I've just purchased a new Cardbus USB adaptor and I am having trouble getting it to work under OS X 10.2.3 on an Apple Powerbook G3 Wallstreet 233mhz.
The machine will not boot under the following conditions:
- with Cardbus card, adapter cable, USB cable with (any) peripheral attached
The machine will boot with everything attached except the peripheral.
Additionally, once the computer has booted, the computer will freeze immediately upon attaching any peripheral (printer, scanner, camera etc) to the USB dongle.
There is no support on the Macally website and no real documentation in the package. The package has a 'built for Mac OS X' sticker on the front.
I've already been in touch with Macally's 'tech support' (they seem to not have any knowledge of their product) and their suggest to upgrade to 10.2.8 has not helped.
I have a Macally USB1 carbus card in my Wallstreet and it seems to work fine.
If you have a USB2 model it may not play nice with older Macs. For some reason I have had no success with USB2 cards in my older PCI Macs or my Wallstreet. Either they don't work at all or there is unstable behaviour. I think USB2 draws too much power from the bus and the older machines can't supply enough (that's my theory).
Try using the other carbus slot if you haven't done so already. If that doesn't work you could remove the card, zap the pram, and then install the card again.
This site has some interesting suggestions to solve Macally cardbus USB problem. They suggest turning of processor cycling in the Engergy Saver control panel. There must be something similar in OSX. Macally carbus USB card problems
[ February 06, 2004, 05:55 PM: Message edited by: Rob ]
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it's usb 1. it's interesting that you bring up the power issue, as tech support told me to upgrade to a newer version of os x, which i did, to 10.2.8. i got a funny message after doing that and plugging in the usb card and optical mouse -- something about the card is using too much power and will be shut down -- except it never was. The same window just kept popping up faster than i could close it.
also, i wasn't aware there was more than one card slot. could you illuminate?
On your Wallstreet, just above the PC card slots to the left of the keyboard are 2 buttons. These are the eject buttons for the PC card slots.
The PC card slots are stacked one on top of the other. If you look inside the flaps that cover the slots you will see 2 different connectors for the PC cards
Do you still have OS 9 on the Wallstreet? Try booting into 9 to see if the card works. I have the same card and the same Wallstreet - no problems in 9. Haven't tried OS X yet.
Kami is correct, the two card slots are stacked on top of each other. If you didn't know this then you might not have inserted the card properly.
Shut down the laptop and push each of the little eject buttons that Kami described. Your card should eject. Pull the card completely out and then reinsert it. Make sure you intall it carefully into either the top or bottom slot. If you put it in at an angle it won't seat properly.
Are you running your laptop off battery power or do you have it plugged in to the AC adapter? You may have better luck if you have the laptop plugged in to the AC adapter.
In OS9 a USB icon show up on your desktop to represent the card. I can't remember if the same thing happens in OSX.
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i know i had the card correctly inserted into one of the slots as a little pc card icon showed up at the top of the screen next to the date and time display. clicking the icon would reveal a drop down menu with the option to eject the card. choosing this option would cause the computer to freeze completely - no mouse movement or anything.
i'm running off AC power as the battery doesn't hold a decent charge - i just want to use this machine for email and invoicing, replacing a powerbook 180 for this task.
i did think it was kind of odd how the card went into the slot. it never seemed to want to go through the center of the card slot doors but would eventually go in after some fiddling into the lower part.
when i get back to the office on monday i will try the upper slot. i will also try installing OS 9 onto the second hard drive partition.
thanks for your suggestion. you've already been more helpful than tech support, whose only comment so far is that it works in OS X and try upgrading the OS to a newer version. (it takes two days just to get a response from them).
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