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Question: WiFi card rebranding

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kyron

kyron

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Hello All,

I am working on a hackintosh build for my Lenovo Ideapad Flex 15 and have so far gotten the system relatively stable with some help from the tonymac community. I am trying now to sort out the WiFi and bluetooth as I am unable to find a working USB solution and my Intel card is unsupported. After reading the "Airport - PCIe Half Mini" sticky I am considering buying the following card: "Broadcom BCM94352" for its 2.4/5ghz and bluetooth capability but as far as I can tell it appears it won't be supported by my laptop as HP/Lenovo has an enforced whitelist. In anticipation of this, I experimented with modifying the BIOS but found that it was RSA signed and as such I could not continue.

I came across another method which was to rebrand the card itself but am wondering how to do this and if anyone has had any success with similar implementations? Would a rebrand be sufficient for the card to bypass the whitelist and work with OSX? And if rebranded what would I need to change the device/vendor IDs to? It would have to be something not conflicting with the BIOS but not on OSX's whitelist either so I'm assuming a DSDT edit to correct this?

All guesses at this point I've been reading for the better part of three hours now trying to synthesize all of this, all of your help is welcome and appreciated!
 
kyron said:
Hello All,

I am working on a hackintosh build for my Lenovo Ideapad Flex 15 and have so far gotten the system relatively stable with some help from the tonymac community. I am trying now to sort out the WiFi and bluetooth as I am unable to find a working USB solution and my Intel card is unsupported. After reading the "Airport - PCIe Half Mini" sticky I am considering buying the following card: "Broadcom BCM94352" for its 2.4/5ghz and bluetooth capability but as far as I can tell it appears it won't be supported by my laptop as HP/Lenovo has an enforced whitelist. In anticipation of this, I experimented with modifying the BIOS but found that it was RSA signed and as such I could not continue.
Click to expand...

HP whitelist will not affect your Lenovo.

But if your Lenovo has a BIOS WiFI whitelist implemented that does not allow BCM94352, then you need to choose something else. AFAIK, it is not possible to rebrand the BCM94352. At least I never found a guide that would work with that card.

I came across another method which was to rebrand the card itself but am wondering how to do this and if anyone has had any success with similar implementations? Would a rebrand be sufficient for the card to bypass the whitelist and work with OSX? And if rebranded what would I need to change the device/vendor IDs to? It would have to be something not conflicting with the BIOS but not on OSX's whitelist either so I'm assuming a DSDT edit to correct this?
Click to expand...

Assuming you can successfully rebrand it, you can use FakePCIID to map the vendor/device-ids back to something Yosemite can recognize.
 
RehabMan said:
HP whitelist will not affect your Lenovo.

But if your Lenovo has a BIOS WiFI whitelist implemented that does not allow BCM94352, then you need to choose something else.
Click to expand...


I found a couple of Broadcom cards: [BCM943142HM & BCM94313HMG] from the Lenovo service manual that I believe might be supported by the BIOS. How would I determine whether they are OSX friendly?
 
kyron said:
I found a couple of Broadcom cards: [BCM943142HM & BCM94313HMG] from the Lenovo service manual that I believe might be supported by the BIOS. How would I determine whether they are OSX friendly?
Click to expand...

They are not compatible.

See FAQ for info/links on compatible cards.

If you can determine what the vendor/device/subvendor/subdevice IDs are, then you can use that information to rebrand a compatible card (to satisfy BIOS), then use FakePCIID to make it recognized by Yosemite as what it really is.
 
RehabMan said:
They are not compatible.

See FAQ for info/links on compatible cards.

If you can determine what the vendor/device/subvendor/subdevice IDs are, then you can use that information to rebrand a compatible card (to satisfy BIOS), then use FakePCIID to make it recognized by Yosemite as what it really is.
Click to expand...


I checked the guide again and did a couple searches through the forum, I saw that someone had a similar issue and provided you with a list of supported cards from their Lenovo service guide, I couldn't really make the connection on how you determined one card from the list as being OSX compatible;

RehabMan said:
This one:
WLAN, WiFi 1x1 BGN Liteon AR9285 HB95 BGN MOWNB IN
Click to expand...



I found two from my own Service guide that are Liteon cards but I believe they have Atheros chipsets:

Liteon WB335 [AR9565 - SB 1x1 Wi-Fi + BT 4.0]
Liteon WB225 [AR9485 1x1 SISO 802.11bgn & AR3012 BT 4.0 HS]

For these and future how do I determine their compatibility from the guide? Do I just match them exactly to what I see there meaning nothing not found there will work or am I missing something.
 
kyron said:
I checked the guide again and did a couple searches through the forum, I saw that someone had a similar issue and provided you with a list of supported cards from their Lenovo service guide, I couldn't really make the connection on how you determined one card from the list as being OSX compatible;
Click to expand...

AR9285 is compatible. Are you saying your service manual lists it as a valid card?

I found two from my own Service guide that are Liteon cards but I believe they have Atheros chipsets:

Liteon WB335 [AR9565 - SB 1x1 Wi-Fi + BT 4.0]
Liteon WB225 [AR9485 1x1 SISO 802.11bgn & AR3012 BT 4.0 HS]
Click to expand...

AR9564 or AR9485 are not compatible.

You can rebrand an AR9280 as AR9565/AR9485 then use FakePCIID.

I did this for a while with my u430 until I discovered BCM94352 would pass the whitelist in updated BIOS.

See u430 guide for details: http://www.tonymacx86.com/yosemite-...ideapad-u330-u430-u530-using-clover-uefi.html
 
kyron said:
Thanks for the advice.. I ordered the BCM card on Amazon and I'll let you know how it goes.
Click to expand...

If you mean you ordered "BCM94352HMB", hope for good luck.

Just because it passes the whitelist on my u430, does not mean it will pass on your Lenovo...

It cannot be rebranded (AFAIK, no software tools to do it).
 
Any update on this one? I have the same model laptop and I was wondering if you managed to make it work
 
efouladi said:
Any update on this one? I have the same model laptop and I was wondering if you managed to make it work
Click to expand...
Sorry for the delay, I haven't been here in a while. I've since been unsuccessful with implementing a wireless solution.
 
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