I need to get 802.11N in my Power Mac G5...

[dcpmark]

And, just to enlighten you, WDS does not work on N networks at all. WDS, as a technology, is limited to 54Mbps only. For N networks you have to click the checkbox marked 'Extend this network'.

If you say so, it must be true. Never mind the fact that I had the EXACT same setup on my G5 working at 300Mbps.

Perhaps you can share your knowledge with these guys:

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10330062-263.html

http://db.tidbits.com/article/10125

As you can see, not only can you select WDS on an n network and achieve n speeds, but you can also limit it to the 2.4 band only.

 

[applemax]

If you say so, it must be true. Never mind the fact that I had the EXACT same setup on my G5 working at 300Mbps.

Perhaps you can share your knowledge with these guys:

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10330062-263.html

http://db.tidbits.com/article/10125

As you can see, not only can you select WDS on an n network and achieve n speeds, but you can also limit it to the 2.4 band only.

Go ahead right now and try and create an n-only network in AirPort Admin Utility with WDS. Yeah, that's right, you can't - it's b/g only - which is slow.

Go on, take a look.

 

[dcpmark]

Go ahead right now and try and create an n-only network in AirPort Admin Utility with WDS. Yeah, that's right, you can't - it's b/g only - which is slow.

Go on, take a look.

Are you holding down the Option key when getting the choices? It should look like this:

 

[applemax]

Are you holding down the Option key when getting the choices? It should look like this:

Yes, I am. But if you look at the image you attached, you haven't activated WDS. Once you've done that, all the n-only stuff disappears.

 

[Dark Dragoon]

Go ahead right now and try and create an n-only network in AirPort Admin Utility with WDS. Yeah, that's right, you can't - it's b/g only - which is slow.

Go on, take a look.

Maybe I'm not seeing the problem here but this is what my Airport Extreme lets me set it to. If it's set to 802.11n (802.11b/g compatible) then it should just use the fastest speed available.

Regardless the other options are a wireless to ethernet bridge where you won't have any direct control over the wireless connection. Though it seems like 802.11n ethernet bridges are rather rare.

Or a third part wireless card where you will likely need to use a third party tool to control the wireless card, however you can still use the Airport Utility to manage the Airport Extreme/Express as the way you are connected to it doesn't matter.

 

[applemax]

Maybe I'm not seeing the problem here but this is what my Airport Extreme lets me set it to. If it's set to 802.11n (802.11b/g compatible) then it should just use the fastest speed available.

Regardless the other options are a wireless to ethernet bridge where you won't have any direct control over the wireless connection. Though it seems like 802.11n ethernet bridges are rather rare.

Or a third part wireless card where you will likely need to use a third party tool to control the wireless card, however you can still use the Airport Utility to manage the Airport Extreme/Express as the way you are connected to it doesn't matter.

With that setup I think your speeds will be restricted to 54Mbps when connected to a WDS relay/remote device. However, when connected to the main base station there should be no limit.

 

[dcpmark]

This worked perfectly for me:

"Radio Modes
From a Manual Setup, go to the AirPort > Wireless tab of your Dual-Band AEBS. Select the Radio Mode popup menu. Get ready to be a bit confused. You may find just three choices: Automatic; 802.11a/n - 802.11b/g; and 802.11a - 802.11b/g. However, if you hold down the Option key, you will see 14 choices. Or you may see just 11 choices, with the three options missing that say "only (2.4 GHz)" -- as happens after enabling certain other settings. (NOTE: I can't recall what settings I enabled to get all 14 options).

In brief, these selections indicate the setup for each of the two separate bands. In other words, one band can be set up as 802.11a/n while the other is set up as 802.11b/g. Which option should you chose? Don't search Apple's documentation for the answer. It's not there, at least not yet. I can tell you that in most cases, you'll be fine if you select Automatic. After doing so, text appears below the menu that indicates the active mode. It will likely be a catch-all option not listed in the menu: 802.11a/n - 802.11b/g/n.

For more help, I recommend a TidBITS article by Glenn Fleishman. It covers these Radio mode selections as well as several other new features of the dual band AEBS (such as the "5 GHz Network Name" and "Guest Network" choices).

Participate in a WDS network
Having settled on a radio mode, I turned to my key question: How do I set up a WDS network using the dual band AEBS? I went to the Wireless Mode popup menu (in the afore-mentioned Wireless tab), but no WDS option appeared. Apple's current documentation remained of no use in figuring out why this was so.

Once more, the Option key came to the rescue. Hold it down while selecting the Wireless Mode menu and the desired option magically appears.

By the way, I've read some Web postings indicating that the "Extend a wireless network" option is now Apple's desired alternative to WDS. However, as confirmed by Apple, this option only works with 802.11n networks. As my AirPort Express units were the older "non-n" models, I could not use the Extend feature here.

Getting the Express units on board
I was now ready to have my two AirPort Express units join the WDS network on my new AEBS. For the sake of brevity, I'll omit the step-by-step details. The main thing is to enter the various AirPort ID numbers in the relevant places of the WDS tabs for each device. One key bit of advice: The dual-band AEBS has two AirPort IDs, one for 2.4 GHz mode and one for 5GHz mode (you'll see them both listed in the AirPort > Summary tab). As my Express units did not support 5GHz, I needed to select the 2.4 GHz AirPort ID.

After doing all of this and restarting my various AirPort devices ? my two Express units no longer showed up in AirPort Utility. All contact with them was lost. Oops!

To regain access, I had to temporarily connect each Express to my Mac via an Ethernet cable. After considerable trial-and-error, I eventually figured out that the older Express units and the new AEBS were using different password methods (WEP vs. WPA). This is a no-no for WDS networks. As much as possible, you want everything (such as password, network name and radio channel) to match across all devices on the WDS network.

After updating the Express units' passwords to match the one on the AEBS, everything at last fell into place. The WDS network was up and running as I had hoped."​

Remember that with the dual band you are setting up two different networks, and you can create one n-only network while the other network is set as b/g only. I actually use both networks, but you don't HAVE to use the b/g band.

 

[applemax]

This worked perfectly for me:

"Radio Modes
From a Manual Setup, go to the AirPort > Wireless tab of your Dual-Band AEBS. Select the Radio Mode popup menu. Get ready to be a bit confused. You may find just three choices: Automatic; 802.11a/n - 802.11b/g; and 802.11a - 802.11b/g. However, if you hold down the Option key, you will see 14 choices. Or you may see just 11 choices, with the three options missing that say "only (2.4 GHz)" -- as happens after enabling certain other settings. (NOTE: I can't recall what settings I enabled to get all 14 options).

In brief, these selections indicate the setup for each of the two separate bands. In other words, one band can be set up as 802.11a/n while the other is set up as 802.11b/g. Which option should you chose? Don't search Apple's documentation for the answer. It's not there, at least not yet. I can tell you that in most cases, you'll be fine if you select Automatic. After doing so, text appears below the menu that indicates the active mode. It will likely be a catch-all option not listed in the menu: 802.11a/n - 802.11b/g/n.

For more help, I recommend a TidBITS article by Glenn Fleishman. It covers these Radio mode selections as well as several other new features of the dual band AEBS (such as the "5 GHz Network Name" and "Guest Network" choices).

Participate in a WDS network
Having settled on a radio mode, I turned to my key question: How do I set up a WDS network using the dual band AEBS? I went to the Wireless Mode popup menu (in the afore-mentioned Wireless tab), but no WDS option appeared. Apple's current documentation remained of no use in figuring out why this was so.

Once more, the Option key came to the rescue. Hold it down while selecting the Wireless Mode menu and the desired option magically appears.

By the way, I've read some Web postings indicating that the "Extend a wireless network" option is now Apple's desired alternative to WDS. However, as confirmed by Apple, this option only works with 802.11n networks. As my AirPort Express units were the older "non-n" models, I could not use the Extend feature here.

Getting the Express units on board
I was now ready to have my two AirPort Express units join the WDS network on my new AEBS. For the sake of brevity, I'll omit the step-by-step details. The main thing is to enter the various AirPort ID numbers in the relevant places of the WDS tabs for each device. One key bit of advice: The dual-band AEBS has two AirPort IDs, one for 2.4 GHz mode and one for 5GHz mode (you'll see them both listed in the AirPort > Summary tab). As my Express units did not support 5GHz, I needed to select the 2.4 GHz AirPort ID.

After doing all of this and restarting my various AirPort devices ? my two Express units no longer showed up in AirPort Utility. All contact with them was lost. Oops!

To regain access, I had to temporarily connect each Express to my Mac via an Ethernet cable. After considerable trial-and-error, I eventually figured out that the older Express units and the new AEBS were using different password methods (WEP vs. WPA). This is a no-no for WDS networks. As much as possible, you want everything (such as password, network name and radio channel) to match across all devices on the WDS network.

After updating the Express units' passwords to match the one on the AEBS, everything at last fell into place. The WDS network was up and running as I had hoped."​

Remember that with the dual band you are setting up two different networks, and you can create one n-only network while the other network is set as b/g only. I actually use both networks, but you don't HAVE to use the b/g band.

Yes, but WDS is pointless for me, as because it only works with b/g networks, which are out of range for this machine, I require N, which doesn't support WDS, only extend network. But once again, this solution is way too expensive compared to a PCI card or a dongle.

 

[10THzMac]

So this site:

http://macwireless.com/

(maybe you already went there) claims to offer some options. The PCI card is still $80. There are some other options. I am in UK like you and a bit frustrated on this issue.

 

[applemax]

I think I've found a compatible card fromEdimax. Has anyone used this one and is there anything obvious I'm missing? It uses a Ralink chipset - does that work with AirPort and will the Mac see it as an AirPort card?

Thanks

 

[Dark Dragoon]

I think I've found a compatible card from Edimax. Has anyone used this one and is there anything obvious I'm missing? It uses a Ralink chipset - does that work with AirPort and will the Mac see it as an AirPort card?

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/3475306/Edimax-EW-7728IN-PCI-Wireless-N-WiFi-Card-300mbps-802-11n/Product.html?&_$ja=tsid:11518%7Ccc:%7Cprd:3475306%7Ccat:Networking

Thanks

Have you checked to make sure it supports OSX?

There are other similar RaLink based cards such as SparkLAN WPIR-501, though it requires additional drivers and a separate connection utility. Also that particular one seems to have disappeared off SparkLans website along with the drivers.

 

[applemax]

Have you checked to make sure it supports OSX?

There are other similar RaLink based cards such as SparkLAN WPIR-501, though it requires additional drivers and a separate connection utility. Also that particular one seems to have disappeared off SparkLans website along with the drivers.

It says it does on the website - ideally I want to find one that uses no such third-party connection utility - I'd prefer one that uses the AirPort software.

 

[dcpmark]

Yes, but WDS is pointless for me, as because it only works with b/g networks, which are out of range for this machine, I require N, which doesn't support WDS, only extend network. But once again, this solution is way too expensive compared to a PCI card or a dongle.

In retrospect I'm not sure how WDS even came into the conversation. When you set up a dual band network on the Airport Extreme, you can separately set the b/g to "participate in a WDS network", and the n-only network to "extend a wireless network." The Airport Express connected to the G5 via the ethernet cable, once properly set up, would function the same as a remote in a WDS network, thereby extending the n network to the G5 with only minimal loss of speed due to the overhead. I actually use this setup still to get blazing speeds into my PS3 compared to the built-in wireless connection.

Of course, I can't help on any cost difference between the two solutions. Had I known from your original query that you had a budget less than the cost of an Airport Express plus a cable I certainly wouldn't have tried to force the solution on you.....

 

[applemax]

In retrospect I'm not sure how WDS even came into the conversation. When you set up a dual band network on the Airport Extreme, you can separately set the b/g to "participate in a WDS network", and the n-only network to "extend a wireless network." The Airport Express connected to the G5 via the ethernet cable, once properly set up, would function the same as a remote in a WDS network, thereby extending the n network to the G5 with only minimal loss of speed due to the overhead. I actually use this setup still to get blazing speeds into my PS3 compared to the built-in wireless connection.

Of course, I can't help on any cost difference between the two solutions. Had I known from your original query that you had a budget less than the cost of an Airport Express plus a cable I certainly wouldn't have tried to force the solution on you.....

Except, it wouldn't as we have already established, WDS will NOT extend an N network. And actually the price difference between a PCI card and an AirPort Express is quite significant, so I ask again, seeing as no one has answered - can anyone recommend a PCI based solution?