802.11n for G5 Mac Pro Power Mac

[Scottyfrombi]

I just purchased a MBP 15" which has an 802.11n Airport Extreme built in. I also purchased a new Airport base station which has 802.11n. I have a desktop G5 Power Mac, dual 1ghz which I bought new in 2004. I would like to upgrade the Airport Extreme inside the G5 to make it compatible with the 802.11n Base Station, but it seems that the only Airport Extreme available is 802.11g. I think I have 802.11b in the G5. I also have a 12" powerbook also purchased in 2004, which my wife will use for email and web browsing. What is the best way to configure all these to get the best wireless reception. I also want to put a remote hard drive on the base station to use with these three computers in the house.

I am wondering why there is no n version of the extreme that I can put in the G5. Is there any 3rd party hardware available? should I wait for the next gen extreme? Don't know a lot about networking, I like the plug and play of the Airport hardware.

 

[velocityg4]

Here is an 802.11n Card you can stick in your G5. There really are not many aftermarket developers making aftermarket wireless products for Macs. As for the wireless components you have now all should be 802.11g since the Airport products for the 12" G4 Powerbook and all G5's where the 802.11g variant of Airport Extreme.

If the same holds true for 802.11n networks as was for 802.11g whatever the slowest card on your network is will bring the network to that speed. So you can have 20 802.11n devices but if you connect one using 802.11g or 802.11b then your network will drop to that speed.

That being said it does not really matter if the G5 has 802.11n unless all other devices have it as well. You can get an access point for 802.11g that the powerbook can use so that your G5 can get the range benefits of 802.11n if that is a concern of yours. Or you can get a 802.11n USB adapter for the Powerbook as well and make your whole network wireless n.

There are two benefits of 802.11n faster file transfers between networked computers and increased range. If you are not too worried about either than I would leave things as they are. For a large file transfer you can directly connect the Macs via an Ethernet cable, which is the quickest method anyways. As far as the internet goes there is no speed difference between 802.11g and 802.11n as their connection speeds are much faster than any internet connection, unless you have a T3 line.

 

[Scottyfrombi]

Thank you for your excellent response. I sincerly appreciate it and found it very helpful. thanks again.

 

[Sun Baked]

Sorry G5...

 

[rnelsonbyrne]

802.11n G5

Like Scottyfrombi, I have a dual 2GHz G5 from 2004 and want to upgrade the wireless from g to n.

I found the Edimax card on the web OK, but I'm bothered by the comment by velocityg4 that "it does not really matter if the G5 has 802.11n unless all other devices have it as well."

In addition to a couple of other macs (all n except the G5), my household has two TiVos, both 802.11g, and I don't want to spend the money to upgrade them to n because they don't transfer much data anyhow. But if it's really true that ALL the network will revert to g if any devices speak g, I'll have to upgrade their USB wireless adaptors too. Note that TiVo only connects to the internet in the wee small hours.

Thanks for your help.

 

[velocityg4]

Like Scottyfrombi, I have a dual 2GHz G5 from 2004 and want to upgrade the wireless from g to n.

I found the Edimax card on the web OK, but I'm bothered by the comment by velocityg4 that "it does not really matter if the G5 has 802.11n unless all other devices have it as well."

In addition to a couple of other macs (all n except the G5), my household has two TiVos, both 802.11g, and I don't want to spend the money to upgrade them to n because they don't transfer much data anyhow. But if it's really true that ALL the network will revert to g if any devices speak g, I'll have to upgrade their USB wireless adaptors too. Note that TiVo only connects to the internet in the wee small hours.

Thanks for your help.

Well, you can get your 802.11n router for your Macs to connect to. Then get one of these Access Points for 802.11g and run both types simultaneously. If your current 802.11g router can act as an access point then by all means use that.

All you would be doing essentially is plugging the 802.11g Access Point into one of your 802.11n routers LAN ports. The only reason I am not recommending an 802.11n Access Point is that eventually you would have to buy an 802.11n Router when you no longer have a need for 802.11g.

 

[applemax]

Like Scottyfrombi, I have a dual 2GHz G5 from 2004 and want to upgrade the wireless from g to n.

I found the Edimax card on the web OK, but I'm bothered by the comment by velocityg4 that "it does not really matter if the G5 has 802.11n unless all other devices have it as well."

In addition to a couple of other macs (all n except the G5), my household has two TiVos, both 802.11g, and I don't want to spend the money to upgrade them to n because they don't transfer much data anyhow. But if it's really true that ALL the network will revert to g if any devices speak g, I'll have to upgrade their USB wireless adaptors too. Note that TiVo only connects to the internet in the wee small hours.

Thanks for your help.

Just wondering, with the PCI cards in the G5, are all the wireless settings (signal strength, SSID, etc...) configured in the AirPort menu at the top of the screen or in a third-party preference pane?

Thanks

 

[velocityg4]

Though I can not say it is true for all cards. Most of the few I have used show up as an Airport device as they used generic Wireless drivers. The Edimax ew-7728in linked to in my original post uses the Ralink chipset. This company provides native OS X drivers. So the card should simply be recognized as a wireless device and likely be labeled an Airport card and use the connect to menu.

My first wireless card did not show up as an airport card since I had to use the proprietary Orangeware wireless driver. This provided support for the Atheros chipset which my DLink DWL-G520. Intel Macs do not need this third party driver as Apple made an Atheros driver for the Intel architecture since it was used in their iMacs Airport card.

I could be wrong about the Edimax but it should use the connect to menu.