New Mac Pro, Apple store installed airport card, not seen by OSX

[bestthereis27]

Hi everyone

I just got a new MacPro 2008 and had the Apple Store install the $50 card before i lugged it back home. I get home hook everything up and OSX doesn't see the AirPort card. I open up the computer and see the card physically there and it is. Is there something i need to do, to enable it so OSX can see it?

Do the "Genius People" test everything before they give it to the consumer? Or am i missing something.

Thanks.

 

[jjahshik32]

Did you turn on the airport card?

 

[scaley]

I ran into this problem once with my Mac Pro and it is physically possible that they installed the card but forgot to attach the antennae. There are two cables that have very small connectors that need to be attached and if they didn't attach the antennae connectors your airport will appear disconnected even if it is screwed in and slotted. If you don't see cables pinned to it this is a sign they forgot to do this and take it back. Good luck.

 

[bestthereis27]

Did you turn on the airport card?

How do you turn it on when OSX doesn't see it? OSX only see's the 2 ethernet ports and a firewire port.

 

[CaptainChunk]

How do you turn it on when OSX doesn't see it? OSX only see's the 2 ethernet ports and a firewire port.

What he's referring to is making sure the Airport is turned on under Network Preferences. It's off by default when you first install an Airport card (although it should have been activated during the installation). If an Airport entry isn't showing up at all in network preferences, I'd lug the machine back and tell them to fix it because it's either a bad or improperly installed card.

I ran into this problem once with my Mac Pro and it is physically possible that they installed the card but forgot to attach the antennae. There are two cables that have very small connectors that need to be attached and if they didn't attach the antennae connectors your airport will appear disconnected even if it is screwed in and slotted. If you don't see cables pinned to it this is a sign they forgot to do this and take it back. Good luck.

That's funny because logic would tell me that even if the antennae were not connected (but the card was properly slotted and screwed down), the card should still show up, but would struggle to receive a Wi-Fi signal.

 

[bestthereis27]

I got it fixed. I took it back to the apple store and they downloaded the Airport drivers. The genius who installed it said he tested it on his bootable external drive where it worked. I work in IT and didn't want to harass the guy but i was thinking all the drivers would be on his updated external drive which was 10.5.6. But not the 10.5.1 version i had in my Mac Pro. So duh it probably wouldn't have worked...dont know why he just didn't install it on my harddrive....