Lately the AirPort Extreme (802.11g) card in my PowerBook G4 15-inch Aluminum has gone wonky. At first I suspected my home AirPort Extreme base station (AEBS) was the culprit, but now that I’ve tried it with other WiFi networks I think that it must be the card. What’s this cool thing? -> Click through…

Lately the AirPort Extreme (802.11g) card in my PowerBook G4 15-inch Aluminum has gone wonky. At first I suspected my home AirPort Extreme base station (AEBS) was the culprit, but now that I’ve tried it with other WiFi networks I think that it must be the card.
The main symptom is “submerging” which is when a completely good WiFi network (with good signal strength) completely drops off the AirPort menu only to resurface again 30-60 seconds later. Constantly.
Thinking that it was the hotel’s WiFi network at fault I called Embassy Suite’s high-speed provider, GuestTek. Their answer was to send me an interesting adapter that the phone tech assured me “required no drivers.”
Pictured at right is the 11MBps Wireless LAN AP Client (Model WL-299C) from GuestTek. Basically a WiFi receiver that draws power from the USB and delivers IP to the Ethernet port. To my surprise, the thing just worked. Excellent signal, haven’t dropped a connection yet, you’d think that Apple made it or something.
So, I think that it could be any of the following:

• APX card spontaneously died


• 10.3.6 update broke it


• Blame it on the access point – increasingly less likely