Can a healthy but very old MBP (5,5) with 10.6 OS be configured to operate on a Mesh wifi network?

I was given the subject MBP by an old friend who is forced to liquidate his gear and enter an elder care facility. I'm wondering if this device could be dusted off and put to some good use in his new place, but I can't get it to network via my home wifi. So, no email or other network-dependent functionality.

There seems to be an issue with WEP vs. WPA security, an area that I have no working knowledge of. Could anyone give me guidance on this. My network is WPA2, and the old Airport card in the MBP seems to prefer WEP, as I read the problem via the computer's network diagnostics. Is this a fatal incompatibility? I have no idea what the wifi characteristics will be at his new place, but anticipate that if I can't make it work here, it won't work there.

Thanks.

Earlier Mac models

Posted on Mar 21, 2025 9:01 PM

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John Galt

Level 10

150,006 points

Posted on Mar 22, 2025 12:11 PM

To augment the other replies, no one likes to keep Macs in service more than I do, and in fact I have an iMac a litte older than that MBP. I'm using it now. It runs El Capitan, and is as fast as it's ever been.

However... its version of Safari is just too old to cope with most websites. So, on this Mac I use use Firefox almost exclusively since it is much newer than Safari for El Cap, and still works with every website I can think of:

But then it gets worse. Mozilla recently stopped supporting those older OS X versions, so it has already arrived at a dead end.

Even worse. Its version of Mail stopped being able to communicate with Microsoft Exchange email servers a long time ago. Even iCloud Mail stopped functioning as recently as a few weeks ago. That leaves very few options for using Mail, and I'm not even certain I can suggest any.

Summary: No, there are no fatal show-stoppers, but in my opinion it's just not worth trying to squeeze any more life out of that Mac. Yes you can make it work, but your old friend is almost certain to encounter many frustrations that will only get worse.

Options: You can buy a recently manufactured certified refurbished MacBook Air from Apple for considerably less than $700: https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/imac-macbook-air

I'd seriously consider that.

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