USB WIFI dongle drivers on 10.6.8

[savedave]

Hi there

I have been having some major headaches with wifi dongles on my macbook pro.

Background:
I have a very old MBP. About 18 months ago the airport card more or less gave up. I bought usb wifi dongle about 9 months ago and for a while it worked fine, albeit with an ugly utility. Then about 3 months ago the dongle gave up, or so I thought. The utility acted as though no dongle was connected, and I returned the dongle to the supplier, who refunded me.

A month ago I bought an ASUS USB-N13, which claims to have mac support. With the software that came with the dongle, the result was the same - the wireless utility said "no device" with the dongle connected.

Then I tried more recent drivers from the ASUS site and got a marginally improved result - the dongle showed up and did a scan of the signals in the area. But any time I attempted to connect to a network the utility crashed.

I tried a few third party apps I read about but nothing worked. I tried ASUS support, who were utterly useless - they sent me the windows drivers, sent me to speak to the supplier, and eventually just said they can't do any more than that. (I'd advise against ASUS for mac users based on this experience).

Today I tried to uninstall and reinstall the driver and utility but on both reinstalls I got this error:

"System extension cannot be used. The system extension "/System/Library/Extensions/RT2870USBWirelessDriver.kext" was installed improperly and cannot be used. Please try reinstalling it, or contact the product's vendor for an update."

This is beyond my level of technical competency - I don't know anything about kext, and the supplier and manufacturer say they cannot help.

Now nothing happens when I plug in the dongle and it does not even light up on its LED.

I don't know what to do but I desperately need a wireless connection. Can anyone advise?

 

[savedave]

more kext errors

I tried again to install and now I get the same error and two more - images attached.

 

[Kaveman]

Sorry, I cant offer anymore advice than return it for a refund. We have never had any success with USB WiFi dongles.

For a desktop we just put an AirPort basestation, in bridge mode, behind it and ran it an Ethernet Cable.

 

[savedave]

thanks - I dont fully understand what you did for the desktop but am I right in assuming it wouldn't be a solution for a laptop?

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

Now nothing happens when I plug in the dongle and it does not even light up on its LED.

I second Kaveman take it back and ask for a refund.

 

[savedave]

Thanks - I appreciate your advice and I have already contacted the supplier to arrange the refund. Do you know of any product or other service I could use to give me wifi capability on my macbookpro?

thanks kindly,

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

What is your location?


Edit
If US then AT&T MiFi http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=18772&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=31372

If UK 3 Network MiFi http://store.three.co.uk/Mobile_Broadband/MiFi

 

[Kaveman]

It will work for a laptop, its just not really portable.

 

[savedave]

Bearextender

Thanks for the link. I suppose I'd consider a product like that as a last resort, but as I already pay for broadband in my home and in my office, I'd rather not pay for an additional service, and the data limits imposed by 3 in the uk make it not worthwhile for me as a replacement for home broadband.

Is there really no way to get a usb wifi dongle to work with 10.6.8?

I am surprised - on a previous version of the OS, maybe 10.6.6 or 10.6.7 I didn't seem to have these problems.

Has no one made a product specifically for Mac? I just found this: http://store.bearextender.com/ - but it is very expensive. It says it is specifically for mac - has anyone had any luck with it?

SD

 

[Kaveman]

With every Mac coming with excellent WiFi built in there is no market for 3rd party products.

The simplest option is to get it fixed, if its not worth fixing then replace it.

Sorry there are very few options. It still works with a cable.

 

[oldscribe]

Thanks for the link. I suppose I'd consider a product like that as a last resort, but as I already pay for broadband in my home and in my office, I'd rather not pay for an additional service, and the data limits imposed by 3 in the uk make it not worthwhile for me as a replacement for home broadband.

Then as Kaveman said AirPort Extreme http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/features/easy-setup.html
Above are the setup instructions.