PowerPC :: Boost Of Speed / Reception From Wireless Card?
Aug 17, 2008
I got myself a PowerBook G4, trying to weigh my options as far as upgrades go. The airport inside this laptop gives me horrible reception, always has, always will. Would a wireless card give me a significant boost of speed/reception? If you have experience with it, please add your input as I'm trying to justify this purchase if it will have benefits. Example, I'm in my bedroom, 2 floors down is the wireless router (not that far away), and sometimes reception drops to 0...I'd like to have a solid connection.
I have a 1.33Ghz 12' Powerbook with 768mb Ram. I'd like to upgrade this. As I understand it, the max RAM for this machine is 1GB. I'm just wondering if anyone could give me an idea as to how much of a speed boost I could expect from this upgrade? is it worth doing? Will it make a difference? Spoke to Apple technician this morning, and I think he said he would take out the 512mb RAM chip and install a 1Gb one - but wouldn't this give me 1.25GB, approximately? I didn't think this machine could take that. He left me a little confused. Have just found out that I can actually max my machine out to 1.25GB for a fairly cheap price. Seems worth doing then, yes? Anybody made a jump from 768 - 1.25 before? Did it make a big difference?
My old Mini is in the next room to the wireless DSL modem. It gets one to three max bars, usually two, and it's just through one interior wall. I don't want to spend a bunch of money, I just want to get a little better reception in the next room. I have seen USB wifi antennas advertised. Would that do anything for me? My iBook G4 in the same spot gets full reception no problem.
So my BlackBook is horribly slow. I reformatted it, and I swear, it's actually slower now than it was before I reformatted. My RAM is maxed out. I'm not replacing my computer until MacBooks with USB are released. Is there anything else in the interim I could do that would boost my computer's speed? Would upgrading the HDD
The iMac G3 is a 2002 model, has a 600 mghz processor and 1 GB RAM. It does not have an AirPort wireless card and Apple no longer manufacturers an AirPort card for this machine (which I bought used), so I bought a USB wireless adapter that appears to pick up a pretty strong signal from my Verizon FiOS router, strongest of course when parked next to the router. Unfortunately, I am only able to generate 3.5-4.2 mbps download speed no matter how close I am to the router, whereas the machine can consistently download at 12-15 mbps with a direct ethernet connection. The FiOS router can download at speeds in excess of 20 mbps. Is there some setting I'm overlooking that can improve the wireless connection speed or am I going to have to settle for wired use only?
I've got a 5400rpm HDD in my MacBook Pro -- see specs below. I really didn't think much of the slower speed compared to a desktop being a big deal back in the day, but now I'm thinking it is. It seems that many things across the board take a little longer to launch or load. I probably ruined my perception of speed by using my dad's brand new iMac, but I don't think my computer should trail his that much on just opening iPhoto or Safari.
The lateral move on storage space -- keeping 320GB but bumping to 7200rpm -- would cost me about $90. I don't think a 500GB 7200rpm drive exists. I also don't want to drop $500+ on a SSD because I really can't and I might as well buy a Mac Mini at that point.
I need advice choosing a wireless router. It will be permanently connected to a pc but I plan on using its wireless for my IBook G4. My wireless card is 54-Mbps AirPort Extreme WiFi 802.11g. I am looking for whatever will give me the highest speed, reliability, and least amount of interference (I live in an apartment complex with multiple networks).
2.4GHz mid-2007 Macbook Pro on Leopard. Ever since getting my new monitor and running my laptop in lid closed mode, I've been getting frequent (3-8 times per day) disconnections from my wireless network. One moment the Airport menu bar icon shows full strength, next moment it's disconnected. I never had any trouble in lid open mode. Is this a known issue when running a MBP in with the lid closed?
New to the Mac world here,and really diggin my G4,which I got for free.But I need help with a frustrating situation. Here's the specs: Powermac Gigabit Ethernet dual 500 mHz G4,40 GB primary and 160 GB slave HDs,2 GB RAM,and a fresh install of Tiger with almost nothing downloaded,basically,a brand new machine. The issue: both firefox and Safari are sludgy on internet speed--watching Youtube videos,using Facebook,etc. It's not an ish with my router or modem--my older PC's blaze. it's really frustrating,and I've maxed out the RAM,so I want to know if an upgrade to a 1.8 or 2.0 processor will alleviate this problem once and for all,or if I have a boat anchor. Honestly,I don't do hardcore computing,just burn DVDs,a little photoshop,and play on the internet. There's no reason it should be so damn sluggish watchibng streaming video or simply writing on someone's 'wall' on Facebook.
Two days ago I got a 'new' refurbished 13" MBP from Apple to replace my aging 2006 MB. It's ok, but not quite as nice as I expected. One major thing I've noticed is that the wireless reception is much worse than my old MacBook. They're both connected to a Netgear WGR614 v9, but the MB is getting about 2/4 bars, while the MBP is constantly dropping the connection. In fact, right now I have the MB booted in Win7 and it's running Connectify, in order to share the connection with the MBP. I'm downloading the latest software updates right now, and then I'll see if any firmware is available, but I doubt that will make much of a difference. Is this because the new MBP is made from aluminum?
I just replaced a 5400 rpm 320 Gb Western Digital (not the stock drive) with a Momentus XT in my late 2007 MBP, and I couldn't be more impressed. The eternal beach balls are gone. Granted, I've never had an SSD, but the speed boost from this thing is unbelievable. I didn't even do a clean install, just a restore from Time Machine. I didn't do formal benchmarks, but I did time my boot sequence before and after:
Old Drive Chime to Login Screen: 46 seconds Chime to launch Safari and open web page: 2:58
Momentus XT Chime to Login Screen: 22 seconds Chime to launch Safari and open web page: 38 seconds
So, the new drive can boot and open a web page faster than the old drive could get to the login screen. Altogether 2 minutes and 20 seconds faster. Not that I reboot very often, but it gives you some idea of how much faster everything is. I was so fed up with how slow my MBP was that I almost bought a new MBP for $2000, then I almost bought a 200 Gb SSD that wouldn't have had enough space for $340 (would have had to also buy an optibay and worry about losing hibernation or shock protection). So glad I just spent $130 and got a huge performance boost for very little money or hassle.
This very fast and very expensive new video card for my Dual Core Powermac G5 doesn't seem to be speeding anything up for me. Is this because the graphics cards on PM G5's still rely on the CPU or something? It still stutters when I'm playing back certain video online.
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500:
Chipset Model:Quadro FX 4500 Type:Display Bus:PCIe Slot:SLOT-1 PCIe Lane Width:x16
I have a 450mhz powermac g4 that I am using for a simple file server in my house. I was wondering if there are any pci cards that have mac drivers, that would work. In order to steam movies and stuff, the card probably has to support 802.11g.
I have a power mac G4. My tech man says I have a generic wireless card installed. I have tried to use internet connect but it does not see it. Also when a do a summary of the network the card is not detected. Finally, no Airport option ever comes up to connect to. It is not available. Anything I can do or do I need to find a mac pro in my area?
I bought this refurbished computer, which has Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard PowerPC G4,1.42 GHz, Single Core,512 MB, and 80 GB hard drive. I'm told it can probably use an Airport Express card #A1026. Is this correct? And, I was also told I would have to plug in the antenna. Anything else to get? (I already have a Netgear Router #WGR614)
I've been given a PowerBook G3. I'm not sure which version it is or anything. But its a PowerBook G3 because it says on the screen. How do I find out exactly what machine I've been given and what wireless card to have a look for. I wouldn't mind spending a couple of quid on ebay for an old second hand airport card just for fun really. Its got os9 on atm. I've got an old osx10.1 disk somewhere I might try and update it a little.
I have a G3 BW, 400mhz, 1gb ram. I would like to add wireless since it's away from a wired connection. Am I limited to the Mac-compatible pci cards? I have panther OS on it and can upgrade to tiger but hear that it runs best in panther so I'll wait. I've seen some drivers that you can buy which will make a select number of non-mac wireless pci cards work, but not really sure how well these function - Thoughts? Experience?. Plus I don't want to sink a ton of money in it, it's running very well now, actually quite well. I hope to spend less than $30 for a used or new wireless b-g pci card if possible. Does anyone have any budget cards that they are using sucessfully? B, G wireless specs are fine, I don't have N.
i have to get a wireless Wifi card or wireless USB stick for my 2.5 Quad G5 Tower. What are the best options for me? Should i get a USB wireless stick from OWC or should i get an internal Wifi Card? Can i use the latest PCI Express Extreme WiFi card on an old G5 Tower?
I just got a 17" Powerbook G4 1.5 Ghz. My friend that sold it to me said that her wireless always had a really weak signal but in recent time, unless she was in the same room as the router it was really hard to get a decent connection. She said she took it to an Apple store but her Apple care was expired and they said they'd have to send it out for 5-7 days. Today I just tried it out at home, where I normally (as well as everyone else in the house) have full signal from our router, this computer gets a bar or two max.
I was adding in some more RAM to it so I figured I'd take it the rest of the way apart. So, in doing so carefully because I could not find a diagram at all that matched this computer, I found that there is not a Airport Extreme card in the computer at all. Is that right? Is the wireless built in now? (or maybe for that year). Is this a common problem that the signal fades?
I want to buy this item: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/G5Wireless/
The bluetooth/airport extreme card for my PCI-e Dualcore 2.0ghz G5. I'm happy to install it myself. However I am leaving to go back to the UK on jan 31st, and sweetwater don't actually stock the item, and it will take a while to get it to me unless they expedite it from Apple and charge an extra $42 or so, which is too much for me. Anyone know who might actually stock the item and be able to send it out quickly?
I went out and bought the most powerful wireless router I could find with the hopes that I could get a good strong signal over at the house next door.The signal did improve but it is still not sufficent. Now I am thinking of installing some sort of anntanae at the house next door.
Info: MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4), 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7, 8 GB DDR3
I just installed the Airport extreme wireless card on my emac, but I have run into some problems:
1)after installing the card, the mac took a very long time to start up, I tested to make sure it was the card: everytime I started it up without the card, it did the normal thing, but with the card, it took a long time
2)after finally starting up, nowhere can i find where/how to configure the wireless. When I go to configure the network, it has all options, but the airport card option is not usable.
I bought a G3 Clamshell Ibook today and I don't know how to connect to the net with it. So I did some reseach (btw I know nothing about Mac's nothing at all. This is my first one!!) and there is something about an Airport card. So my question is how do I check to see if my computer has it. If it does then how do I access the net.
If not, please, please tell me there is another way to get wireless on the thing cause I don't think I can install a wireless card on a computer. I would not even know where to begin.
So i resurrected my old DP G4/450/768/10.4 and strangely, it shows 30% more wireless networks than my Mac Pro/Dual Xeon/4gb/10.5 and both HP Laptops running Vista. The G4 has an internal Airport card(i forgot about them there days!). Of course the Airport card knows nothing of WPA encryption and have to disable security to connect. It amazes me that the reception is so much better in this legacy machine.
Just wondering what else, if anything else, I can upgrade on my system.I have an original 2006 launch model (2 x 2.66 Ghz Dual Core Xeon, 8GB 667 DDR2 RAM from Crucial, 4 x 1TB Western Digital RE3 7200RPM drives w/ 32MB Cache in a Software RAID)However, I still have the original NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT card in here and I've never been super-impressed nor disappointed.Should I replace it? I do mostly graphics work in Photoshop and writing code as a web-developer but I do occasional gaming so I'd see a benefit there.. I'm just wondering if it'd boost performance in the OS. Honestly, the computer runs fine... I would never replace it unless it had an issue. I'm just thinking about the future.
I am currently at the beach and I have my Powerbook G4 12'' and my father's MacBook operating. Both have OSX 10.4.11 running. My father's MacBook, which is approximately 3 years old versus my older Powerbook, is picking up several internet connections from the surrounding houses in the area but for whatever reason, my older Powerbook only picks up about 1/3 the amount of internet connections. Does anyone know why this is the case? Do the newer MacBook's have improved components in terms of their airports that allow them to pick up more signals? Is there a setting I can change on my older Powerbook that could improve my signal reception.
I recently purchased a refurbished AirPort Extreme Card and AirPort antenna for my late 2004 Power Mac G5. My Mac is running on OS X Version 10.4.11. I properly installed them, since the computer notes the AirPort Extreme card in the "About Mac" menu. There are a couple of wireless networks near my home and the computer doesn't detect any of them. I've checked out previous forum discussions around this issue, tried some suggested troubleshooting to no avail. Can I presume the AirPort Extreme card is defective? It detects absolutely no signal from the other networks around here. Could the WEP password length of our router have anything to do with it? Do I need to download a driver to activate the AirPort Extreme Card? Could upgrading to a different operating system make it work?
