03-26-2011, 07:08 PM

Not too computer savvy here so please bear with me. We purchased a G5 powermac refurbished (1.8) for my son for his birthday. The purpose of this computer was to use protools 8, a recording software program and the internet needs that go with that. Well it has been fail after fail. Protools loaded fine and worked well, then we purchased the airport card, which of course didn't work. Then we purchased an antenna, again didn't work - no internet connection or signal and all of this caused to operating system to shut down. The company we purchased the computer from sent us a disc of the operating system, we reinstalled and tried to reinstall protools but could not because the operating system was not updated - and we could not update it because of no internet. Just bought an ethernet cable and plugged directly into the computer (PC) in the next room. Internet worked, downloaded the updates and boom - no more internet or midibox connection, protools isn't working either. We are at a loss, live in a small town so not a lot of assistance and everything we have to buy is over the internet so it prolongs the process. Plus we are on a 2-3 hour time zone difference from where we purchased the computer so it's difficult to call them. What should we do? Where should we start?? Is it the computer? Internet? Protools? Us? We are all very frustrated - it's been a month long ordeal and we have had no success.

03-26-2011, 08:55 PM

So if I got the "gist" of your post...the main problem with your Powermac G5 is connecting to the internet via the airport card...is this correct?

- Nick

03-26-2011, 09:27 PM

Well at first - we have given up on the airport and antenna because we have been told that this mac has metal housing and it's too difficult to get a signal - therefore the ethernet cable is hooked to a pc in the next room which is run on a wireless router that is downstairs. So today, my son was able to get on the internet with the ethernet cable and downloaded some updates to leopard 10.5.6. Then everything stopped and the internet wouldn't connect and the midi box isn't being detected and protools still won't load. Just a note, a pc laptop in that same location can detect 5 or more networks and the mac with the airport card and antenna detected one (ours) but it was very intermittent.

03-26-2011, 09:46 PM

Originally Posted by lmbcox

Well at first - we have given up on the airport and antenna because we have been told that this mac has metal housing and it's too difficult to get a signal - therefore the ethernet cable is hooked to a pc in the next room which is run on a wireless router that is downstairs. So today, my son was able to get on the internet with the ethernet cable and downloaded some updates to leopard 10.5.6. Then everything stopped and the internet wouldn't connect and the midi box isn't being detected and protools still won't load. Just a note, a pc laptop in that same location can detect 5 or more networks and the mac with the airport card and antenna detected one (ours) but it was very intermittent.

Yeah...my first question was going to be (after reading your 1st post)...was...if you had an ethernet cable to plug into your Windows computer in the next room...you should have used the same cable on the Powermac G5, to get on the internet.

As far as the airport card & antenna...this setup really should work. One of my Mac's is a Powermac G5...and I have no troubles with the airport card & getting WiFi connectivity. So regarding the airport problem:

- When you installed the Airport Extreme card...did you remember to plug the antenna cable into the card (this happens more often than you might think). Check out this document (photos on page 4 & 5). FYI...your airport card may look a bit different...my main point is to see the wire that plugs into the airport card.

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/airport_card.pdf

- Are you using this external antenna?:



HTH,

- Nick

03-26-2011, 11:48 PM

Well, here is the deal. We tried using the airport card and antenna, and all the stuff worked fine. It's just that the computer that our modem is downstairs. The computer in the other room is getting a wireless signal. And, since a wired connection would be way faster, we're going to go with the ethernet option. Plus, the ethernet cable was way cheaper than the airport card and the antenna. Anyway, our main problem is setting up a shared internet connection that works between the windows computer and the G5. I set it up before the updates, and it worked okay. But now, even though the ethernet is hooked up, the windows computer is allowing a shared connection, and all the settings that I had previous to the update are the same, it still doesn't work. I'm curious as to whether it was the update that caused the issue, or maybe a software problem, like we had before with network preferences.

03-26-2011, 11:51 PM

Oh, also, we are not using that antenna, but we are using an antenna that we've been told works great, even better than the one pictured above.

03-27-2011, 05:20 PM

Metal housing has nothing to do with getting a signal and like Nick have connections on G5 PowerMac and Mac Pro using Airport Extreme card. Better antenna than the original? Sounds like someone in the PC shop is feeding you a line.

Trust it is not a PCI connected card or antenna as nearly impossible to get Mac drivers for them.