Airport Extreme for DC G5

[bunnspecial]

I'm going this evening to pick up a 2.0ghz dual core G5. As best as I understand, this last generation of G5s use a combo Airport Extreme/Bluetooth card, unlike the Airport Extreme(only) card used in the earlier G5s.

From what I can find, the below is the correct card for these computers. Can anyone confirm?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/A1126-APPLE...t=US_Laptop_Network_Cards&hash=item35d4b2b666

 

[CYB3RBYTE]

I Believe it is, otherwise the correct card would be the airport extreme wireless G card. Try looking at replacement guides online and see if that is the card you need.

EDIT: Yes, after some personal research I think that is the correct card. Have fun with your G5!

 

[Intell]

If that is the correct card, you'll need the sled for it. Those can get pricy.

 

[CYB3RBYTE]

Ah, Intell is quite correct, as usual . Hopefully yours has the sled when you purchase your G5. Certainly not a deal breaker, but potentially a problem when you go to install your airport card later.

 

[bunnspecial]

I'm not finding any sleds for this on Ebay(or at least not at a price I want to pay, i.e. $110), but I'll keep my eyes open.

Does anyone know if there's a drop-in PCIe WiFi card that will work in these? I know some part numbers for PCI cards that will work(I've made extensive use of them in G4s) but haven't encountered any references to a PCIe card.

 

[Intell]

Mostly any Broadcom based PCI-E card will work. Try to stay with the G cards. Some of the N cards may work, but will require Leopard.

 

[bunnspecial]

Thanks. I'll see what I can find.

Overall, I don't think I did half bad for $80. It came with 5.5gb of ram(2x2gb, 2x512, 2x256) and I already upgraded it to 10gb(2x2gb, 6x1gb). It also didn't have a hard drive, but I had a SATA drive with a good Leopard install that I just popped in.

 

[yangdh]

You can use an airport extreme card instead of combo one, provided that you can manage to connect the card(with MC card connector) with the built-in antenna(with IPX connector).

 

[bunnspecial]

You can use an airport extreme card instead of combo one, provided that you can manage to connect the card(with MC card connector) with the built-in antenna(with IPX connector).

Interesting! The slot actually looks a lot like the one in my older G5, so I'm not surprised at this.

Although I've not done anything too "heavy" this computer feels a lot more responsive than my single 1.8. The single 1.8 isn't going anywhere(I have too much in it) but this one definitely feels like a worthwhile companion.

 

[weckart]

You can use an airport extreme card instead of combo one, provided that you can manage to connect the card(with MC card connector) with the built-in antenna(with IPX connector).

Better still, Airport mini-PCIe cards are very cheap on eBay as are the adapters. In theory, with the right hardware you can get n speeds enabled under Tiger but you will need the n-enabler patch with PPC, which Apple no longer makes available. Tiger Server has the patch built in.

 

[Nameci]

If that is the correct card, you'll need the sled for it. Those can get pricy.

On the top of my head, the sled is called the "apple airport runway card"? Correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Intell]

The Airport N patch can also be found on discs that came with Airport N base stations and Time Capsules.

On the top of my head, the sled is called the "apple airport runway card"? Correct me if I am wrong.

I honestly don't know the name of it. But the Airport runway card has a nice name to it.

 

[bunnspecial]

Two questions:

1. If I go the mini-pcie route(I saw plenty of those on EBay) would this go in the Airport slot or in one of the PCIe slots?

2. I know that these shipped originally with 10.4.2. If I wanted to install Tiger, could I use a retail disk(which I have) or would I need a set of system restore disks for this model?

 

[Nameci]

The Airport N patch can also be found on discs that came with Airport N base stations and Time Capsules.




I honestly don't know the name of it. But the Airport runway card has a nice name to it.

Nice call for it right?

Herewith is another reference for it as a "runway" card.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1683732/

And this one...

http://ixzpccard.org/630-7054.html

 

[Intell]

A PCI-e WiFi card would go in a PCI-e slot. You could use retail Tiger as long as the disc has version 10.4.3 or higher on it. Note: Some PCI-e cards may not work with Tiger.

 

[CYB3RBYTE]

I do believe that Apple made the 802.11n patch a public download, so I would go the PCI-E route and use that patch if you are using below OS X 10.4.11. You will get much better performance than the Airport Extreme card. I use a PCI 802.11n card pulled from a 2007 Dell for my PowerMac Quicksilver, and it accepts the card just fine. Make sure you have at least OS X 10.4.11 or higher for this to work!.

Hope this helped!

 

[Intell]

The patch is/was a paid purchase download. It cost $1.99(?), the cost was attributed to licensing and regulation fees.

 

[bunnspecial]

You could use retail Tiger as long as the disc has version 10.4.3 or higher on it. Note: Some PCI-e cards may not work with Tiger.

As it so happens, my retail disk is 10.4.3(I had to dig it out and check), so hopefully it will work. It's installing now.

 

[weckart]

A PCI-e WiFi card would go in a PCI-e slot. You could use retail Tiger as long as the disc has version 10.4.3 or higher on it. Note: Some PCI-e cards may not work with Tiger.

Most won't, if they are 802.11n cards. Apple only has a kext for PPC code on the Tiger Server 10.4.7 disc, which is Intel/PPC and came out much later than the retail Tiger discs, which are all PPC. Since 802.11n cards were only bundled with Intel Macs, the retail Tiger discs do not contain the kexts for them.

Only certain Broadcom 4321/4322 cards are supported. The card I repurposed from a 2007 Macbook was Atheros so I had to upgrade to Leopard to get 802.11n goodness from it.

These articles from XLR8yourmac might be of interest

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/NetgearWirelessNcardOSX.html


http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/tips/OSX_802N_nativecards.html

 

[Intell]

N cards work just fine on Leopard due to the system being universal with universal kexts. Heance why I said they may not work on Tiger. But if one really wanted them to work on Tiger, they could extract the Airport kexts from the universal Tiger server and insert them into their PowerPC Tiger for full N support.

 

[CYB3RBYTE]

I remember when my Quicksilver ran Tiger, and after I upgraded to 10.4.11 the PCI wireless worked fine. I would expect a dual 2.0 to be much faster than a single 1.8, because you have double the cache and a ton more memory. The cool thing about G5's is that they are still major powerhouses, and in terms of architecture they were so ahead of their time. Dare I compare them to even some of today's Xeon processors?

 

[weckart]

Dare I compare them to even some of today's Xeon processors?

I'm not sure I would even compare them to some of yesterday's Celerons to be honest. Intel has already come on leaps and bounds - especially in terms of power efficiency.

 

[Intell]

G5's aren't that great anymore. Most, if not all, 2007 Intell Macs outperformed them at nearly everything. Even Intell's modern budget Pentium line is more powerful.

 

[bunnspecial]

G5's aren't that great anymore. Most, if not all, 2007 Intell Macs outperformed them at nearly everything. Even Intell's modern budget Pentium line is more powerful.

As a quick comparison, I ran Geekbench on the dual-core G5 as well as both of my Intel Macs-a mid-2009(non-Unibody) Macbook with a 2.13ghz C2D and 4gb RAM, and a late 2011 13" MBP with a 2.5ghz i5. I realize this isn't a perfect test, but it at least is something to go off of.

The G5 returned a score of 1920.

The Macbook returned a single core score of 1194, and a multi-core score of 2194.

The MBP returned a single core score of 2271, and a multi-core score of 4659(and that was with some applications running that I forgot to close before running the test).

If a laptop Intel processor can do at least as well(C2D) or better (i5), I'd be afraid to compare the power-hungry G5 beast to a desktop-class Intel chip.

I still love my G5s and they are plenty fast for most of what I do, but I'm not going to delude myself into thinking that they are somehow superior even to a bottom of the line Intel Apple laptop.

 

[bunnspecial]

Just thought I'd update this, as I finally managed to gather all the relevant "bits and pieces."

I ended up with an Apple BCM94321MC Broadcom mini PCI-e wireless card. This cost me about $8 including shipping.

Unfortunately, as I(quickly) found out, a mini PCI-e card will not fit into a standard PCI-e slot. Fortunately, that's easily remedied with a mini PCI-e to PCI-e card adapter. These are all over Ebay and are cheap. Apparently, I'm not the only one who has tried to do exactly this sort of thing, as nearly all the adapters I looked at had antenna cables on them.

This was the adapter I bought-I can confirm that this specific one will work, although I'm sure there are plenty of others on Ebay which will also

http://www.ebay.com/itm/311074000196?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Once the adapter arrived from China(about a week and a half) it was a simple matter of mounting the mini PCI-e card in the adapter, and then dropping the adapter in an empty PCI-e slot in the computer.

The adapter card I bought did not include the external antennas(some do). I have enough retired and salvaged routers lying around that it was no trouble for me to find external antennas, although if you don't have this resource at your disposal you can certainly spend a few extra dollars for the antennas.

Once installed, the card was recognized and worked perfectly as an an Airport Extreme card.

I'll also add that I initially bought an Atheros-branded mini PCI-e card, Apple part number AR5BXB6. I was not able to get this card to be recognized or work, even when starting from a fresh install of Leopard. There may be a trick I'm missing in getting this particular card to work. All of these cards are inexpensive, and I decided to just buy a second(Broadcom) card rather than spend a lot of time trying to get the Atheros card to work.

In any case, my total cost on this was a little under $20 including the both the Atheros and Broadcom card. Although it's not as elegant as the factory Airport card, it beats paying $90 for the "runway" card to do the factory installation.