Cisco card in Airport Socket, please help

babarbabar
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Hi



I own a PowerBook G4 DVI, I need to access a CISCO AIRONET 350 wireless network at work. The Access point has some specialized security features such as TKIP and MIC which are not supported with Apple Airport software. I used the PCMCIA (AIR-PCM350) card for some time now and it works great. But I need my PCMCIA port now and I found that Cisco is making a PCMCIA card without built-in antennas ( just like the airport card ). I has dual MMCX connectors instead ( just like to airport card). So my question is : Is it possible to insert a Cisco LMC352 card in an Airport Socket. Afterall, the Airport socket is little PCMCIA socket?



I found a review on amazon which states that it IS possible, but I cant find the email to talk to the guy.



Reference

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...693868-0807936



Thank you !

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 11
    iamlindoroiamlindoro Posts: 7member
    Unfortunately, the airport connector is not a PCMCIA slot. If I am wrong about this, I will be the first to admit it.



    Well, Maybe second.



    Edit: whoops, my bad, missed that last sentence at the bottom of his review. Sorry! Hmm.. strange. This *shouldn't* work, but perhaps they share a common chipset?





    Iamlindoro
  • Reply 2 of 11
    babarbabar Posts: 28member
    But he did said :



    And just as a side not for all you Mac fans out there, the Cisco LMC-352 wireless card will also fit into your iBook underneath the keyboard as well.
  • Reply 3 of 11
    iamlindoroiamlindoro Posts: 7member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by babar

    But he did said :



    And just as a side not for all you Mac fans out there, the Cisco LMC-352 wireless card will also fit into your iBook underneath the keyboard as well.



    Well, going under the assumption that this *is* true, It should just be a matter of putting the card in. Perhaps buy the card from a place you are certain you could return it, or find a friend with one and test first?



    Iamlindoro
  • Reply 4 of 11
    baumanbauman Posts: 1,248member
    Assuming it did fit, you would get absolutely terrible reception. You are putting it inside a Faraday Cage, a metal box, that shields out EMI radiation. The reason the AirPort cards work is because there is a built in antenna that plugs into the card, and moves the reception closer to the outside of the box, and it's still not great.



    Unless this Cisco card has an antenna jack, I don't know that you would want to try it.
  • Reply 5 of 11
    iamlindoroiamlindoro Posts: 7member
    And I just went and checked-- The pinout on the airport slot is incompatible with PCMCIA. There is no reason this should work. It would be a pretty big shocker if it did.



    Iamlindoro
  • Reply 6 of 11
    babarbabar Posts: 28member
    Like I said in the first post, the card has 2 antenna connectors ( the same used by the airport card)
  • Reply 7 of 11
    babarbabar Posts: 28member
    Check this out! it is a shocker indeed!



    http://www.quickertek.com/antspecs.html
  • Reply 8 of 11
    iamlindoroiamlindoro Posts: 7member
    But this is just a method of making a standard Apple Airport card work in older powerbooks without Airport slots. How does this confirm that you can use the Cisco card in the non-PCMCIA Airport slot?



    Iamlindoro
  • Reply 9 of 11
    babarbabar Posts: 28member
    This means that the airport card is just a REGULAR STANDARD PCMCIA card, which means that the internal socket must be a standard pcmcia socket.
  • Reply 10 of 11
    iamlindoroiamlindoro Posts: 7member
    http://www.aacug.org/MUG/2003/quickertek.html



    Sorry, but no, it's not.



    I quote:



    Users open the PowerBook, exposing the Airport card, remove the cable connection to the internal antennas, connect the new antenna wire, thread this wire through the PCMCIA slot opening and then attach the cable to the external antenna stub of the Ti Antenna which resides in the PCMCIA slot opening or to the Ti Whip antenna velcro'd to the top half of the PowerBook case. Use of either of these new antennas prevent the use of the PCMCIA slot for other purposes. Removing the Airport card from its original slot and placing it in the PCMCIA slot is not an option due to the engineering of the Airport card.





    Further evidence:



    http://lists.bawug.org/pipermail/wir...st/008411.html
  • Reply 11 of 11
    1337_5l4xx0r1337_5l4xx0r Posts: 1,558member
    Gah!!! Stop posting, all of you.



    First, the airport slot is not a PCMCIA slot. It is some sort of 16 bit IDE bus.



    Second, other (PCMCIA) cards WILL work in there. I don't know which ones. I've read about people putting other Hermes chipset (eg: Orinoco) cards in there and the Mac thinks it's an Airport card.



    So give it a shot, already. It just might work. Make sure any drivers you might need for OSX are installed. There's some site that has all the WiFi drivers ported from *BSD.
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