AirPort Extreme with Stock Antenna in Late Model Power Mac G5

[evanboonie]

I installed an AirPort Extreme card in my Late 2005 (Dual Core) PowerMac G5 and managed to retain the original antenna. The AirPort Extreme cards are much easier to find and are typically far less expensive than the stock Bluetooth/WiFi combo cards that shipped as an option in these machines. If you don't have internal WiFi in your G5 but would like to add it, an AirPort Extreme card can be an inexpensive solution. The only problem is that the stock antenna connector doesn't fit on to the AirPort Extreme. You could simply replace the connector, but splicing coax is annoying and probably bad for signal integrity. If you could find a bare MC Card connector, that might be an option as well, but I was not able to find one. I decided to try to replace the stock antenna cable with one that actually fits the AirPort Extreme. Below are the details:

The connector on the AirPort Extreme is an "MC Card" connector. I found an MC Card cable on Amazon that has a good length to it. The exact connector on the AirPort Extreme seems to be a little narrower than most of the MC Card connectors that you can find, so it will require trimming away some of the plastic and metal to make it fit. Below are some photos of the cable and modifications to the AirPort Extreme card:

Once your card is modified, you will need to set about removing the stock cable and antenna. Sadly, the cable is routed behind the logic board, so removing it requires removing the logic board from the machine, which is quite a chore in these G5s. Having the logic board out did at least give me a good chance to clean the heatsinks and apply new thermal compound to the chip back there. The antenna PCB is housed inside of the grey plastic strip at the back of the machine. Once you get it out, you will need to desolder the original cable. After the original cable is off, one end of the new cable can be cut, stripped, and soldered back on to the antenna PCB. Be warned that stripping and soldering the coax to the PCB is... finicky. Try to trim the braid back further than the insulator, but not so far that it can't be soldered to the board. Be careful not to create any shorts or the antenna will not work.

Once you have the modified antenna, you can reinstall it. I put my logic board back in first, then routed the cable above it so that it will be easier to reconfigure in the future if necessary. I have highlighted the location of the antenna in the photos below:

After all that, I have working WiFi in my G5 with no external components required! Enjoy the proof from my horrifically pink ADC HD Cinema Display:

Is this mod practical compared to external WiFi solutions? Almost certainly not. But it does have a clean/stock look which I like and I had a lot of fun putting it together.

 

[Mark.g4]

 

[aurora72]

Though it's a practical solution in its own right, it doesn't contain Bluetooth so it's not a desirable solution at all.

 

[davisdelo]

Though it's a practical solution in its own right, it doesn't contain Bluetooth so it's not a desirable solution at all.

Eh I don’t know, I found it pretty cool. My late ‘05 has a similar hack with the airport card but I used the antenna ripped out of an old AirPort Extreme. This solution definitely looks better.

 

[evanboonie]

Eh I don’t know, I found it pretty cool. My late ‘05 has a similar hack with the airport card but I used the antenna ripped out of an old AirPort Extreme. This solution definitely looks better.

That was actually the setup I had in my machine until I made this mod. I've actually had much better reception with this hack; probably because the antenna is now external to the metal case. I have a compact USB bluetooth dongle, but don't really tend to use bluetooth in my vintage machines so I'm fine with just WiFi being internal.