WiFi card (BCM94350ZAE) is recognised but does not function
Symptons:
- After a re-start, it takes a couple of minutes before the wifi icon appears in the status bar. (Note: the AirPlay icon, Bluetooth icon, the battery status icon, etc. do not appear either during this period. Without a wifi card installed they appear immediately.)
- The network preference pane (in System Preferences) is often very unresponsive; so unresponsive that it seems like system preferences has hung.
- Clicking on the "Turn Wi-Fi On" button changes the button colour briefly but nothing else happens. That is, wifi does not get turned on.
Hardware & software: see footer.
The guide I followed is:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/broadcom-wifi-bluetooth-guide.242423/#post-1664577
Following "WiFi Injection" (I am not so interested in Bluetooth at the moment)
1. Remove all Wifi patches and kexts
- No action needed. I did check but I cannot find any patches or kexts to remove (nothing mentions wifi or network).
2. AirportBrcmFixup/acidanthera
- I tried all four combinations mentions in the README: acidanthera/AirportBrcmFixup, namely
- Clover Airport Fix + AirportBrcmFixup
- Clover Airport Fix + AddProperties(fake device-id) + AirportBrcmFixup (preferable)
- Clover Airport Fix + AirportBrcmFixup + FakePCIID + FakePCIID_Broadcom_WiFi.kext
- AirportBrcmFixup + FakePCIID + FakePCIID_Broadcom_WiFi.kext
- in combination with installing AirportBrcmFixup.kext and Lilu.kext.
None of these worked.
Notes:
- for "AddProperties(fake device-id)" I just added a WiFi device ID in Clover; I do not know of any properties I can add
- added Clover boot option "brcmfx-country=NL"
I re-read
[FAQ] READ FIRST! Laptop Frequent Questions/Post #1/WiFi/bluetooth is not working. How to fix?
It mentions:
Correct ACPI patches can sometimes help (eg. correct "OS Check Fix" patch).
But I cannot find any information about this. What is an "OS Check Fix" patch? Where can I find one?
It also suggests taping over some pins. On my WiFi card pin 60 is not used (it is plain PCB without an electrical contact). I taped over pin 54 (Wireless disable 2), that did not help. I taped over pins 54 (Wireless disable 2) and 56 (Wireless disable 1), that also did not help.
Note: taping over pins 54 & 56 made the card work with Windows 10. It would seem that the card is functional and that there is no whitelist in the BIOS.
I re-tried all the combinations mentioned in the ReadMe (now
with taped pins), namely
- Clover Airport Fix + AirportBrcmFixup
- Clover Airport Fix + AddProperties(fake device-id) + AirportBrcmFixup (preferable)
- Clover Airport Fix + AirportBrcmFixup + FakePCIID + FakePCIID_Broadcom_WiFi.kext
- AirportBrcmFixup + FakePCIID + FakePCIID_Broadcom_WiFi.kext
Nothing worked
The WiFi card is recognised as an AirPort without using a Fake ID in Clover (using a Fake ID did not change anything). Either way, macOS correctly identifies the correct manufacturer and device IDs.
In case this helps, I looked to see which kexts were available/active. Below you can see the situation just after a re-start and the situation a few minutes later (one less
kext).
Bash:
$ kextstat | grep -i airport
46 0 0xffffff7f862b3000 0x6000 0x6000 as.lvs1974.AirportBrcmFixup (1.1.9) 028D3DBE-65DA-3926-9115-9A491A0C08F8 <17 16 13 8 6 5 3 2 1>
90 0 0xffffff7f81b36000 0x7bd000 0x7bd000 com.apple.driver.AirPort.BrcmNIC (1400.1.1) 634ADD85-2211-349E-ACEA-1D93B1ED184F <89 88 87 17 13 8 7 6 5 3 1>
139 0 0xffffff7f83423000 0x2527000 0x2527000 com.apple.driver.AirPort.BrcmNIC-MFG (1400.1.1) 171AABC4-716E-3509-ABEF-5542008AFF69 <89 88 87 17 13 8 7 6 5 3 1>
$ kextstat | grep -i airport
46 0 0xffffff7f862b3000 0x6000 0x6000 as.lvs1974.AirportBrcmFixup (1.1.9) 028D3DBE-65DA-3926-9115-9A491A0C08F8 <17 16 13 8 6 5 3 2 1>
90 0 0xffffff7f81b36000 0x7bd000 0x7bd000 com.apple.driver.AirPort.BrcmNIC (1400.1.1) 634ADD85-2211-349E-ACEA-1D93B1ED184F <89 88 87 17 13 8 7 6 5 3 1>
Have you any ideas?
If I missed something in
[FAQ] READ FIRST! Laptop Frequent Questions/Post #1/WiFi/bluetooth is not working. How to fix? please don't say "read the FAQ". I've read it many times. Please point me to a specific remark.
Environment
laptop: HP ProBook 450 G5
WiFi: BCM94350ZAE
macOs: Mojave 10.14.3
motherboard: HP 837D
bios: Q85 Ver.01.06.00 01/03/2019
CPU: Intel i5-8250U
GPU: Intel UHD620