802.11g on an old powermac?

[meepzork]

sorry if this has been answered already, i could only find 1 other post and it didnt quite answer my question. my mother uses a g4 650 powermac. it has the original airport card installed, but she has a heck of a time connecting to the wifi where she lives, or to any wifi for that matter. what brands/models are recommended to enable 802.11g on an older mac?

thanks

[rampancy]

The page you need to see is here (http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/action.lasso?-database=faq.fp3&-layout=FaqList&-response=answer.faq.lasso&-recordID=34042&-search).

Essentially, in a nutshell, since the original AirPort Extreme 802.11g cards were based on Broadcom chipsets, the AirPort Extreme drivers starting with version 3.1 of Apple's AirPort software were compatible with any 802.11a/b/g PCI card that used a Broadcom chipset (I think the fact that the cards used mini-PCI also played a factor). I have a Motorola WPC1810G PCI card in both a 400 MHz Sawtooth G4 and a Dual-1.25 Ghz MDD G4, and they both work perfectly out of the box with Apple's drivers, with no additional software needed.

The catch here is that that the PCI cards have to have a Broadcom chipset (not an easy thing to gauge, as the chipset vendor isn't easily spotted information), and AFAIK, this trick only works with 802.11a/b/g cards - I have no idea if it works with 802.11n PCI cards. The problem is that a lot of the brands and cards mentioned may not use Broadcom hardware anymore.

A surefire solution is Sonnet's Aria Extreme PCI (http://www.sonnettech.com/product/aria_pci.html), or QuickerTek's nQuickly PCI upgrade kit (http://www.quickertek.com/products/nquicky_pci.php).

PS: If you do find or use a compatible PCI card for your mother's Mac, you must remove the existing original AirPort card, or else Bad Stuff is going to happen.

[colivigan]

I am using a Belkin F5D7001 in my G4 (Gigabit Ethernet). Works great, is recognized as an Airport Extreme. There is also a F5D7000 model, but that's trickier, as only early revisions of that model used the Broadcom chipset. AFAIK, any revision of the F5D7001 will work. You should be able to find one for $20 or less on eBay