I'm planning on getting an old G4 350Mhz (Sawtooth) and I'm trying to work out how I can best get wireless access on the machine to my 802.11g network. I've limited the options as follows:

1. old Airport card - upside is there is no compatibiltiy issues. Downside is speed (802.11b only) and these cards are still expensive.

2. USB dongles - upside is they are relatively cheap (about same as old Aiport card) and offer speeds up to 802.11g. Downside is I've heard the drivers for these dongles are not great and I probably can't take advantage of the .11g speeds without USB2.0 ports on the Sawtooth (can anyone confirm this?).

3. Ethernet bridge - upside is no drivers involved. Downside is that I'm not sure if they work...apparently you just plug them into the ethernet port??

I would be grateful for any comments on the reliability / comments on the 3 options.

Also, I hear these older G4's still have plenty of life left in them (with ~640MB RAM and will only be used for general internet/simple apps use) - what's the consensus?

The cheapest option for wireless (802.11g specifically) would be a PCI wireless card. Anything with a Broadcom chipset will work straight out of the box under Airport, however these are not being made anymore.

Ralink chipsets are the most common nowadays, which also work with a small driver installed. To find out more about PCI wireless cards, see this big thread.

With heaps of RAM, a Sawtooth is a great machine for most tasks under OS X. A 350Mhz CPU isn't flash though, I'd look out on eBay for a second-hand 450 or 500Mhz Sawtooth CPU for it (which are very cheap as other Sawtooth owners upgrade - $20 usually).

Apart from that, nearly everything else is upgradable in the machine. The next biggest speed boost, apart from an upgraded CPU would be a new AGP graphics card - be it PC flashed such as a Radeon 7000/7500/8500.

JB

i have a belkin wireless pci card in my mac (400mhz gigabit ethernet). dropped it straight in the box without drivers and worked straight away. just set it up as static IP (i use this machine as a server) in network prefs, joined my wireless network and was able to browse the internet within seconds...

W2ttsy

I'd go this route.

I bought an adsl + wireless router last week (Netgear DG834G for A$152) and plugged my G4 (2x500mhz) into the ethernet port and use the router's wireless to talk to other computers on the LAN. I have a 802.11b card in the G4 that's too slow for some of the high bandwidth transfers. The DG834G is configured by web browser, so it's very simple to get working with any computer.

Have a look on ebay for some cheap options e.g.
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Belkin-Wireless-Rou...1QQcmdZViewItem

don't know if that one is any good or not. A google search for "osx" and the model number should bring up info that'll tell you how others got on pairing the two.

Thought of plugging in an airport express? It will be wireless and supporting 802.11g and fully compatible.

Belkin PCI card definitely with Broadcom chip:
http://www.streetwise.com.au/product_info....roducts_id=3728

Many thanks everyone for your helpful comments. I must say this forum is an absolute "brains trust" for everything Mac.

I think a PCI card is the way to go. I've got a Netcomm .11g PCI card (NP5420) in my Windoze box which I was planning to give a go in the G4, though I have had no luck finding out whether this might work for a Mac. Wish me luck! Otherwise, I think the Belkin will be the safe bet as it seems to have had some proven success with Macs.

Thanks again everyone!

Plug in the card, and fire up OS X. If it works, you'll have an Airport icon in your menu bar, ready to go

JB

Just to update anyone who is interested, the Belkin .11g PCI Card (F5D7000au with Ralink chipset) worked a treat. Just slotted it into a PCI slot, downloaded a driver from the belkin website

http://web.belkin.com/support/download/dow...V3&lang=1&mode=

and it's that easy. At $50 (brand new) for this PCI card, this option is a no brainer.

Interestingly enough, my Windoze box in the same room with a Netcomm .11g wireless PCI card only ever managed to get ~60% link quality and signal strength from the router a couple of rooms away. With the Belkin in the G4, the link quality shows up as 100% and signal strength as 99%. Transfer rates are 54Mbps. Brilliant.

Only problem at the moment is that Safari seems to give the "can't connect to server" message to every website but once I click on the refresh button, it will connect. This seems to be happenning to every website. Any ideas what could be causing this?

vwl,

What version of OS X are you running? This behaviour was a known issue with some versions of OS X in 10.2 and 10.3 with some machines. In 10.3 it was definitely fixed by 10.3.7 for both a B&W G3 and an iMac G4, which had previously suffered. So, if this sounds like it might possibly be the issue for your machine, may I suggest you consider upgrading the OS. Good luck.

Going to resurect this old thread rather than start a new one (lest I be accused of not searching )

Aaaanyway...what's the status of this and 10.4? Managed to score a free 400mhz sawtooth and wouldn't mind setting it up as a file server, if only I could get decent wireless.

Bartron

Grab an access point that does bridging or client mode, and hook it upto the ethernet port. Then you dont need to stuff with drivers

hmm...problem is I already have a switch/network printer/etc hooked up, currently bridged via a PC that I'm selling...would rather a neat internal solution...hopefully one that is 'driverless' (i.e. OS X already knows what it is).

A wireless bridge is still on the cards as a second last resort though (last resort is to finally run cat5 through my house)

Bartron

G4 Sawtooth 400Mhz and broadcom chipset wirelss PCI card = working at 802.11g

bonus....we talking any broadcom chipset or just a number in particular?

The pc BTW has a d-link wireless card that has no drivers (even third party ones don't work).

Bartron