Original Airport Card Revisions?

[iamdigitalman]

hey guys, I have been wondering this since the ap card in my pismo was acting up. It was dropping the connection and not even seeing it half the time. Luckily I have another one and I stuck it in there, and it seems to be much more stable. I looked at the one I pulled out, and I noticed some differences:

-On the original, on the front (with the logo0, it says 825-4593-A. Not sure what the other one has.

-on the other card, there is some addional writing in chinese on the back (the side that sticks up), as well as the numbers at the bottom being different.

-on the other card, it says 128-bit at the bottom of the label on the back, where the original does not say this.

I did find this, which states there are 5 versions, but it uses the MxxxxLL/x format, and I see nothing of the kind on either card.

Also, in apple system profiler, there is no model info there, just the type, locale, firmware version, current network, and channel. This is in 10.4. I will boot in to 9 to see what it says.

Any help would be much appreciated.

-digital [/url]

 

[Christopher]

I had a problem with a airport card i got from clamshell. worked fine in OS 9, but OS X it would drop signals and not see my router. There happened to be a airport firmware update or something, did that and it works normal again.

 

[tomlee59]

The earlier versions of the Airport cards had problems when hot. I don't know if this was your problem, but if your wireless connection was generally stable when the laptop was cool, and then degraded with time, this might be the reason.

Also, some WiFi cards perform a self-calibration only when initially powered on. As parameters drift with temperature (and perhaps with supply voltage), the card may misbehave. If simply powering off and then back on again restores stability, then your card most likely implements that sort of calibration. I do not know if the Airport card works this way, but if it does, that could explain a few things...

 

[iamdigitalman]

nope, it's not reporting the network at all. turned off WEP, still nothing. I tried manually punching in the SSID, nothing. Sometimes I can get a blank SSID, but it won't connect.

however, the other one, which appears to be a later revision works flawlessly. I guess I will use that one then.

Oh, and in OS 9, nothing in ASP about a airport serial number, just the machine's and the sales order number. For some reason mine was screwed up and not showing up right, but a NVRAM reset fixed it.

The same number is on the front of the other AP card. Actually, now that I look at it, the card that works might be a revision C. ON the back label, there is a section labeled APN. On the card that came with my pismo, it says 630-2883. But on the one that works, it says 630-2883/C. Any thoughts?

-digital