Newbie seeking help with AirPort Extreme card in G5 Imac

Trevor R wrote:
Airport Utility cannot locate my existing 802.11n network

Welcome to Apple's discussion groups.

Does your network also support 802.11b/g? The AirPort Extreme card you installed in your iMac G5 apparently doesn't support 802.11n.

Trevor R wrote:
according to the Airport Express base station setup guide it supports (or 'is compatible with') 802a/b/g/n.

That's true. Your mention of "my existing 802.11n network" made me wonder if perhaps you'd configured it to support only 802.11n.

Can you confirm using AirPort Utility that your AirPort Express is configured to support 802.11b/g? Look in the AirPort panel, Wireless tab, Radio Mode setting.

If you open the Network panel of System Preferences, is there an AirPort connection item? If not, you should create one. If the option to "Show AirPort status in menu bar" isn't selected, you may want to select that.

Trevor R wrote:
AirPort: on (greyed out)

The grey there is normal, as it's not meant to be selectable.

No network selected (grey)

I'm not sure what that means. Please confirm that you see no networks under that. Is your Wi-Fi base station set to be non-"hidden"?

attached the aerial

Just to be sure I'd verify that you pushed in that connector all the way.

Wireless Card Locale: USA

That might prevent use of certain Wi-Fi channels, but I wouldn't think that would cause it to fail completely. You might try reconfiguring your AirPort Express to use a different channel.

It might help to reset the connection settings on your Mac using these steps:

1) Use the AirPort menu bar item to turn AirPort off, then on again.

2) In the Network panel of System Preferences delete the AirPort item from the left column, then add it back.

3) In the same panel as (2), define a new location and see if you can make that work.

4) In the same panel, select the AirPort connection item, click the "Advanced" button, select the "TCP/IP" tab, then click "Renew DHCP Lease".

5) In the folder /Library/Preferences ( not <yourhomefolder>/Library/Preferences), move the folder SystemConfiguration onto the Desktop, then restart your computer. See if you can now make your AirPort connection work.

They may not help, but they'll only take a couple of minutes to try. Before you try these, note all your network settings, because the latter steps will destroy them.

I would suggest that you assure that the AirPort card is firmly pressed into its slot, but since System Profiler shows the card, I doubt that would do anything useful. Have you tried running the diagnostics that came with your iMac? (If it came with a separate diagnostics CD, boot from that with the "C" held down. Otherwise boot from the "System Install disc with the "D" key held down.) If that doesn't show anything interesting, I have no other suggestions.

You have a first generation G5 iMac which does not support 802.11n, and takes the AirPort Extreme card M8881LL/A, which is (generally) readily available.

Regardless of hardware/software, your iMac's AirPort will not be able to see, or use, any 802.11n wireless network. Change your router's wireless mode to 802.11g and the G5 iMac should see and connect.

Message was edited by: myhighway

myhighway wrote:
You have a first generation G5 iMac which does not support 802.11n, and takes the AirPort Extreme card M8881LL/A, which is (generally) readily available.

According to Mactracker that designation is compatible with the OP's mention of A1026.

Regardless of hardware/software, your iMac's AirPort will not be able to see, or use, any 802.11n wireless network.

According to the fifth message of this thread, the OPs AirPort Express is already configured to support 802.11b/g.

I am having exactly the same problem with my iMac and Airport Extreme. I have Hughes Network satellite internet with a HN7000S modem. If I connect my ethernet cable from the modem to the computer it is fine, but if I plug the same cable into the LAN port of the AP extreme the internet signal is lost completely.
I have uninstalled the software and started over to no avail. This is my second Airport Extreme. The first one worked for about 3 days and froze up and nothing I did could get it back up until I unplugged it from the AP base station and back into the computer.

+Unlike the display that the System Profiler gives when I query Airport settings in my MacBook, that's ALL that appears … no other information is given: no Country Code, no Supported PHY Modes, Channels, etc.: NOTHING.+

+Can anyone suggest why no further information appears within the System Profiler?+

Because OS X 10.5.8 is not 10.6.5 - but of course you can not install Snow Leopard. System Profiler in Leopard shows "Network > AirPort Card" but not "Network > AirPort" as does System Profiler in Snow Leopard. What you see in your Leopard System Profiler is all that it compiles and all you can see, with the exception of "Wireless Channel:" which you do not see only because you have no network connection.

Exactly what else do you need to see? Most of the additional information that you want to see is not information about the AirPort Card itself, but is network info. If you want more info, find it by first connecting to your network, although Snow Leopard shows "PHY" info while Leopard makes no mention of anything "PHY" and by searching through your OS to find the details. System Profiler simply does not compile it for you in Leopard.

"Software Versions:" are unimportant since you already re-installed and know they're up to date.
Your "Supported PHY modes" are 802.11 b/g
Your "Supported Channels" are probably 1 through 11
"Wake on Wireless" is supported
"Status" is not connected

"Current Network Information:" could not be seen even in Snow Leopard as you have no connection. Same for "Other Local Wireless Networks:"

+Join other networks (selectable)+

First, is there any wireless network besides yours that shows? Is any network shown that you can join? Does it show your wireless network?

When your MacBook with Snow Leopard opens "AirPort Utility > Advanced > Logging & Statistics > Logs and Statistics > Wireless Clients" does it show the iMac in the list of clients?

When you go to "AirPort > Wireless" what is the setting for "Radio Mode:"? What is the setting for "Radio Channel Selection"?

+if I plug the same cable into the LAN port of the AP extreme the internet signal is lost completely.+

No wonder it freezes up. Ethernet cable should be connected from modem to the single Ethernet WAN port of the Extreme.

And, no, this is not at all the exact same problem.

Trevor,
I would try changing the Radio Mode setting in AirPort Utility to Automatic, then Update. If still no go, I'd also try changing the Radio Channel Selection to the Manual setting instead of Automatic - and set it to channel 6.

Perhaps the antenna wire running along the side in the G5 iMac might have gotten crimped or damaged. Probably unlikely, and not much you could do about that in any case. I'd guess there's nothing wrong with the AirPort card itself, or it wouldn't have shown up in System Profiler.