Anyone use the Obiwifi dongle for computer wifi (plugged into PC usb port)

[erichard]

Many folks are using wifi usb dongles to enable wifi n on outdated computers. I'm not currently using the Obiwifi dongle, and it would be nice if I could use the device for my old G4 Mac as a wifi device to update it to "n" wifi. Anyone done this? Anyone know who makes the dongle; perhaps I could find a driver that would enable this on a Mac. Long shot, but thought I'd ask (not sure which category to put this in).

Haven't posted here before, but we are very satisfied with the Obi Voip, though we have gotten a few error messages from Google voice in the past couple months when dialing out (goes away after redialing). That seems to have improved lately though.

[pc44]

Hi erichard,

Although I would imagine it is not recommended by Obihai, I have been successful in using the OBiWiFi on my PC as a regular USB WiFi NIC Adapter.  Using the OBiWiFi on my Desktop PC, I was able to successfully connect to my existing wireless network and access the internet.

Hope this helps,
pc44

[erichard]

Thanks, That's good to know. It looks like it's Realtek under the hood, but I'm not sure which model it corresponds to in terms of drivers, particularly needed for the Mac. It doesn't show up in the network preferences panel for the Mac, so I'm pretty sure it needs a driver. I tried one from Airlink and it didn't work.

If anyone knows a workable driver for the various Mac OS's, let me know.

Meanwhile, I'll probably buy a cheap eBay wifi dongle.

Thanks, Richard

[TodWulff]

As info, I was able to get my OBiWiFi installed and functioning as a standard 802.11n wireless NIC on my Win7HomePremiumx64 box.

When I plugged it into the hub, it recognized it immediately as an OBiWifi and couldn't find drivers.

I forcefed it the RealTek drivers:  Realtek RTL8188CE-VAU Wireless LAN 802.11n USB minicard

It immediately functioned well, just like any other WiFi NIC I've ever used on this box.

Here is a simple list of screen shots that depicts the steps I took do so.

http://i.imgur.com/yJ07J9f.png
http://i.imgur.com/30NRKNS.png
http://i.imgur.com/VcSiebW.png
http://i.imgur.com/xp87GpD.png
http://i.imgur.com/XaqeqUh.png
http://i.imgur.com/5tNkz7m.png
http://i.imgur.com/FyYahb3.png

I was then able to authenticate onto my wireless lan here at the house and I ran a speedtest.net check on it.  It maxed out and was capped by my ISP enforcing the LOS limits based on what I am paying for.

All in all, I am happy.  I hope that this might help someone that stumbles upon this thread.  Take care.

-t