Best way for a G5 to connect with wifi?

[pm-r]

No Ebay search for a Mac G5 Runway Card brings up anything.

So I'm stuck again. Does anyone know where I might find a Runway Card for this Late 2005 PowerMac G5 Quad-Core?

It looks like there are still lots availabe from some of these sources:

Google Search

But why don't you look into or use a USB Wi-Fi adapter instead which are probably much more powerful with more features than an old G5 Apple Airport card and maybe even cheaper?

Google Search

- Patrick
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[Tuppy]

Hello Patrick. I'm confused too, but then I'm always confused.

Once I had the two computers (the Mac Pro and the G5) linked together by the Ethernet cable, and able to share files (the ability to share files only proved that they were linked), the idea was then to get the Mac Pro to share its ability to get on the Internet with the G5.

To do that, I went to the Mac Pro's System Preferences > Sharing, and ticked the box that says Internet Sharing.

Both of these Macs have the Firefox browser to get on the Internet with.

The Mac Pro could still get on the Internet through its Firefox browser, but the G5 that was linked to it by ethernet could not, which indicated to me that the Mac Pro was not really sharing its Internet connection with the G5.

Was I doing something wrong?

 

[Tuppy]

Well, so far today, aside from MacPalace, I've tried Macsology, Power Mac Parts, UsedMacsUS, Bookyard.com, and MacParts online. All of them advertise Runway Cards, but none have any in stock, nor do they expect to get any (the three whose phone numbers I've called).

These Runway Cards appear to be rare items, and priced accordingly: $60 - $100.

As to USB methods of getting wifi, I have a little gadget that I've had for a few years with an antenna that plugs into any of the G5's USB ports, with a related app called NewerTech Wireless Utility. Sometimes the G5 can get onto our home wifi network with it, and thence onto the Internet, but more often it won't, and even when it does the connection often suddenly breaks. So it's frustrating and unstable and I quit using it.

However, all the newer USB plug-in wifi devices that I've looked at so far either work with only with Windows, or if they do support Mac OS, they require a later version than 10.5 Leopard, which is what I'm running in the G5 in order to run the software I need.

So, I guess I've got two searches going now: one for a G5 Runway Card and, another for a USB wifi device that will work with Mac OS Leopard. No luck with either one so far.

 

[harryb2448]

Here you are. Did mention runweay card back in post #9.

922-7090 Standoff, Runway Card - PowerMac G5 Late 2005 A1177

922-7090 Standoff, Runway Card - PowerMac G5 Late 2005 A1177

www.macpartsonline.com

 

[Tuppy]

Thanks, Harry, but I think that's just a standoff--a little bushing--not the Runway card itself. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Guess I missed your mention of a Runway card in an earlier post.

 

[pm-r]

However, all the newer USB plug-in wifi devices that I've looked at so far either work with only with Windows, or if they do support Mac OS, they require a later version than 10.5 Leopard, which is what I'm running in the G5 in order to run the software I need.

This should get you working, and Leopard is mentioned as supported:
Modern Wifi on PowerPC Macs

If you need more, there are some others mentioned here but I did not check them out:

Google Search

NewerTech usually made very good stuff, both software and hardware. Maybe it's hardware wore out or maybe it's really old and not really compatible with newer Wi-Fi stuff.


- Patrick
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[Tuppy]

Hey, that looks like a solution to getting this G5 onto the Internet: by using a modern dongle with a special driver to run it in OS 10.5 Leopard. Thanks for the link the Youtube video.

The person who put up that Youtube video showing how to do it, and who provides the driver on his website, says that any cheap dongle will work, and he says he's had good luck with the TP-Link brand. So I just now went over to Amazon and bought a TP-Link USB WiFi N-150 Network Adapter for $10 (see screenshot).

This is one of those dongles I looked at earlier, that says it will work with Macs, but only with OS 10.9 through 10.15, so I passed it by. However, with the special driver downloaded from that fellow's website, it should be able to work in 10.5 as well. We'll see, when it gets here on Friday.

After it arrives I'll report on whether I was able to get it to work.

Thanks yet again Patrick!

 

[Tuppy]

Success! The old Mac G5 Quad-core is now able to connect to the Internet! But it isn’t through the USB dongle as I thought it was going to be; it’s through the Airport Extreme card after all. A friend of mine who had some old G5s looked inside them and spotted a Runway card in one, the thing I needed for my Airport Card to attach to, and he gave it to me.

So I put the Airport Extreme card onto the Runway card, put the Runway card into the G5, plugged the two little wire antennas into the Airport card, buttoned up and started up the Mac, and presto! the G5 can now link to the Internet through our home wifi network.

Now my old Adobe GoLive website-creation-and-management software on the G5 is able to upload changes to my websites (I made a few small changes and uploaded them to test it). That was my main goal all along: website management using the old GoLive software that that won’t run on any Mac newer than a PowerMac G5. So that goal has been achieved.

As a bonus, the other three computers on our home network can now connect wirelessly to the G5 and share files with it, should I ever want to do that.

However, the G5 itself can only connect to two of the other three Mac. When I try to connect it to the Mac Pro that I use on a daily basis (and that the modem is plugged into), I get an error message on the G5’s monitor that says:

“Connection Failed. This file server is running on your machine. Please access the volumes and files locally.”

Sometimes a different error message comes up that says: “Connection Failed. There was an error connecting to the server. Check the server name or IP address and try again.”

Can anyone tell me what those messages mean, and how I might correct the problem? I’m afraid to make any changes to the network settings without knowing what I’m doing, for fear of losing what I have right now.

Tom

 

[pm-r]

Can anyone tell me what those messages mean, and how I might correct the problem? I’m afraid to make any changes to the network settings without knowing what I’m doing, for fear of losing what I have right now.

Don't forget to do a current backup, and preferably using a backup clone

Glad to hear that some things are starting to work a bit better, and Apple's file sharing can be a bit of a bear do get working if the OS software isn't similar and/or at least somewhat compatible.


- Patrick
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[Tuppy]

Well you've given me a lot of help here Patrick and I appreciate it. The G5 is running 10.5 Leopard and the Mac Pro is running 10.11.6 El Capitan, so there's a gap of five OS revisions in between them; nevertheless the Network and Sharing panels look about the same.

Still, there are so many changeable settings in all those Network and Sharing panels and sub-panels and sub-sub panels that I'm sure to foul something up if I go messing around with them, so maybe I'll just leave well enough alone and be grateful for what does work.

And yes, thanks, I've got two external hard drives attached to this G5, one of them running a Time Machine backup on it, so I feel like the data in its two internal drives is pretty safe. I don't want to lose my websites, for sure. I learned about the importance of backups the hard way, as many of us did.

I remember some years ago putting a new hard drive into a Mac and then working many hours on a complicated video project, without backing it up for several days ("it's brand new, how could it fail?"), so of course the drive dropped dead and I lost all that work, and had to start all over again from scratch. I don't take anything for granted anymore, and keep at least a Time Machine on all four of the Macs here, as well as occasionally backing up an important folder between them.

It scares me when I see people putting a lot of precious, irreplaceable family photos, baby pictures or something equally valuable, onto a little thumb drive and tossing it in a drawer. A sad lesson looms there. In the old days of film we always had the photo prints, backed up by the negatives--automatic hard copies if you will. We just had to make sure we didn't lose the shoebox or the album they were in, but no matter where they were our pictures could never just vanish forever into the ether like what happens when a flash drive or a hard drive fails.

Tom

 

[harryb2448]

Good work Tom and through the Runway Card and Airport Extreme is the only way it could be done. Ahh I loved 2.5GHz Quad and only moved away when Mac Pro were introduced. They were really a fore runner of the Mac Pro.

 

[Tuppy]

Yes I guess the G5 Quad was the forerunner of the Mac Pro; then Apple went away from them and designed a round Mac that looks like a bushing for something, and now it seems they've seen the error of their ways and returned to basically the same tower design again.

I guess the Quad runs pretty hot, since it has a liquid cooling system in it and a whole slew of cooling fans. That was my only gripe with it when I was using it all the time--the noise from all those fans. It starts up with a howl and then settles down to a muffled roar, and all the hot air pouring out the back of it can heat a room in the winter, or overheat one in the summer as it does now.

Maybe that's one reason why Apple switched to Intel chips after the G5s--they must run cooler. The Mac Pro is certainly infinitely quieter.

Oh, and thanks again Harry for the help in my getting this G5 connected to the Internet.

Tom

 

[harryb2448]

Maybe Tom open her up and give a good clean. I used to use a vacuum cleaner with a plastic nozzle on both suck and blow. Perhaps replacing a couple of the fans may also help.

 

[Tuppy]

Good idea. That's what I'll do, give it a good clean-out. Probably hasn't been done in years. Not sure where I'd get new fans, though, or any other parts for such an old machine, but I'll take a look on Ebay.

I wonder if that friend of mine with the old G5s in his garage might have any fans that fit. I'll see.

Anyway this Mac gets on the Internet now, no matter how loud it runs, so anything else is gravy.

Thanks again.

 

[pm-r]

I used to use a vacuum cleaner with a plastic nozzle on both suck and blow.

If one uses that method, it is a good idea to ground the end of the nozzle to dissipate the static that can get charged up. And any dry air can generate a lot of it.

I wonder if that friend of mine with the old G5s in his garage might have any fans that fit. I'll see.

One of my fans on my mid 2011 27 in iMac went really noisy about the same time my original hard drive went kaput a few weeks ago now, and I was able to get a brand new replacement fan from ifixit.com at a fairly reasonable price of around $25 Canadian, plus shipping and taxes...

A lot of places were asking quite a bit more for used replacement fans. So I was pleasantly surprised.


- Patrick
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