I recently purchased a D-Link WUA-1340 Wireless G USB Adapter. Fresh orange-and-black design, and I was looking forward to plugging it into my iMac G4/800 to get it connected sans cords to my network. Alas, my excitement got the better of me, because upon examining the package contents and sifting through D-Link's site — no Mac driver! I plugged the thing in and it wouldn't light up.
Thus began a trek of arduous googling such as:
- USB Wireless Driver Hacking
- D-Link WUA-1340 Wireless Adapter with Mac
- D-Link WUA Confirmed working 10.4.5
- Which USB wireless adaptor has Mac OS X support?
Apparently, I'd come onto a whole minefield of problems before mine. Not wanting to purchase a more expensive AirPort Extreme Card, as it were, the solution lay in chipset manufacturer Ralink's website. After navigating my way past more broken drivers, I finally found the Ralink Macintosh drivers page!
Apparently, there are a lot of wireless devices using those Ralink chipsets.
From here, what I did — your specific details may vary:
- Download the "RT2571W/RT2671+RT2500USB" [download mirror] drivers. (I was initially on a wired Ethernet connection so I could do this.)
- Install them on your Mac — just as you would any standard program.
- Restart.
- Insert your Ralink-based wireless USB adapter in a free USB slot. If it has a status indicator light, it should glow like this:
Next, in your main Applications folder, look for "USBWirelessUtility". (It may open automatically after inserting your wireless USB adapter, but it didn't for me.) Open it and look at the different tabs. Since this doesn't use Apple's de facto AirPort means (e.g., putting an icon in the menu bar to indicate signal strength), it's not so intuitive. However, it is more detailed.
Go to Wireless Utility > Site Survey tab and click "CONNECT". (It'll ask you to enter details accordingly. If you have security like WEP turned on, put that info in or you won't be able to connect.)
- Go to Apple menu > System Preferences > Network.
- From the "Show" popup menu, select "Network Port Configurations".
- Click "New".
Click "Port". You'll see something like "Ethernet Adaptor (en1)".
- Give it a name, and click "OK".
- The port will show up in the list. (I dragged it to the top to give it the highest priority when trying to connect.)
- From "Show", select that Ethernet adaptor port.
- Under the "TCP/IP" tab, "Configure IPv4" should be "Using DHCP".
Click "Apply Now". Shortly, it should refresh and show you numbers for "IP Address", "Subnet Mask", and "Router". If it doesn't update, you may need to click "Renew DHCP Lease".
- After OKing that and waiting a few moments, you should see that you're connected. If everything worked as planned, you're now networked!
I wrote this with the intention of saving troubling for the next poor soul who finds themselves in the same situation — if that's you and it's keeping you from better things like spending time with your lover, I hope this helps. YAYZERAMA!!!!
This is how it sometimes feels to be a Linux user.
*laughs at Dillon* I stopped by to ask if Torley could write me a driver for my wireless card in Ubuntu.
Funny thing was, I did come across some Linux sites describing similar things! I've also seen the occasional bounty offered to write certain device drivers. What a world.
Thank you for saving me a ton of research and money. I immediately ran out and bought one of these after reading your post. Works great on 10.3.9. One problem I am experiencing is "no device" on start up. I have to unplug/plug the usb adapter before I can get a connection each time I restart. The device has a solid light on start up but is just not recognized until I remove and replace. This is something that is easily lived with for this price.
Dwaine, yer totally welcome! Glad it worked for you too. I've come across the same inconvenience: what I've been doing is having the Wireless Utility set to launch on startup and clicking "CONNECT". Altho if there's a better, more automatic way, I'm sure we'd both like to know about it.
Any chance you still have the dmg kicking around? The ralink site seems to be busted (i've gotten 502 errors for the last 2 days on it).
Mail me it if you can - thanks!!
df
Dirty, I was just able to download it fine. I'll upload it to my server and add a mirror link above. Let me know if that works.
Their is back up and I've got the file fine. Thanks for this tutorial, its a big help!
You're super-welcome, Dirty! Glad I could be of help.
I found out about the Ralink drivers from this site and a few other websites before I bought a Wireless USB adapter.
In the course of my searching, I saw that there were quite a number of products similar to the D-Link but at lower prices (no doubt due to stiffer competition in the Windows world). Seeing that the Ralink chipsets were identical, and that Mac drivers were available for free, I decided to try one. I bookmarked this site so I could report what I found.
Now, my one purchase doesn't mean much when compared to the well-known capabilities of the D-Link, but I'm perfectly happy with what I got. It's sold as a "Chiefmax Ralink RT73 802.11g Wireless USB Ethernet Adaptor Dongle," and I found it online at an outfit called 3BTech.net. The price is $17.79 (no tax outside of Indiana), which includes free shipping.
I'd never heard of either one before, but I took a chance. (I mean,"Chiefmax?" The name doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it? I didn't see anyone else who sold that brand, so it may just be 3BTech's own proprietary name. Also, 3BTech is in South Bend, Indiana — which is not exactly a global center of electronics vendors.) The upshot is, after receiving a confirmation e-mail for the sale and a subsequent 'Your package has shipped/Track your package" e-mail, it arrived when expected.
The dongle itself comes in a plain white OEM box, with a (useless) CD for Windows drivers and a decent quality USB extension cable (unnecessary, but unexpected for the price).
Negatives: You can't ship to anywhere other than your credit card billing address, the warranty is only for 90 days, and there's no orange power light. I can live with all that.
I have no idea if anyone else will have the same easy experience I had with 3BTech.net. I'm always a little hinky about dealing with these small online outfits, and I'm sure you are, too. All I can say for now is that for the price of one D-Link, you could buy two of these little units.
Ambrose, great tip. I've never heard of a "Chiefmax" before either; but since it helped you to be frugal and works well for you, what a discovery win! Where I was, I didn't have any lower-priced solutions. But provided the quality's there, I'm all for saving the big bucks! Thanx a lot for sharing in such detail.
Thanks man.
I did the same mistake (assuming I would find a mac driver in the box!)
Worked super-fine as you explained!
I saved a lot of precious time thanx to you.
Cheers.
Awesome, franck! Glad you found this to be of use too. Cheers! =)
Hi there, was wandering if this will work on any D-link wireless adapter like the D-Link DWL-G122?
cheers.
I was hoping to find some info on the "no device" at startup. I see you are having the same issue. I just purchased a Asus WL167g from zipzoomfly for $20 with free shipping, retail boxed. It actually had drivers for 10.3 and 10.4 on the disk (Win), but no mention of Macs anywhere.
Time will tell if it holds up, but it is working good right now. My other option was running over 150 feet of cable through a steel building, to my work area. Not my idea of fun…
@ndrew, it should work for D-Link wireless adapters using the same Ralink chipset. Looks like the DWL-G122 is on that list.
Oscar, by all means, let me know if you find a way so we don't have to keep changing settings after startup, please share. Glad to hear aside from that, it's working well. I was in a similar situation of snaking a cable cord before discovering this.
thank you sir.Now if I can make it work with kismac.
Thanks for all the tips, guys… Much appreciated…
For your info, I have used the same Ralink drivers to get an ASUS WL-162g USB WLAN Adapter working on my G4 iBook running Mac OS X 10.4…
Works a treat!
You're welcome, ian, and glad to hear it's been continuing to work well for you, Andy! Sweet.
i am still running 10.2.8 on my G4/800. Any idea if this drive/solution will work. Trying to avoid the steep cost of a OEM airport card.
Cadrien, sorry, I haven't tried it on Jaguar, and it looks like Ralink only designed them for 10.3.x and 10.4.x.
Anyone know?
dear torley
great site for explanation
will this device work with USB 1 port ???? on a g3 Mac
to hook myself for internet and print to an airport express
marc, you're welcome! Pardon, it's hard to say without more details; I'd generally advise buying from a place with a good return policy just in case it doesn't work, and also as referenced above, current drivers look like they're only for Panther and Tiger.
Thank you for saving me a bunch of time. This worked on my wife's mac mini perfectly.
Thanks
Just got one for $30 to connect to my os 10.4 ibook. I did exactly what you did except when I went into my applications folder I did not see the usb wireless utility ( think my kid deleted the file) how can I get this back? Any help will be greatly appreciated since I cannot see any of the available wireless networks.
Worked great on my emac, thanks for the info.
Awesome you guys are finding it useful, Christopher, explorer44, Scott H! You're welcome.
explorer44: Try installing from the RaLink drivers disk image again, then look… if it doesn't appear there, search your whole hard drive. If that still doesn't dig it up, then I can post a copy of the USBWirelessUtility. Best of hope!
I love you FOREVER for doing this. The Source by Circuit City listed this product as being the mac-compatible DWLG-122, which it IS NOT, so this saved me a lot of running around to find it. Thank you so much!
@Christy: O that is too awesome! All the kind comments have helped me justify my feelings for writing this in the first place, which was to save YOU time. It's worked out well.
Torley your information was very helpful.
Thank you very much!
George
Hello and thank you so much to you for posting your instructions on installing Ralink driver for USB wireless adaptor on a Mac. Using them, I successfully connected my G3 iMac running Panther to two PCs to share an internet connection. I had purchased another wireless USB adaptor because it was on sale, however couldn't get it to work despite it being on the list referred to here on this site. I ended up returning it and getting the d-Link one, which works like a charm. However….I would have been sitting blankly staring at the driver utility interface without your help. Thanks again!
Hi there. I just bought a Belkin USB WIFI adapter [F5D7050]. I believe it is also running a Ralink chipset, so this is going to help save a lot of time. If it works out, I'll post back here to let others know. Thanks again.
Everyone having problems with the "no device at startup" issue - having to unplug/replug - should check out this workaround… http://mitglied.lycos.de/thomsmac/RT2500Replug.html
I'm so happy to see this info continues to be very useful! Borne out of frustration for me, and now of benefit to *you*!
@TC: Thanks for that tip, I haven't had a chance to try it yet but that looks useful.
@Jose: I look forward to finding out what you learn!
@Erin: Rght on, and you're welcome. Glad to hear your experiences worked well too.
@George: You're very welcome!
Had similar problem only with a Cnet USB adapter not a D-LInk. No drivers for Mac existed so 'borrowed' the driver from a Belkin product which had the same chip. Did more or less what you suggest and zippety do dah it worked a treat.
You need to launch it every time you start up but thats no big deal
incidentally I am in the UK - just so you know you are not alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Dragonslayer: Right on, glad to hear it worked for you too!!
Thank you, this is a dream come true for me! Your instructions were very clear and easy to follow. Thanks again, you saved me a lot of trouble!
I have installed the Railling driver on my old G3 iBook with slimmed version of OS 10.3 installed. The wifi adapter shows up as a USB device in system profiler but the driver window says no device is connected. The Adapter is not picked up as a new port under network config either even though the light is burning brightly on the side of the dongle. Any thoughts anyone?
Torley,
Thanks for original tutorial on this! Made my day!
Ambrose, Thanks for making my day even better with the "Chiefmax" tip and last but not least …
TC, Thanks for the "no device startup link".
I used info from all three of you guys to set up a humdinger wireless connection that starts up and purrs flawlessly!!
I'm an old PC guy, retired and loves to tinker. I've been playing (learning) with an old IMac G3 a friend of mine gave me. We're now wirelessly purring all over the net!
Now, if I can just get the Ubuntu Linux distro that I've added along side OS X 10.3.9 to hook up wirelessly, I'll be in IMac heaven :-).
Thanks again one and all,
DFM
@J and DFM! You're super-welcome, hey I'm just thrilled you found this. I can never express strongly enough, that's exactly why I did this tutorial, to help save you trouble. =^_~=
@bigblog: What USB wireless adapter are you using, and you're sure it has a compatible Ralink chipset?
I just got my eMac up and running using the Belkin Wireless G USB Network Adapter VERSION 4! Wooo hooo! Best Buy was out of the D-Link 1340 so I went with the Belkin. For those who get the Belkin Wireless G Version 4, you will need the driver found at this link:
ftp://ftp.zyxeltech.de/ZyDAS/ZD1211_USB/Macintosh/ZDA211MacUSB_install_4_5_7_0.dmg
It's a pain to find drivers for the Belkin Wireless G Versions 3 and 4 but somehow, and I'm not sure how, I found one that works like a gem! Haven't had any issues with it at all so far. I followed some of the Network system preference steps from this site but honestly, I'm not really sure what I did to get the thing to work! Ha ha! I think it was because after 3 hours of trying to find drivers (that didn't work) and dead website links, that I was mentally dead and infuriated to the point where I lost my memory. I got the thing to work literally on my last attempt before returning the dang Belkin to Best Buy. Gotta admit that once the thing worked, I forgot all about the time and trouble I spent finding what I needed to get my new wireless to work.
If it wasn't for the great info on this site then I NEVER would have bought an inexpensive USB wireless adapter and would now be out of God knows how much by buying an Airport.
Torley is a GOD! Or a Goddess…not like it really matters. Ha ha!
Thank you!
Thanks a lot,
I just bought it today but I can't use it with KISMAC, and i just bought it because i'm in Hollyday in NY and I would like to crack a wep key because 1$->10minutes is toooo expensive.
Thanks in advance
Hi Torley!
I already tried the ralink drivers before I read your thread. I'm trying to connect my mother's computer to the wireless network that I setup.
I have been haveing problems with the whole connection issue. Installing the drivers works but as soon as I start to connect to my network, a screen will pop up telling me to reboot and I can't do anything else other than rebooting. (by pressing the power button)
Now I think you might want to know that I'm using the wpa security protocol, I don't know if this is supposed to change anything, also like I said earlier, I tried that before reading the thread and so I just did the first part of the tutorial which was to download the drivers.
Do you think that I'm having those problems because I didn't do the network settings part of your tutorial?
I really need the help please.
Thank you very much for your precious help!
Sam
Oh and by the way I'm using the d-link wua-1340
Sorry
@John: You're welcome! Thanks for sharing your experience, I enjoy hearing that it worked out for you at last.
@reno: Best of hope when you do get it working!
@Samuel: I'm not sure offhand what the differing variable that forces you to reboot is. Unfortunately my tutorial can't account for all varieties of networks, it's just what worked for me, and I haven't tried it on other systems. Since I don't know, perhaps someone else reading this may have a clue, e.g., what's the exact message you get telling you to reboot? That's odd, is it an error? I would try going through the same steps I did (as closely as possible) tho.
you are a gentleman and a scholar. much appreciated
The reason that these "dongels" are getting so hard to get drivers for in anything but Windows 32 bit is that Atheros bought up Zydast. Zydast was an amazing little Taiwan company that developed the great ZD1211 USB wireless card which was RETAILING for as little as $10 here in the US. They supported almost any operating system and drivers were freely available all over the net. Atheros bought the company and the Zydast drivers (as well as the $10 NIC) disappeared from the net overnight. 64 bit and Mac drivers are now nearly impossible to find. Must have had lawyers send letters. Talk about stifling innovation. It appears to me that the company was bought up to kill off a competitor not because they wanted their product. After all, how much money can you make selling wireless NICs for ten bucks? Of course, this is all my opinion based on long observation.
I failed to mention in #48 above that all these lower priced dongels talked about in this thread are re-branded Zygast zd1211U and zd1211UB cards.
Thanks so much… this solved a lot of problems for me with an older G4 iMac…. Working great.
I am using the drivers and Dlinks wgl122 on my mac cube. It works but tends to time out when downloading large files. It could be a sleep or energy saving issue.
Keep the comments coming, and to those who find it useful, you're awesomely welcome. Thanks for providing additional details too!
Torley's instructions are just fine for the RAlink chipset, but here is an added hint. If you have a Belkin USB adapter that is a version 4, the driver needed is found on post 42 and copied here. It is a Zydas1211 chipset. The only place I could find this driver with a working link is from post 42
ftp://ftp.zyxeltech.de/ZyDAS/ZD1211_USB/Macintosh/ZDA211MacUSB_install_4_5_7_0.dmg
But using Torley's instructions, the result is the same. The above driver connects with the adapter hardware. If you have WEP and TKIP, it seems that that both the ZA (instead of RAlink) application must be opened on the mac and then the Mac Networking Preferences must be used. I can't begin to list the steps I went through here, but it works fine for the v4 Belkin USB adapter. Noone in Belkin seems to know that the chipset is changed and the driver is available. I used the 10.4 driver with an old Ibook with no airport card. The down side seems that the download speed is incredibly slow as measured, but in practice, pages seem to load at average speed.
I am not a Mac user, but a customer came to me and it seemed a good challenge to try and solve the problem of wireless ibook with no airport card.
cheers and thanks for all the above references!
@Jaybee: Thanks for contributing that tip!
Hi there. just got a imac and have tried to install the software for the belkin wireless adapter. initially after the restart the adapter would not work and now the mac has crashed. what can i do now?
This is great info. I'm still having some problems. I had previously been able to connect wirelessly using my D-link DWL-G122 USB adaptor and then started having problems. The connection would drop and I wouldn't be able to reconnect. I checked and the driver had been updated so I downloaded is per your instructions here. I restarted and plugged in my adaptor. The wireless utility can't find it. When I plug it in, the lights don't come on. Any advice? TIA!
I'm not sure what to suggest here, not having had the same experience (if anyone has, please chime in); clean uninstall and trying again would be a basic first step. What version of Mac OS are you guys on?
help!!! when I click aply now the ip address and the subnet mask show numbers but the "router" doesnt say anything!
what should i do!
ya i use ubuntu and linux too.. and thank you god for feisty u make my wireless work!!! after 4 different versions.. but any way.. i am thinking about getting a mac mini once leopard comes out or if they giver coupons like vista did.. and ya.. this helped me a ton.. because ill use one moniter and a swithc from the mini to my windows/ubuntu machine.. so yea for me.. don't know if it works..but i am sure it does. Oh and thank you for posting stuff like this to help out us less experienced mac users :]
hey torley ive got a windows vista dell but my stepfather has an ibook running 10.2.4 and i downloaded the ralink stuff and put it on to a flash drive because the ether net port on his mac has burned out transfered it to his mac and it wont download ive also tried loads of other stuff to no availe could you please please help me in some way the wireles adapter is a belkin wireless g usb adapter model number f5d7050 i have one on my pc and it works very well and my wireless router is a netgear if thats any help
Thanks Torley first and #10 second.
The item arrived in a couple of days for $18 delv. and in 15 min I'm online. Hard wire is not an option where I live, and this connects my Mac Mini wirelessly.
I am PC born and raised but have turned to the Mac for my music, and it is a shock how easy this was.
My apologies I can't provide further assistance past my own experiences, as there are myriad combinations of what might work out there — my guide was intended as starting points, but if anyone knows missing info later asked about in these comments, please fill it in. =)