airport card and eMac - Won't go in!

Hello eveyrone,

I've been a mac user for years at work and I just inherited an eMac from my company. (yes, they are very generous!). In an effort to avoid ethernet cables, I have a PC wireless network (yeah, I know... ) in my home and I'm trying to include the eMac on that network.

I was told at the Apple store to buy a regular 802.11 Airport card off Ebay or macwireless.com, sot that's what I did. It arrived last night and I was very excited to get the thing installed. I followed the instructions from Apple.com, and I cannot get the card to fit into the slot! The card appears to be wider than the slot by a couple of "hairs" as they say. I've tried and tried and tried for about an hour total. I finally had to stop for fear that I would break something or throw the darn thing out the window.

I don't think they make more than once size of airport card, do they? It's not an extreme card... just regular airport. Has anyone had this problem and been able to resolve it? I hate to go back to the Apple store again.

Thanks!

Im pretty sure the emac requires an airport extreme card which is slightly thinner.

http://www.apple.com/emac/specs.html

Macman is correct, Airport Extreme is what the official specs say.

dtravis7 said:

http://www.apple.com/emac/specs.html

Macman is correct, Airport Extreme is what the official specs say.

Click to expand...

This is very strange, as both the Apple Store AND macwireless.com told me I needed a regular airport card. Thanks for your help. Anyone want to buy a used Airport card?

I just had another thought...isn't the Extreme card fairly new? This eMac of mine was purchased back in the summer of 2003. If the extreme card is new, this older eMac wouldn't require it.

breckgirl5 said:

I just had another thought...isn't the Extreme card fairly new? This eMac of mine was purchased back in the summer of 2003. If the extreme card is new, this older eMac wouldn't require it.

Click to expand...

eMac's were using AirPort Extreme by the summer of 2003.

Click on the Apple logo in your Menu bar and select "About This Mac". Then click on "More Info..." and check which graphics card you have. If it's ATI, you need the AirPort Extreme card.

BTW, if it turns out you do indeed have the wrong card, you'll find that it's actually a pretty valuable piece. Since Apple discontinued the AirPort cards, they're becoming harder and harder to find.

Padawan said:

eMac's were using AirPort Extreme by the summer of 2003.

Click on the Apple logo in your Menu bar and select "About This Mac". Then click on "More Info..." and check which graphics card you have. If it's ATI, you need the AirPort Extreme card.

BTW, if it turns out you do indeed have the wrong card, you'll find that it's actually a pretty valuable piece. Since Apple discontinued the AirPort cards, they're becoming harder and harder to find.

Click to expand...

Apple for sure dropped the Airport cards? Thanks for the info. Makes sense though and probably why my Mac Store and CompUSA had a few of them heavly discounted. I have a Sawtooth as well as Mac Mini and bought one for the Sawtooth.

Now I bet the price on Ebay will rise as people will want them for their older Macs.