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iBook G4 AirPort Extreme card antenna question

Submitted by conkyfilms on October 23, 2007 - 6:22pm. Hardware Hacks

I just completed a display/housing swap on my wife's two-year-old iBook G4 1.2GHz. Midway through the installation process I realized that the replacement display I was sent (from powerbooktech.com) was probably of a different vintage than my original one - one of the connectors on it had four pins on the new one vs. six, for one thing, which led to a constantly-sleeping problem on my first attempt plugging it in. Sliding the connector over to one side fixed that, although now it doesn't sleep when the lid is closed ...

But anyway: the real problem is that the connector from the AirPort antenna in the new display is not the same as the old one. The old one had (for lack of a better term) a "snoot" that went into the AirPort Extreme card, but the new one has two identical antenna connectors (one for Bluetooth, I assume, which this iBook does not have) that are smaller and more flush. I clipped the old connector off of the old display and tried twisting it with the new display's antenna cable, but it doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere. Does anyone have any suggestions, or am I better off buying a USB WiFi dongle of some kind?

Thanks a million
Paul

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Re: iBook G4 AirPort Extreme card antenna question

Submitted by TheUltimateMacUser on October 25, 2007 - 1:40pm.
conkyfilms wrote:
I clipped the old connector off of the old display and tried twisting it with the new display's antenna cable, but it doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere.

Oh dear. Had you not clipped it, you could have opened the display housing and swapped the antenna assmeblies. You're best bet at this point is to purcahse the approperate antenna assembly (check google, ebay, etc...) and install it in you're display housing. The bit you clipped was not an antenna, but a wire leading to an antenna.

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I know it was a wire leading

Submitted by conkyfilms on October 25, 2007 - 1:51pm.

I know it was a wire leading to an antenna - but is the wire leading to the antenna so integral to the workings of the antenna that I shouldn't be able to replace the connector on the end of it?

I would rather avoid disassembling the display housing, because the housing falling apart on the old display is what led to the old LCD flexing and breaking in the first place. I think I'll just go with an external antenna of some kind if my monstrous hybrid antenna cable project doesn't pan out. Thanks though!

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Submitted by TheUltimateMacUser on October 25, 2007 - 6:50pm.

That teeny little wire is, by the way, a coaxial cable, so, it isn't as simple as you realise to "just replace the end of it". It could be done, but the quickest, cheapest and easiest way to fix it is to replace the antenna cable / antenna assembly in the display. It really isnt that hard, and i could point you to a step by step guide on how to get into the display housing.

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Submitted by conkyfilms on October 25, 2007 - 7:09pm.

Since I was foolish enough to snip off the connector from my old antenna assembly, I would need to get a new assembly somewhere anyway before I replaced it ... so I think I'll just investigate joining the two cables together or getting an entirely separate antenna.

thanks!

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