Here's one I've never seen before.
Recently, my PowerMac G4/733 tower's Airport card suddenly stopped working.
I opened up the case to make sure the antenna connector was firmly plugged into the Airport card. Lo and behold -- the antenna seems to be FRIED!
Right at the point where the antenna wire goes into the hole in the metal bracket that holds the motherboard, there's a dark discoloration. It almost looks like the antenna wire was lit like a fuse. (The discoloration continues beneath the point where the wire goes through the hole. IOW, it's not just a small burnt section near the hole. How far down it goes I can't really tell.)
The wire is actually thinner at the point of discoloration, as if the insulation had been shrunken by the heat of the burnout. Is it possible that the internal heat of the machine fried the antenna wire, i.e. the machine's innards got so hot that the metal motherboard panel melted the wire?
Other than the no-Airport thing, the machine seems to operate perfectly normally. System Profiler recognizes the Airport card is there, but the tower can't pick up a signal.
A guy at CompUSA convinced me the Belkin Wireless USB Network Adapter would replace the Airport card transparenty. No luck at all. Can't even get the Network Preferences pane to recognize the little SOB.
Anybody know how much Apple would charge to replace the Airport antenna? Any other ideas?
Any insights would be appreciated.
Thanks,
digdog1
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