I need a 802.11g USB Mac Adapter

[Balin64]

Hello:

I have recently switched to Qwest here in the old Midwest US of A. I have a Qwest wireless gateway which my iMac and Powerbook pick up fine. Unfortunately, my older 333 iMac is put of luck. It is too far away from a phone jack to plug to ethernet on the base station. Which USB 802.11g adapters work on Macs?


Cheers!

 

[Datazoid]

Hello:

I have recently switched to Qwest here in the old Midwest US of A. I have a Qwest wireless gateway which my iMac and Powerbook pick up fine. Unfortunately, my older 333 iMac is put of luck. It is too far away from a phone jack to plug to ethernet on the base station. Which USB 802.11g adapters work on Macs?


Cheers!

The most affordable solution for this problem that I know of is Belkin's F5D6050 USB wireless adapter. It's 802.11b, but 802.11g is backwards compatible with b. Belkin sells them refurbished for $30, and you can find them on eBay for about half that. I used one for that exact purpose for over 6 months and it worked decently. Belkin . Aside from that, many people rant about Linksys' no-drivers-required WET11 (also 802.11b), which plugs into your ethernet port, however, these are significantly more expensive.

To get true 11g speeds, you will pay through the nose. MacWireless has one that plugs into the ethernet port (similar to the WET11) for a whopping $169! Might as well upgrade the computer for that price! My suggestion is the Belkin. It's not the best solution, but its the most cost-effective, and does a good enough job.

 

[Horrortaxi]

Not only will you pay through the nose for a G card, you'll waste that additional money. Your internet connection won't use the additional speed of G. Your internet connection doesn't even use all that B has to give.

 

[Balin64]

Thanks for the replies!

Thank you for pointing me in the correct direction.

I will try to eBay a Belkin adapter.

I want the 802.11g because my old iMac is basically a juke box, and I rip all music to it and then choose what to put on my other two Macs: and for that purpose, the extra speed really helps; also, the iMac has an 80GB drive that I sometimes back up projects to, just in case my external frives fail or something. Thanks again!

 

[strider42]

Thank you for pointing me in the correct direction.

I will try to eBay a Belkin adapter.

I want the 802.11g because my old iMac is basically a juke box, and I rip all music to it and then choose what to put on my other two Macs: and for that purpose, the extra speed really helps; also, the iMac has an 80GB drive that I sometimes back up projects to, just in case my external frives fail or something. Thanks again!

USB is 11 mbps, same as 802.11b 802.11g is 54 mbps, substantially faster, so I think you are going to be bottlenecked by it, so you might as well get a 802.11b adaptor.