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1.25 GHz G4 Mac Mini upgrading trials & tribulations

R

RolfBrauch

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 20, 2014
6
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After much research I was under the impression that one could upgrade a 1.25 Ghz MacMini (O/S 10.4.11) hard-drive and add a WI/FI card.

I sourced a 128 Gb IDE/PATA SSD drive and after reformatting the drive used CCC 3.4.7 to clone my existing 160 Gb 4,200 rpm drive. However, the beast refuses to boot from the new drive. Running the hardware test from the original install CD reports no problems. The odd thing is that I can't boot from the original install disk. It loads the CD and then the screen goes blank. This also happens when I put the old hard-drive back in.

I also sourced an original airport extreme board, and upgraded the airport utility to 5.3.2 - the card works but even when using a 13 character WEB password on my airport extreme router, it gets an error when joining my network. There are three other computers on the network working just fine.

It occurs to me that I would have been better off to buy a brand-new mini, but I'm now determined to make this thing work. Any solid suggestions would be appreciated. http://cdn.macrumors.com/vb/images/icons/icon7.gif
 
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RolfBrauch said:
After much research I was under the impression that one could upgrade a 1.25 Ghz MacMini (O/S 10.4.11) hard-drive and add a WI/FI card.

I sourced a 128 Gb IDE/PATA SSD drive and after reformatting the drive used CCC 3.4.7 to clone my existing 160 Gb 4,200 rpm drive. However, the beast refuses to boot from the new drive. Running the hardware test from the original install CD reports no problems. The odd thing is that I can't boot from the original install disk. It loads the CD and then the screen goes blank. This also happens when I put the old hard-drive back in.

I also sourced an original airport extreme board, and upgraded the airport utility to 5.3.2 - the card works but even when using a 13 character WEB password on my airport extreme router, it gets an error when joining my network. There are three other computers on the network working just fine.

It occurs to me that I would have been better off to buy a brand-new mini, but I'm now determined to make this thing work. Any solid suggestions would be appreciated. http://cdn.macrumors.com/vb/images/icons/icon7.gif
Click to expand...
PATA SSDs are known to be finicky. I don't know if there is a jumper setting or not?

As to your AE card, it could just be down to your network. The AE card does not do "N" speeds. It's A, B and G. So, if your router is set to "N" you won't be able to connect. You'll want to set the router to mixed mode.
 
Thank you for your response. However, my Apple Airport extreme is already set to mixed mode.
 
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Thank you for your response. I tried that too and it makes no difference. Just to make sure I had everything correct, I reinstalled the airport utility software on my Mini. Still logo. This is idiotically frustrating.
 
The Airport Utility does not, in any way, help you with an Airport Extreme card. It's only purpose is to provide an interface for configuring an Airport base station.
Your OS X system installed on the mini should provide everything that you need to get your mini connected to an already-existing wifi network.

It is possible that your card is no good.
You are using WPA or WPA2 encryption (and not WEP) for your wireless network, correct?
 
Thanks for the reply. I'm told that WEB is the only thing that will work, as this Mini was built before the other protocols were in use. Did not work with the other protocols — that's what started me hunting for a solution in the 1st place.
 
RolfBrauch said:
Thanks for the reply. I'm told that WEB is the only thing that will work, as this Mini was built before the other protocols were in use. Did not work with the other protocols — that's what started me hunting for a solution in the 1st place.
Click to expand...

You are using the generated key and not the passphrase right?
 
I'm not sure what you mean by 'generated phrase'. I'm using a password on the Airport router and my other computers all use it and it work fine.

The card also passes the hardware test, so I'm leaning towards some software misalignment of sorts. I just wish that Apple would identify what the problem is, other than saying there is a problem. I already know that much.
 
RolfBrauch said:
I'm not sure what you mean by 'generated phrase'. I'm using a password on the Airport router and my other computers all use it and it work fine.



The card also passes the hardware test, so I'm leaning towards some software misalignment of sorts. I just wish that Apple would identify what the problem is, other than saying there is a problem. I already know that much.
Click to expand...


Is the AirPort card software updated?
 
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