Level 1

21 points

Leopard, airport and the Ti G4 PB

Hi Fellow Ti Book users.

I recently upgraded the OS to Leopard 10.5.1 on my 1Gig G4 tiPB. Everything went okay, I had no major melt downs or anything. However I have one problem concerning the strength of my wifi signal, or at least the apparent strength.

If I stand right beside a wireless router I can't get the airport icon in the menu bar to register full 100% 4 bars, the highest it goes to is 3. In Tiger I have had no problems and it worked as normal. The download speed seems slower, not a massive amount slower, but certainly slower, the thing is if I pick up a weak signal it has a lot of trouble staying connected, whilst with tiger I never had this problem.

So from reading other threads I can see a lot of PB owners with the same problem, has anyone been able to come up with a way to return performance to Tiger levels?

At this stage I'm considering on reverting the PB back to Tiger and leaving Leopard on my iMac instead!

Thanks

iMac Intel 20" & Titanium G4 Powerbook, Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on Dec 2, 2007 7:39 PM

30 replies

Frank F.

Level 2

240 points

May 30, 2008 1:45 AM in response to dawnrazor

I have the same problem on my (unsupported) TiBook. Airport reception strength is about half of what it is under Tiger - only two bars of four right next to the access point.

Unfortunately the Mac OS X 10.5.3 update, although its description mentions some WiFi tweaks, does not fix this issue.

Maybe the problem is related to the original Airport (802.11b) card used in the TiBooks. In fact, with exception of a few Power Macintosh G4 Quicksilver and Mirrored Drive Doors configurations, the PowerBook G4 1GHz/867MHz is the only Mac supported by Leopard which still uses this card - all others already have Airport Extreme.

Jul 13, 2008 7:41 AM in response to dawnrazor

I had the same problem on my iMac when I upgraded to Leopard. The Powerbook G4 worked fine with Leopard. A couple calls to Apple Support helped solve my problem. I unplugged all the plugs from the back of the iMac including the main power cord, waited a few minutes and plugged back in the power cord and keyboard. Then zapped the PRam (command, option, p, r, upon start-up). That resolved the issue for me.

Jul 28, 2008 12:13 AM in response to dawnrazor

I have this issue too. No wireless on leo.

Come on apple, pleas fix this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

csloan

Level 1

0 points

Aug 24, 2008 7:02 PM in response to dawnrazor

I have the same exact problem after upgrading my PowerBook G4 to Leopard. All my other computers (MacBook Pro, MacBook, iPhone) work fine using the same Airport Extreme Base Station. What used to be consistently 4 bars has now dropped to 2 bars (computer is about 6 feet away from the base station). The connection is also slower and the range significantly reduced. Placing the computer right next to the base station shows only 3 bars...

This started immediately after the Leopard update and is consistent across several Wifi routers I've used (one Airport Extreme and one Linksys).

Looking at similar posts, people seems to have the same issue with Airport signal strength with PowerBook G4s and Leopard. I'm convinced this is a driver/Leopard defect. Apple, please look into this!!

Aug 25, 2008 4:41 PM in response to dawnrazor

I just upgraded my 1GHz TiBook to Leopard and am experiencing the same problem. While the signal strength appears to be incredibly poor, I have yet to experience any dropped connections. But then, my room is right next to the router in our apartment. Two bars of signal strength does seem ridiculous though and I would feel much better if this were fixed. C'mon Apple!

Sep 12, 2008 6:00 AM in response to chrisnoonan

For what it's worth, I've got exactly the same apparent signal strength drop since installing 10.5.4 on my PB G4. Within inches of my wireless router the strength is only three bars; where I usually use the laptop it's only two (ie the dot and one curved segment). Previously, running 10.4.11 I had full strength most of the time.

Having said this, the overall performance doesn't seem to be hugely different. I wondered whether Leopard had re-calibrated the signal strength icon.

Sep 17, 2008 5:07 AM in response to dawnrazor

Just did the X.5.5 update, STILL exactly the same! and mine IS supposedly a supported model!! (1GHZ G4) . . mine works only from about 15 - 20 feet from a router max, ANY router, Apple, Linksys, Zyxel, Belkin, 2 Wire or anything else . . no reception strength. Wonder why Apple has NEVER resolved this one?? If I boot up ion Tiger, my actual range increases FOURFOLD!

Sep 23, 2008 4:30 PM in response to dawnrazor

Just adding my voice to the fray. Same exact problem, 1Ghz Titanium Powerbook, full Airport bars before upgrade from Tiger to Leopard, barely 2 bars (the dot and one "curve") after upgrade. Haven't bumped from 10.5.4 to 10.5.5 yet but expectations are low.

Why is this discussion marked "Solved"? Seems unsolved to me from the plethora of postings on this subject.

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Sep 24, 2008 7:26 AM in response to JamieSimon

Why is this discussion marked "Solved"?

Only dawnrazor, the original poster of the topic, can tell you, because only he or she has the ability to mark it. No one else could have done so.

Faddh

Level 1

0 points

Sep 30, 2008 7:05 AM in response to Frank F.

I strongly support this assumption of lost driver support for the first generation airport cards: My TiBook 867MHZ is running Airport via a Belkin PCMCIA card, which is natively supported by OSX because of its broadcom chipset - recognized as an original airport extreme card.

I run OSX 10.5.5 on this machine, and airport performance is even better than with 10.4.11, including the better reception because of the external antenna.

Oct 5, 2008 1:28 PM in response to dawnrazor

I've recently had this problem. I installed V5 and the airport signal dropped significantly. I also found I couldn't download using software update. Download speeds were at a crawl and would fail sometimes citing that the download could not be saved or that I was not connected to the internet.

Apple store London Regent Street gave me the 10.5.5 update as there had been issues with airport on the original 10.5. As it turned out this made no difference. A second visit and it was suggested that the best thing to do would be to back up all files and make a clean installation of the software using erase and install.

I installed the 10.5.5 update immediately after the 10.5 installation before trying software update and have had no problems. Signal strength is back to normal as is general performance. I now have a 1.33 GHz PowerPC G4 powerbook firing Leopard on all cylinders.

jfriecke

Level 1

10 points

Oct 18, 2008 12:48 PM in response to kerryhillbilly

I have noticed this with my Ti 1GHz/1GB/250GB Hard Disk Drive with Leopard 10.5.5..

I wonder if there is a way to make use of an older .kext file from Panther/Tiger...

prwdmd

Level 1

4 points

Oct 28, 2008 7:13 AM in response to jfriecke

Has anyone tried using an external wireless card such as the Aria Sonnet in the cardbus slot? It is a b/g card and should upgrade the wireless range and speed on the powerbook and hopefully resolve the issues everyone is having with the internal airport card. I am planning on buying one in the next couple of months and will report back here if it works.

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Oct 28, 2008 7:42 AM in response to prwdmd

Hi, prwrdmd, and welcome to Apple Discussions. I haven't tried it with Leopard, but the Sonnet Aria Extreme card works beautifully in Tibooks with older OS versions. Its range is at least twice what my Airport card gives me, and unlike some other third-party cards, it doesn't even require removing or disconnecting the Airport card.

Nov 29, 2008 9:33 AM in response to Faddh

Which Belkin PCMCIA wireless card are you using with your TiBook?

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Leopard, airport and the Ti G4 PB