Trying to add an Imac G3 to my network

M

megnut

Registered
My husband has a Imac G3 slot loading 400mhz that has not been used in several years. He wants to use it for internet and email. It has os 9.2 installed, no airport card.

I have a Time Machine (base station) hooked to my DSL modem and a 24" Imac wirelessly using that modem, plus a printer connected to an Airport express that makes up my little network.

In my many talks with Apple to get just that working I had to remove an Airport extreme that had been my previous base station. The tech there had told me theoretically I should be able to add the Airport extreme back into my little setup which I was able to do. It shows up in the Airport Utility on the 24" Imac with a green light anyway.

Now I would like to have this G3 with the extreme attached in the network too. Found out rather quickly that wasn't happening till the G3 is upgraded to mac os 10. By running 50 feet of ethernet through the house directly to the DSL modem, I was able to do the firmware 4.1.9 update on the G3. Found out about the firmware update because I tried installing mac os x10.2. So after doing the firmware thing, tried to install again and apparently have upgrade disks that were looking for an earlier version of mac os.

I'm looking to do whatever will work as cheaply as possible. To me anyway my choices seem to be, buy an airport card for this machine, although I'd rather use the airport extreme since I have it, or buy some version of the os X10 to make the extreme work since that is what it is looking for.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
 
Hi;First off you can't install a Airport Extreme card in a G3 Imac.The physical connection is simply not there..Your best bet would be to buy a original Airport card and Imac adapter from Ebay or a similar site.They usually run 25 to 30 dollars for the pair.This will work with OS 9 and up.Plan B would be to upgrade to at least OS 10.3.9 and then You can use a third party usb wi-fi adapter.Once again you can find these on Ebay in the Same price range as the airport card.Only drawback is that you lose use of a usb port.I've run my G3 imac both ways and have had no problems at all with my home network.
 
Do you think if I upgraded to 10.3 I would be able to connect the Airport Extreme base station ( that has been configured to extend my network) via ethernet or is USB the way to go. And in theory if I buy the full install disks for 10.3, should i be bale to upgrade from 9.2. Thanks
 
You can use an old Airport card to connect to an Airport Extreme wireless basestation. The only thing you would need to do is make sure that the basestation is configured to include 802.11b connections.
 
Hi; You Should have no problems connecting via ethernet cable on 10.3.9 If your going to upgrade,I'd suggest at least 512 mb. of ram and a hard drive of at least 20gb and the full retail disk is the way to go.If you choose to stay on OS 9,I'd use at least 128 mb. of ram.Also your web browsing on 9 can be quite painful as there is not a up to date browser available.On 10.3.9 you can use Safari,Firefox or Camino.As to usb wifi or ethernet cable,the choice is yours.One last item,if you go the wifi route make sure that the usb dongle supports whatever encryption your using on your network.
Hope this helps
 
If I do a clean install with 10.3.9, would 320mb of ram and a 10meg hard drive suffice. Hubby doesn't need OS 9 and neither do I since I just got rid of everything OS 9 before he decided he wanted to use this machine. It will be strictly for web browsing and email. He doesn't care or know the difference if it's slow. He is already used to looking Safari as the web browser and doesn't take interface changes too well, so would like to keep it familiar for him. You both have been most helpful.
 
Hello again; You should be able to squeak by with that configuration.Try to keep 10% of your hard drive free as OSX needs that for swapfile space.
 
Thanks for your help. I'll round up that system and have at it and keep my fingers crossed. Thanks again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top