A (Cheap) Solution!
Hi everyone,
I found out about this problem when my iBook 12" suffered from the same kernel panics. It took me quite a while to work out a solution, but I managed to solve the problem, and it only cost me $30!
I researched the problem for a few weeks using my wife's computer (thanks babe!) and read this thread several times. I tried zeroing my drive, resetting the PRAM, and all the other solutions suggested. I even shimmed my airport card twice (once with a thin shim, then with a thicker one). The thick shim (a folded piece of card stock) gave me the best results - I used the airport for about two hours, but the kernel panics showed up again once I had to restart.
However, the machine runs fine when I turn off airport. This isn't ideal for me, since the only internet we have in the house is wireless (unless I want to sit in the corner of the basement, and disconnect the airport express from the modem).
After more research, I decided to buy the D-Link WUA-1340. It's on sale this week at
The Source By Circuit City / La Source Par Circuit City, so I bought it at futureshop for 10% less than the sale price at the source (grand total, just over thirty bucks).
Technically, this USB wireless adapter doesn't work on a mac. Ralink has drivers on their website that appear to work, but they're a cumbersome solution. Other users from this site have posted links to this driver, and it seems to be a functional solution.
However, D-Link has a driver available for download from their website (once you google long enough) that will run on OS X. It's available from their site
here. Once it's installed, I configured the WUA-1340 through my system prefs to join my network, and then used the network preferences to add D-Link as a network port. Voila! I now have wireless internet again, and I still have my bluetooth functioning!
The only major problem I've encountered has been the wireless security. I had been using 40-bit WEP in order to let me use my Palm Pilot with my wireless network (the wireless card doesn't support WPA). However, I could not get the D-Link to work properly, as it will only accept 4 WEP keys in either ascii or hex, and my airport express will only configure with a WEP passphrase. I'm sure with some additional research or some help from other users in this board, that I'll be able to fix that, but it's unlikely that I'll spend the time. I've reconfigured my network to use WPA personal, and it's all working well.
I'm pretty happy with this solution, as buying another machine was out of the question for me. I bought this machine used about 10 months ago, and I'm not looking forward to buying another machine. Before I get the next one (in a few years), I'll be putting in a bit more research to find out about problems like this.