apple Airport update whereby 3rd party wireless cards are now 'supported.' I have the Airport Extreme basestation, and everything works wirelessly wonderful with the internal airport card the laptop came with.

In upgrading, I bought the Netgear WG511 802.11g pci card... Plugged it in and got no lights on the card. Not even the mean red one.

I don't even know if I have to disable my current Airport card. But nothing works now.

I don't know what software I need to download, if any, as the Netgear website is more than useless.

I've searched on this site, Apple, and Google for hours to no avail, and am VERY frustrated.

Perhaps I bought a 3rd party card that is not compatible with Jaguar (which I'm running), and if so, which one should I buy...

...and then when I buy the correct one, how the heck do I install it?

...but if this IS a compatible card, again, how the heck do I install it?

Thank you so much. If anybody could help me, I would be so grateful. I have been at this for hours and am very frustrated.

Hopefully my question will also answer the questions of others.

Again, thank you so much for you help in advance.

Take care,

Mark

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Originally posted by tjwett
It's got nothing to do with your card. The problem is that the 15" TiBook does not support Airport Extreme, 802.11g. Sorry to break the news to ya. Try and return that stuff, or buy a new PowerBook.

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Originally posted by vniow
Errrm...the Powerbook does have a PC Card slot ya know and since the release of Airport 3.1 many do not require drivers in order to work.

HollandX: make sure you have Airport 3.1 installed, other than that I don't know how to help you.

A link that may be of some intrest though:

http://www.lowendmac.com/musings/03/0122.html

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Originally posted by tjwett
yeah but i was under the impression that the TiBook itself, hardware and all, didn't support AE. forgive me if i'm totally wrong.

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Originally posted by ima_pseudonym
When Apple says that the Tibook does not support AE, they mean that there is no way to use an apple AE card on tibook. The airport card slot uses a different connector and doesn't have enough bandwidth.

But, there are 802.11g pc cards. Those don't go in the airport card slot, but in the pc card slot. The tibook pc card slot can take those cards. The only issue is drivers. Supposedly, the most recent software update from apple will allow a tibook to recognize some (most/all?) third party pc cards.

So you are almost, but not quite, totally wrong https://forums.macrumors.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

(sorry I don't have any more info for the original poster about which pc cards are supported, or how to trouble shoot - though I might try removing the original airport card if it has one, it is quite possible that that card might keep the drivers from finding the pc card)

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Originally posted by tjwett
yeah but i was under the impression that the TiBook itself, hardware and all, didn't support AE. forgive me if i'm totally wrong.

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Originally posted by ima_pseudonym
When Apple says that the Tibook does not support AE, they mean that there is no way to use an apple AE card on tibook. The airport card slot uses a different connector and doesn't have enough bandwidth.

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Originally posted by mactastic
Shoot. I've been wondering about the whole bandwidth issue with original airport versus AE, I hadn't been able to find anything that would tell me if it would ever be technically possible to revamp an older airport enabled mac to take a "g" card. I guess this means it won't. Oh well, I suppose I don't need the extra speed, but I was hoping someone would be able to make a card that would run at "g" speed and have bluetooth built in too. I need my PCMCIA slot for downloading photos too often to want to switch cards, so thats out. Oh well.

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