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Old Power Mac G5 can connect to network via ethernet, but can't get online

Obsidian6

Obsidian6

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 29, 2006
683
3
Laguna Niguel, CA
I feel sort of dumb for not being able to figure this out, and hopefully it's just a small oversight.

Anyways, a client of mine gave me their old PMG5 tower that they were essentially going to huck into the trash because they didn't need it and didn't want to bother selling it.

So I took it home and wiped out the data, I didn't reinstall the OS yet as I'm still looking for my Leopard discs.

It's a Power Mac G5 (7,2) Single 1.8ghz PPC / 2.5GB RAM / 1.5TB HDD / nVidia GeForce 5200 64MB

Currently running OS 10.5.8

I don't expect to do much with the unit but I thought it would make a useful media server or wireless backup hub.

This is where I ran into a snag, it has an Airport card installed, but gets no signal, and when connected directly to my Airport via ethernet it shows up on the network, says it's connected, but can't actually get online. I can remote access it, operate it as a headless unit, and connect to its drives to transfer files, but the unit itself cannot go online.

I've tried resetting the network settings, clearing the plist files and changing DNS tables based on other posts I've found from the past, but nothing seems to be working. I'm stumped.

Any ideas?
 
M

m0oskk

macrumors newbie
Mar 7, 2012
25
2
Have you checked if you're getting an IP address? Is so, did you try to ping the gateway?

I would check your router to see if the MAC address is showing up in the DHCP table.

Obsidian6 said:
I feel sort of dumb for not being able to figure this out, and hopefully it's just a small oversight.

Anyways, a client of mine gave me their old PMG5 tower that they were essentially going to huck into the trash because they didn't need it and didn't want to bother selling it.

So I took it home and wiped out the data, I didn't reinstall the OS yet as I'm still looking for my Leopard discs.

It's a Power Mac G5 (7,2) Single 1.8ghz PPC / 2.5GB RAM / 1.5TB HDD / nVidia GeForce 5200 64MB

Currently running OS 10.5.8

I don't expect to do much with the unit but I thought it would make a useful media server or wireless backup hub.

This is where I ran into a snag, it has an Airport card installed, but gets no signal, and when connected directly to my Airport via ethernet it shows up on the network, says it's connected, but can't actually get online. I can remote access it, operate it as a headless unit, and connect to its drives to transfer files, but the unit itself cannot go online.

I've tried resetting the network settings, clearing the plist files and changing DNS tables based on other posts I've found from the past, but nothing seems to be working. I'm stumped.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Obsidian6

Obsidian6

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 29, 2006
683
3
Laguna Niguel, CA
Ok so the PMG5 mimics the settings of my Macbook Pro and shows everything it needs to show. 0% packet loss when Pinging the IP.
 
M

m0oskk

macrumors newbie
Mar 7, 2012
25
2
Since pinging your gateway works, try pinging Google.com too. You can run that via terminal or Network Utility, doesn't matter.

If there's no response from google.com, then it might have something to do with your DNS settings.

If you do get a response from google, then I would say the snag has to be somewhere else in your router settings.
 
Obsidian6

Obsidian6

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 29, 2006
683
3
Laguna Niguel, CA
Thanks for your help so far my friend,

Ok so I pinged Google and also got back 0% packet loss. Something must be up with the configuration then. I have a cable modem from Cisco (my ISP is Cox) and that modem plugs directly into my older Airport Extreme which broadcasts through my house. I do have an Airport Express as an extender in my housemates' bedroom as the APX didn't reach that far.

Plugged into the Extreme downstairs via Ethernet is my Xbox 360 and my housemate's PS3, those both work just fine connected this way so I plugged the PMG5 into the last ethernet port on the APX.

As I mentioned, I can operate the computer over the network, access the drive, and I'm even streaming a movie off of its drive right now into VLC, but the unit itself cannot get online or run any kind of software update.
 
Obsidian6

Obsidian6

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 29, 2006
683
3
Laguna Niguel, CA
Well, I got to the bottom of the problem finally.

There was some software my client had installed to keep his children off of the internet and even though I wiped out the user accounts there was some real low level files that were still preventing net access.

I wiped the OS and started with a fresh copy of Leopard and now all is well.

Should have just done that from the get-go.

Thanks for the suggestions though!
 
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