Belkin 802.11g wireless USB adapter

Hi Rod, welcome to discussions.

I would not trust this adapter to function properly on OS X.
Even if Belkin, or some other third-party creates drivers to allow it to work, it will most likely be very unstable. USB is simply not a reliable networking platform.

If your machine is not capable of using an Apple Airport card, then your next best wireless option would be to use a Wireless ethernet bridge. Something like the Linksys WET54G.

Here is a link to a lot of compatible wireless devices. Some of them are pretty cheap on Ebay.

http://home.earthlink.net/~metaphyzx/Wireless.htm

No problem. Glad to help. I have gotten a lot of great advice from these discussions.

Hello, I recently bought one of the Belkin-Gs to use with my iBook, on the advice of a Mac retailer, who downloaded the driver for me. I have been using an ethernet connection via a Netgear router, which works fine. When I plug in the Belkin adaptor, it shows that it connects fine to the router and the signal strength is 100%, but I can't access the internet. I am currently using Safari.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks.

I am still learning the systems on the mac but I would try the following:

Open System Preferences
Select Network
Configure using DCHP
Apply

This should tell the network adapter to get its address from the wireless router. If you are using WEP security for the wireless router. The encryption passphrase needs to be set on the notebooks wireless adapter. If the router is set to default values then WEP is probably disabled and it should talk to the adapter.

Maybe someone with at little more savvy can help as well.

Rick

Joan, Welcome to the discussion area!

The best solution is to get the appropriate internal card ( AirPort card or AirPort Extreme card) for your iBook. Not only is support for the card built into OS X, but there is no unsightly dongle sticking out the USB port waiting to get knocked out.

Thanks Rick and Duane,

I figured it out. It just wasn't recognizing the USB port for some reason. It's actually working fine now.
I know what you mean about the dongle! It is annoying, but they don't make the airport card for my machine anymore. I did have a noodle around ebay for one, but they were about three times the price and I was a bit wary about what might happen if I bought a duff one.

Thanks again for your help. No doubt I will be back soon with another "blonde moment" question.

...but they don't make the airport card for my machine anymore.

Several retailers still sell it though.

I did have a noodle around ebay for one, but they were about three times the price and I was a bit wary about what might happen if I bought a duff one.

Several non-eBay sources of the original AirPort card are listed in Duane, "Where to buy an original Airport Card?" #3, 07:30am Oct 26, 2005 CDT.