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mrnice420

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 22, 2009
11
0
hi. right now i have a powermac g4 dual core 1.25ghz and im buying a used G5 2.3ghz dual core. i was wondering if i could just swap the airport extreme card out of the g4 and put it into the g5 or are they not compatible? ive read the how-to threads but i cant seem to find a straight ans on this one. on one site apple says the extreme will fit into a g5 but on another site they say it wont work work with the g5 dual core. any help would be appreciated. thanks.
 
MDD meaning Mirror Door Drives? in that case im screwed. so which airport card will work with the g5?
 
Yes, MDD = Mirrored Drive Doors. However, the FW800 model also has the same appearance; the MDD is just referred to as such because it was the first model with the design. You'll have to check your computer's specs or model number against the ones listed on Apple's site to see which one you're using. (Both are available in System Profiler.)

The G5 uses an AirPort Extreme card. Oddly enough, I'm not seeing it for sale on the Apple site, even though the Mac Pro doesn't ship with it as a standard feature. Maybe you can't upgrade it after the fact? That would be silly. Anyway, I guess you have to buy that from eBay.
 
i noticed that for the MDD models it says airport card but for the FW800 models, it says airport extreme. my machine has airport extreme. does that mean compatible with g5. sorry to be annoying.
 
will this one work? i know the description doesnt have os x, but it seems like the same thing, no? plus i have it in my old pc.

image-3160356-10521304
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127218

That card uses an Atheros chipset. From what I have found from a few quick searches is that it is recognized by Mac OS X as an Airport card and works out of the box.

However, these are on Intel Macs. The driver may be Intel only, I do not know for certain. It may also require Leopard. As I do not think Atheros drivers were made for 10.4 as Apple did not start using Atheros chips until recently.

If you have 10.5 on your G4 plug the card in and find out. Or do so on the G5 when you buy it. The worst that will happen is that it is not recognized.
 
i ended up getting the pci card and received it from newegg in 3 days.... theyre good. however, im having some problems. the program that came with the card shows that im connected to the internet, with a strong signal (i joined my wireless network with wep key), but when i try to connect via safari or when i try to update nothing happens, it just stays as if i was not connected to the internet at all. is this a setting on the card or with my router (d-link 655)? or something else completely...
 
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