this only because my wife doesn't trust me enough to punch holes in the walls to retrieve the network cable i threaded through the wall cavaties when building ...

... i have installed an AP card into my beloved iMac G3 500MHz. the machine is running OS X 10.2.8.

it recognises it has a wireless card (said so when i first booted it up after installing), but it does not recognise my current wireless setup. i have an Airport Express no less than 3 metres away from where the machine is atm. yet the Airport icon is greyed out. if i go into Internet Connect and select under Network/Other and key in my wireless network name and password, it get: An error occurred while trying to join the selected Airport network.

what's the obvious that i've (more than likely) missed??

Is the Airport card detected under the Network system preference?

I'd also suggest updating to 10.3.9 if you can - there were a lot of Airport updates in that era, that were not available for 10.2.

JB

i get an Airport ID listed in Network/Airport, so i assume the system knows the card is there?

if a OS upgrade is the go, should i go all out and get OS 10.4 or would 10.3 be better recommended?

If you've heaps of RAM (512MB +) on that iMac 500, 10.4 will be fine, but the sweet spot for performance (well over 10.2) would be 10.3.9.

JB

i bumped up the ram to 1gb, so am guessing 10.4 would run ok on it.

you think that's the best solution? nothing else sounds wrong with the card/iMac etc.?

Is your Airport Express set to only allow 802.11g connections?

The iMac will be 802.11b...

oh, i hadn't thought of that. maybe it's the Netgear DG834G router, then?

quick check on the router: it is compatible with 802.11b.

can the setting be changed on the APeX ... if so, how?

Airport Admin Utility (or something with a similar name) in your Utilities folder. There will be a setting in there somewhere...

My wonderful Snow iMac 500 MHz works with my Airport Express so I'm sure you'll be able to get it going!

hmmm. using the Airport Setup Assistant, and on selecting setup to join existing network, the Available Airport Networks pull-down menu claims there are no networks to be found ...

think i'll sleep on this one for the time being ...

The netgear will connect with the airport card OK. I used to have an ibook with the original airport card and had no hassle connecting to my netgear modem. Do you have some form of wireless encription turned on as the original airport cards can not use some of the higher forms of encription?

i use a 128bit WEP for my wireless.

the Netgear also offers WPA-PSK and WPA-802.1x security. should i down-grade to the latter? and if so, what risks does that carry, if any, in regards to the protection/unauthorised use of my network?

AFAIK, since the Netgear doesn't support Apple's implementation of WDS, your AX will not function as a bridge/repeater. I would guess your iMac can only connect to the Netgear router in your current setup - maybe it's just a little too far away.

If you have just added the Airport card, there is a chance that it will not support WEP 128 bit encryption (Apple did some airport updates for both 10.1 and 10.2 to increase encryption support in the original Airport cards from 40 to 128 bit). WPA requires 10.3 and later. You may need to reinstall your 10.2 OS (if you can't get your hands on 10.3) and then upgrade to get the internal Airport card firmware upgraded to support 128 bit. Nevertheless, to confirm whether the card is working at all, try turning off all security on the router and on the computer and then see if you can join the network.