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pastrychef's Asus ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming (WI-FI AC) build w/ i9-9900K + AMD 6600 XT

pastrychef said:
As I noted in the first post, I had been using a Dell DW1830 M.2 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card. It had been working well but I wanted to use a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card from a real Mac. So, I ordered a BCM94360CS2 that is found in 2013-2017 MacBook Airs and an appropriate M.2 adaptor for it.

The BCM94360CS2 and M.2 adaptor is too tall to close the bracket casing that's included with the motherboard, but that's fine. Securing both to the bracket works fine. Because it's taller, one of the pigtail antennas will not be able to reach. I swapped it with one of the pigtails from the PCI-e adaptor I used for my previous build.

In my particular case, the height of the BCM94360CS2 and adaptor forced me to shave off a little bit of the rear case fan in the corner.

Reasons:
  • The BCM94360CS2 only requires 2 antennas vs the 3 required for the DW1830. This works out better with this motherboard because the bracket and backplate on this motherboard were designed for 2 antennas.
  • Guaranteed 100% compatibility.
  • No need for additional kexts or patches.
Advantages/Disadvantages:
  • The DW1830 was too wide to fit in to the bracket that came with the motherboard, so I just had it plugged in to the M.2 connector with nothing securing it.
  • There has been some reports that the DW1830 would be slow after sleep in macOS. I didn't test this.
  • The DW1830 is capable of 1300Mbps. The BCM94360CS2 is only capable of 867Mbps.
  • The BCM94360CS2 is true plug-n-play with macOS. The DW1830 required two kexts for Bluetooth to work.
Here are the items I purchased:
View attachment 299927 View attachment 335800

MacBook Air 13 A1465 A1466 2013 2014 WiFi Bluetooth Air Port Card BCM94360CS2 AP | eBay
Amazon.com: New WiFi Bluetooth Card BCM94360CS2 For MacBook Air 13'' A1465 A1466 Mid 2013: Computers & Accessories

View attachment 299928
BCM94360CS2 Card To NGFF(M.2) Key A/E Adapter For Mac OS and Hackintosh | eBay
Amazon.com: Hobbypower BCM94360CS2/BCM943224PCIEBT2 Card To NGFF(M.2) Key A/E Adapter For Mac OS: Computers & Accessories


Here it is with everything assembled:
View attachment 299931
Here's a picture of it installed. (Thanks @Lestliness for the picture!):
View attachment 309254
Here's another angle.
View attachment 332425


Edit (January 19, 2018):
As I noted above, one of the stock pigtail antennas will be too short to reach the BCM94360CS2. You can replace the pigtail with something like this:
View attachment 307021
4X IPEX /MHF4 to RP-SMA Antenna Pigtail for NGFF/M.2 WIFI/WLAN/3G/4G Modules-US | eBay
Click to expand...



View attachment 350792

Anything i should know before i start?
 
keefthechief said:
View attachment 350792

Anything i should know before i start?
Click to expand...

I can't see your attachment.

If you are asking about installing a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card, just remember to use the plastic screw to mount the adaptor to the metal cage. If you don't have the plastic screw, you can use some tape to insulate the metal screw so that it doesn't make contact with the BCM94360CS2.
 
pastrychef said:
I can't see your attachment.

If you are asking about installing a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card, just remember to use the plastic screw to mount the adaptor to the metal cage. If you don't have the plastic screw, you can use some tape to insulate the metal screw so that it doesn't make contact with the BCM94360CS2.
Click to expand...

tbh i have installed it all with the screws that came with it and have just booted into windows, one problem, I've managed to get bluetooth working but no wifi. In Device manager under:

other devices > network controller > network controller properties "The drivers for the device are not installed (Code 28) blah blah blah"

Ive tried updating driver and choosing "browse my computer for driver software" and selecting the bootcamp5 folder and nothing still.

Suggestions?
 
keefthechief said:
tbh i have installed it all with the screws that came with it and have just booted into windows, one problem, I've managed to get bluetooth working but no wifi. In Device manager under:

other devices > network controller > network controller properties "The drivers for the device are not installed (Code 28) blah blah blah"

Ive tried updating driver and choosing "browse my computer for driver software" and selecting the bootcamp5 folder and nothing still.

Suggestions?
Click to expand...

That's exactly how I did it. I just installed the drivers from the Bootcamp folder. I don't know what else to try in Windows.

How is the card working in macOS?
 
pastrychef said:
That's exactly how I did it. I just installed the drivers from the Bootcamp folder. I don't know what else to try in Windows.

How is the card working in macOS?
Click to expand...

Sadly and annoyingly I'm yet to start installing macOS. I want to have everything running and in place on windows first to make sure everything works come the time to hack. In terms of parts, all thats left is to press checkout on amazon for the ssd drive and gpu.

A while back i purchased all the parts mentioned on post 40 and finally assembled it all today, I've just restarted and the network controller is still not working.

EDIT:

Situation solved, I searched online for drivers, the card is now working in Win10 both bluetooth and wifi. Fingers crossed all with run smoothly come the Hack. Top man chef for the help and links to the products and installation.

Cheers

P.S. lucky for me i didn't have to shave anything of my rear fan :D

IMG_2625.JPG
 
Last edited:
pastrychef said:
Did you use the plastic screw to secure the adaptor to the metal cage?

Are you using uia_exclude= in your config.plist? If yes, did you exclude HS07?
Click to expand...
Solved now. I had HS07 disabled like you mentioned. Disabled HS14 since I do not plan on using the internal headers. I was curious if there were any specific reasons HS07 was disabled instead of HS14? Concerned disabling HS14 will cause another problem to pop up down the line. Thank you for the suggestion, glad it works.
 

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