G5 Bluetooth will not connect to my Apple Bluetooth Keyboard?

[RLRL]

I screen share using my iMac, High Sierra, with a Mac G5. I still have an app I use.

I need to connect, discover my iMac, Apple wireless bluetooth keyboard to the G5 for a hardware test.

The G5 can not discover the Apple Bluetooth keyboard. I have tried to reset, turn it off, on, etc.

It just will not discover.

Comments?

 

[eyoungren]

Apple released a BT Firmware update around 2006. It is Bluetooth Firmware Update 1.2.1 (PPC). This is confusing, because there were earlier updaters that had a higher version number

Anyway, I can't seem to find this download anywhere, but I know I had to install it at some point to make my G4 see the Magic Mouse I was using. A Google search says to try Software Update.

Assuming you find it and you get it installed and things still fail then the problem has to be with your keyboard. If the keyboard in question is fairly recent, then most likely your G5 just does not have the version of BT required to connect to it. At one point I was struggling with a BT 2.0 USB stick and Apple is currently on BT 5.3 devices. You're running an iMac with High Sierra so I'd think you'd probably need to find some sort of BT device for the G5 that'd get you BT 3.0 at least.

I don't think that'd be very easy to find for a PowerPC Mac.

 

[ToniCH]

Well, I don't know what is going on but I know modern Macs with modern MacOS do not connect to old Apple wireless keyboards - unless its done manually at the terminal (Homebrew + Blueutil). Maybe it's something similar but in reverse?

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Apple released a BT Firmware update around 2006. It is Bluetooth Firmware Update 1.2.1 (PPC). This is confusing, because there were earlier updaters that had a higher version number

Anyway, I can't seem to find this download anywhere, but I know I had to install it at some point to make my G4 see the Magic Mouse I was using. A Google search says to try Software Update.

Assuming you find it and you get it installed and things still fail then the problem has to be with your keyboard. If the keyboard in question is fairly recent, then most likely your G5 just does not have the version of BT required to connect to it. At one point I was struggling with a BT 2.0 USB stick and Apple is currently on BT 5.3 devices. You're running an iMac with High Sierra so I'd think you'd probably need to find some sort of BT device for the G5 that'd get you BT 3.0 at least.

I don't think that'd be very easy to find for a PowerPC Mac.

Yeah I have found reference to that update at a few places but all link to a now dead Apple download - example Here.

I wonder if someone over at Macintosh garden has that squirreled away on their NAS somewhere? I checked my backups and NAS and don’t have it unfortunately. Would love to snag it.

Op, you could remove your Bluetooth .plist file to reset BT settings.

 

[eyoungren]

Yeah I have found reference to that update at a few places but all link to a now dead Apple download - example Here.

I wonder if someone over at Macintosh garden has that squirreled away on their NAS somewhere? I checked my backups and NAS and don’t have it unfortunately. Would love to snag it.

Op, you could remove your Bluetooth .plist file to reset BT settings.

I probably have it. But I suspect its buried in a stack of disk I'll have to go through to find it. I know I downloaded it at least, because it was necessary to get my Magic Mouse working with my Quicksilver.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I probably have it. But I suspect its buried in a stack of disk I'll have to go through to find it. I know I downloaded it at least, because it was necessary to get my Magic Mouse working with my Quicksilver.

That is interesting because I have a BT2 dongle on the internal usb2 port of my usb2 pci card in my QS and IIRC my BT magic mouse 1 worked OTB. Might be that that update IIRC was for tiger and Ive always ran 10.5.8 on that Quicksilver. I'll take another look regardless. I wonder if OP is running a OSX earlier than Leopard? Maybe upgrading to Leopard could fix their issue. I have Leopard and Sorbet on my PMG5s and they all connect to era Apple BT keyboard and mice. In fact my a1117 was purchased with a wireless apple kb+m a1016 & a1015 and mm1.

 

[eyoungren]

That is interesting because I have a BT2 dongle on the internal usb2 port of my usb2 pci card in my QS and IIRC my BT magic mouse 1 worked OTB. Might be that that update IIRC was for tiger and Ive always ran 10.5.8 on that Quicksilver. I'll take another look regardless. I wonder if OP is running a OSX earlier than Leopard? Maybe upgrading to Leopard could fix their issue. I have Leopard and Sorbet on my PMG5s and they all connect to era Apple BT keyboard and mice. In fact my a1117 was purchased with a wireless apple kb+m a1016 & a1015 and mm1.

It's been a long time and a lot has happened with a lot of Macs. IIRC though, even after installing the update I still had issues. Which led me down the road to finding a USB 2.0 adapter. Which I found and worked just fine. Then I realized that the Magic Mouse wasn't going to work very well for me in Photoshop or InDesign so the whole thing became irrelevant as I went back to the wired Mighty Mouse.

But my QS was always on Leopard. Perhaps it told me I didn't need to install the update, IDK. That would have been around 10-11 years ago.

 

[AdamBuker]

For a hardware test, you might be better served by having a spare wired keyboard and mouse so that you can invoke AHT on startup.