Improve very poor AirPort card range on G5s
Jan 03, '07 07:30:00AM
Contributed by: fogonthetyne
This is going to be ridiculously simple for many people, but hey, I made this mistake and even Apple Support couldn't figure it out. Plus, documentation at the present time for installing AirPort cards is designed for a replacement card, which misses a vital step.
Anyway, if you have a G5 and have installed an AirPort card yourself, you should know this: Strictly speaking, there are two antennas!
- There's the small internal antenna which you must click into the top of the AirPort card inside the Mac -- this bit is well documented.
- Your Mac originally came with a T-shaped object, which is the external AirPort antenna designed to overcome the metal casing of your Mac. Plug this into the AirPort port on the rear of the machine, and your range will increase from about 1m to ... well, much, much more. Go look in the box -- it's probably still there!
I hope this saves someone some time; I still can't believe that Apple Support didn't figure this out straight away.
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