Mac OS Wireless Adapter Compatibility List

[metaphyzx]

I compiled a 802.11a/b/g wireless adapter list mentioned in the thread regarding the D-link DWL122 USB Adapter ("Wireless options for non-airport G4 "). Thanks in good part to the wlan-linux list and other sources, I'll fully flesh it out over the week.

The list can be found here:

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


Any additions, or corrections... shoot me an e-mail or IM message me, or post in the thread, please.

[spragueg]

This is great! Thanks for the post.

[Craig R. Arko]

Not really a help request, so moving to the 'OS Xperiences' forum...

Very handy to have, and a lot of effort. Thanks!

[metaphyzx]

List updated as of last week; the latest devices I know of that are supported have been added. Any others with wireless cards/adapters they have gotten working under OS 9/X or available drivers, message or email me!

[metaphyzx]

Added and changed per this email:

Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 12:06:17 +0800

Some updates to your page, which I found extremely useful:

CURRENT: Belkin;802.11g;F5D7000
UPDATE: Also the 'F5D7000UK'; no need to 'Add Vendor ID string in AP'
under 10.3.4 Just PnP.

CURRENT: Linksys;802.11g;WMP54G
UPDATE: Only v2 of the card has the Broadcom chip.


--------------
Roland Kee


I've modified the page. Thanks!

[metaphyzx]

The list was updated 9-23-04 due to these additions/notes. Thanks guys!

Hi Meta-dude,

I wrote to you months ago about the USB-prism based
DWL-122 from D-Link, and hacking its drivers to work
with Netgears MA111 and the Syntax USB-400. Here is a
sort of update. I also sent this to Mike Breeden at
XLR8YourMac.com.

Feel free to add info to your list.

Regards,

Dave Purdy, WI
------------------------------------
A newer driver (version 1.4.7) for D-Link's DWL-122
has surfaced, with excellent functionality and many
nice surprises.

Over the last year or so, a lot of bad press and
flaming forum posts from Mac users have accumulated
for D-Link's DWL-122. The problems seem to have been
with the driver. I (personally) and many others had
freezes so often with the 1.3.2 and 1.3.1 versions,
but 1.4.7 seems to have those licked.

An interesting thing about D-Link's latest, version
1.4.7,
<http://www.dlink.com.sg/products/sup...id=175#drivers
> , it seems to recognize __many__ different
Prism-based devices, and not just D-Link's. If you
look at the extension 'Intersil Prism2.kext",
specifically at the Info.plist, you will see not just
the DWL-122 listed in the IOKitPersonalities, but also
at least 5 other USB Prism units - the Netgear MA111,
and a MicroSloth USB Wireless device, to name a few.

I am currently using the Netgear MA111 with the 1.4.7
driver. It behaves very well now, with no freezes,
panics, or dropped connections - after 2 days of heavy
use. The driver seems stable (___finally___!!!) and
now suddenly it doesn't need to be altered to work
with USB wireless devices other than the DWL-122. I
find it strange, even ironic, that someone has added
support in their driver for other firms' cards, but
I'm not complaining.

As I got the Netgear for free, it is a nice little
backup/portable wireless unit. I originally bought the
DWL-122 last fall for $30 at BestBuy, but returned it
after so many freezes and problems. I am confident
that it would now work fine with the actual D-Link
unit.

It also drives the Syntax USB-400 unit equally now,
though a hack to edit the product and vendor ID's in
the Info.plist is necessary for this to work.

Though all of these devices are rated at just 11mbps,
they typically can be bought for less than $10 now.
Their small pen-drive size makes them very nice to
take along for quick wireless connectivity on the go.

Hope this helps some poor soul out there that still
has the 1.3.2 driver.

Dave P
Wisconsin


The Belkin F5D7011 802.11b/g PCMCIA card works with Airport drivers (3.1.2) in my Lombard (with a Logitech G4/500 CPU daughter card).

The Belkin card sports a Broadcom chipset.

Keep that web page up to date. It was a tremendous help to me!


--Richard

[xist]

Hi, I've just ordered a couple of Syntax USB 400.
I'd like to know which is the software "hack" they need to be recognized on Macs.
I'd use them with the D-Link latest driver you've discussed about.
Thank you :-)

[Phil St. Romain]

Very nice job! Thanks, metaphyzx!

Using a Belkin 802.11g wireless router (behind my Macsense router) and a Belkin netword adapter card for my Pismo card slot, I was able to obtain wireless capability in my home for about $60.00 after rebates. There really are alternatives to Apple's expensive options, here.

[esteyp2]

I downloaded the 1.4.7 driver and installed it fine, but it doesn't see the adapter. I checked the plist file and as Metaphyzx says the MA111 is listed. But nothing happens. I am running 10.3.7 on an old (2001) vintage iMac G3. I played with all the nobs on both the router and adpater driver I could find, but no joy. Any ideas would be appreciated.

[esteyp2]

Ok - I found out the answer. I got the latest version fo the MA111 which is Version 2. This version has a chipset from Silicon Inegrated Systems (SiS), it is version Sis 162, which is different than the MA111V1 product which used a PRISM GT chipset from Intersil. The V2 driver currently available does not work with Windows Xp/Service Pack 2 (Xp/SP2) so you can imagine where the OS X version is on the priority list. I give up, I am re-wiring the house!

Thanks to all for your help

[rsimms]

This can apparently happen with screenSavers too, but I encountered it after installing the driver for the DWL-122 on a Tangerine iBook with OS X 10.2.8...

When System Preferences was activated, I did not see the D-Link preferencePane as I had when this software was installed on another iBook. The console revealed an error message something like this:
System Preferences[nnn]: preference not found at path /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Wireless Adaptor.prefPane

I only found three references to this type of error message, using Google. One of them, on a Chinese bulliten board, mentioned 'Cache'.

I turned to OnyX (http://www.titanium.free.fr) and since I had done several restarts already, decided to go with a sledgehammer... I had OnyX clean up the System cache, core files, log files, repair file permissions, run maintenance scripts, optimize the system, and purge the virtual memory files, etc...

The problem was fixed. But I don't know which of the above did the trick.
I suspect it was cleaning the System Cache, but that's an uneducated guess.

[mclbruce]

Another way to go is to get a wireless Ethernet adaptor. No drivers needed whatsoever. Set up is done via web page. They are kind of bulky to carry around with a laptop, but fine for desktop machines.

The DLink DWL-G810 works, although I have had problems with authentication with these.

The Netgear 54 Mbps Wireless Game Adapter WGE111 should work.

The Linksys WET54GS5 should also work.

Belkin has a Wireless Network Access Point Part # F5D7130 that can be configured to work as a bridge.

[Las_Vegas]

If you've got a spare PCI slot, the Netgear WG311 should appear to the Mac as an Airport card (according to XLR8YourMac)

[metaphyzx]

I'm still working on a redo of this webpage; hopefull I'll be done (adding devices, removing some and testing) sometime this upcoming weekend!

[metaphyzx]

Finally. List is updated. Thanks to all those who sent me info on devices that work. Sorry for the delay!

[autorep]

I hope you guys don’t mind me posting this. I found this thread with a search engine and thought my situation was very similar, but a little more complicated and incase anyone else ran into the same problem, they could use this information to solve their situation.

I have 2 notebooks running Windows XP in my home office where my Internet connection is. I also have an Imac G3 in another room that does not have an airport card (still $80-$120) using dialup and taking FOREVER to surf the web. I wanted to get all 3 computers to share the same high speed internet DSL connection and thought wireless would be a good solution. My DSL account with my ISP is Dynamic IP address assigning by the way. A week ago I didn’t know a thing about wireless.

OfficeMax was having a sale selling Belkin 802.11g wireless goods for $9/ea. After rebates (802.11g will also connect backwards to 802.11b). Their Mac expert told me I could buy 2 routers (Belkin Part #F5D7230-4) and have the Imac hardwired into the second router, then have the 2 routers communicate to one another wirelessly. In effect, the second router is an alternative to getting an airport card for the Imac G3. I also bought a wireless network card for 1 of my laptops as the other had it built in. My total investment was $30 for 2 routers and a wireless network card for my notebook.

First, the Imac had to be upgraded from 9.0 to 9.2 to be able to download the router software so the Imac could communicate with the router it was to be connected to. This was 3 downloads, 4 hours each on dialup, yikes! Eventually, I was able to get all computers to the internet, but I could not maintain a connection when the computers hibernated, rebooted, etc. I don’t know if it was because the addition of the second router, routers sharing the same IP address, if I was bridging correctly or not, If one should be an access point or what. I did end up solving the problem. Here was the solution:

SUCCESSSFULL CONFIGURATION:
Set up all computers either DHCP enabled (Dynamic IP addresses / IP addresses automatically get assigned to the computers during each session) or Static IP addresses (set the IP address once and forever). As I suspected that part of the problem was IP addresses (because I had seen connections terminated due to “another computer on the network already has the same IP address”, I elected to go static even though I had a dynamic IP account with my ISP. If configuring for static, IP addresses should be outside the range of the DHCP server assigned IP addresses as suggested by the router manufacturer. If you opt. for static, you will need to turn the DHCP server off (under LAN setting) in the primary router (the one not set up as the access point) Set the following TCP/IP settings for the computer connections:
IP Address: 192.168.2.100 (100 and up to be outside the range if configuring static IP’s)
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.2.1 (router’s IP address)
DNS Server: 192.168.0.1 (ISP’s modem DNS server/ using the router’s IP address should work also).

Reboot both routers. After Rebooting, primary router should have internet connection immediately. Be sure to use same computer hardwired to each router to configure, so you can have the same computer being able to access and manage both routers.

Router 2 (secondary) -
1. Set up as an access point. Take note of the new IP address because after you have selected it to be the access point, you will need to access the router by the new IP address after clicking change. Setting it up as an access point will also change the IP address so both routers have different IP addresses, as well as automatically disable its DHCP server (if configuring static IP addresses).
2. Under MAC Address Control, Set up the primary router to have MAC Address Control by inputting the WAN or (WAN/LAN) Mac address in and selecting “allow”. Then you only need to be hard wired into the primary router to be able to log into the primary and secondary routers to change settings if needed.
3. Change the SSID and channel if necessary. Both routers need to be on the same channel to communicate.

Router 1 (primary) -
1. Make sure that the primary and secondary routers are on the same channel. Rename the router if necessary.
2. If you have static IP addresses for the computers, be sure to turn off DHCP Server under LAN settings.
3. Set up Wireless Bridge between the routers by putting the secondary routers WLAN Mac Address in the AP1 fields. Click “Enable only Specific Access Points to access” then click “apply changes”.

I hope this can help someone save 30 hours of beating their head like it took me to finally get to this point. I believe many of the problems were from having the Imac G3 not being the main point of Internet access. If the Imac or any other stationary computer is the point where your internet connection comes in, this is probably all much simpler.

Auto

PS: metaphyzx, that was an awesome list you published. I found it on the web before I found this. Very good info!


Search phrases: Connecting 2 wireless routers bridging access point Imac G3 G4 Mac Macintosh OS 9.0 OS 9.1 OS 9.2 OS X using a router as an airport card second 2nd router multiple computers wirelessly notebook laptop portable.

[metaphyzx]

Sorry about the delay; Real life (and work) beat out working on the list; I've got a number of devices to add, and I'll hopefully have the list and some other resources touched up by 8-7. I'll also be moving to Tiger finally as well, and maybe I'll test through and see what's what under 10.4.

Thanks!

[roy_the_kid]

WOW!! This could have the information I am looking for.

One question, there is a 'link' next to the driver saying 'change ID String in Driver' The link does not take me anywhere, and I wondered if someon could assist me.

The devise I am looking at is the NETGEAR MA111.

Many Thanks

Roy

[metaphyzx]

Done touching up.

http://mystique.metaphyzx.net/~tehen/pfhors.html
or
http://www.metaphyzx.net/pfhors.html

[Godzilla_z]

Hi everyone, I wonder if any of the members can help. I have an old ibook g3 and I was thinking about going wireless. I was thinking of getting a usb wireless adapter like the linksys WUSB 11-uk, which according to some compatibility list is mac os x compatible. Has any of the discussion list users tried this model? what do you make of it?
I thank in advance anyone who will be willing to give me any help.