BT and Wifi working on GA-H87N-Wifi (CustoMac Mini) using BCM943225HMB

[ypz801]

As some of you have been struggling to get WifI and/or Bluetooth to work properly on the CustoMac mini (Gigabyte GA-H87N motherboard with Haswell cpu), I thought I let you know what I did to get it both working.

You should already know that the Gigabyte motherboard comes with an Intel mPCI Wifi and Bluetooth module, but only the Bluetooth works. I replaced the Intel mPCI card with a BCM943225HMB card. Look it up on eBay, it will cost you around $ 9,- The BCM943225HMB has Wi-Fi N and Bluetooth 3.0.

So, in order to get both Wi-Fi and BT working, you need:

1. An installed BCM943225HMB;
2. A SSDT injection.

If I could do it following threads and tutorials on TonyMac, you can do it! I couldn’t have gotten it to work without the excellent work by toleda and others.

1. Install the BCM943225HMB and attach both antenna wires. In a mini-ITX case it probably is easier to install the antenna wires to the backplate, before installing the mPCI card in its holder.

2. Start up the computer and lets find the mPCI card!

a. Get IORegistryExplorer (if you don’t already have it) here: https://github.com/toleda/audio_ALCInjection/blob/master/IORegistryExplorer_v2.1.zip
b. Start IORegistryExplorer and and let’s check the location of your mPCI card using IORegistryExplorer
c. In the search bar, enter: air
d. It will find “AirPort_Brcm4360” under PXSX@0.
e. Now note the entry right under “AppleACPIPCI” a bit higher in the tree. Mine says: RP05@1C,4.
f. Make note of the RP05 (the number 5!).

3. Now get the special SSDT made bij toleda for this card and make it appropriate for your system.

a. You can get the SSDT injection here: https://github.com/toleda/airport_pcie-hm
b. Click on “airport_ssdt_enabler”
c. Next click on “airport_ssdt-bcm43xx_v1.zip”
d. Click on “Raw” to download the zip file containing the SSDT (It will now download the zip to your Downloads folder)
e. Extract the file (SSDT-2) to your desktop, and rename the file to your specific situation.

There are two options here. Either you already have a SSDT in place in the Extra folder (where you also have your: org.chameleon.Boot.plist file) or you don’t. If you don’t have a SSDT.aml yet, rename the file to SSDT.aml and place it in to the Extra folder.

If you already have a SSDT.aml file, like I do, you should rename the file to the next logical number. For example SSDT-1.aml if you already have SSDT.aml in your folder, SSDT-3 if you already have SSDT.aml, SSDT-1, SSDT-2 in your folder. See how the number add up? Because I already had a SSDT.aml file in the Extra folder to enable HDMI audio for this board, I needed to rename the file SSDT-1.aml.

f. Now you need to edit the SSDT file using MaciASL. If you don’t have that program yet, you can get it here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/maciasl/?source=directory
g. Start up MaciASL, go to File > Open > Extra > SSDT-1.aml
h. Find: Method (_SB.PCI0.RP04.PXSX._DSM, 4, NotSerialized)
i. Now edit this line by replacing: RP04 to the location you found using IORegistryExplorer in step 1.e
j. Mine was RP05, so I changed it to: (_SB.PCI0.RP05.PXSX._DSM, 4, NotSerialized)
k. Save the SSDT file and close MaciASL.

4. Make sure you have injecting SSDT’s enabled in your org.chameleon.Boot.plist in the Extra folder. You should have an entry like this one. If you don’t have it yet, add it!

<key>DropSSDT</key>
<string>Yes</string>

5. Now you only need to rebuild the caches and you are good to go.
a. Download DPCIManager if you don’t already have it, from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/dpcimanager/
b. Start DPCIManager and click on ‘Rebuild cache’ button.

6. Restart the computer, you should have both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth!

 

[joeschmo12]

thanks for this guide ypz
I had had an issue from my initial install of mavericks on the hackintosh whereby the H87N built in wifi/bt card wasn't working with wifi (which we all know about) but neither was working with bt. It displayed a message in the Bluetooth prefs pane as "now discoverable as BCM2070..." and looked as if it was discovering/being discovered but in actual fact did bugger all. And it couldn't be turned off.
I shelved the notion of trying to resolve it as a) thought it was a hack/mav problem and b) since I don't use anything bt anyway, wasn't that bothered.
What I did want to do was get the wifi working though, and so bought one of the BCM cards you mentioned (£5 from HK through ebay, postage included!) thinking it was silly money enough if it didn't work, I wouldn't cry.
Got wifi working tonight through toledos kext, but bt still giving me gyp.
Then came across your post, uninstalled the toledo kext and used your method. Wifi still working - yay - bluetooth still not - boo.
More hunting on the web took me to a thread where in Mav DP1, people were having the same trouble as me, and were using the bluetooth kext from mountain lion. So I tried that, and still no joy. Didn't even load as a pane in the release candidate. Sob, sob.
Carried on reading the thread, and someone suggested manually changing the power state of the bluetooth device by altering the bluetooth plist, changing the zero to a one. Reinstalled the 10.9.0 bluetooth kext, and rebuilt cache, and altered plist.
It all works, as it should.
I'm sure I can't be the only one having had this problem, and maybe this will help someone else in the future.
Thanks for your original post!
Here are some linkages (as of 140116)
Thread from insanelymac with the plist instructions;
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/289871-bluetooth-stuck-in-on-state-and-not-working/page-2
Item from ebay;
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180958397044&ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:GB:3160

Here's the pertinent info in case the remote site goes down;

"And the solution was extremely easy:
- just went to /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist
- Changed the "ControllerPowerState" to 1.
- Reboot.
- And boom, it's working lol.

(but can't/don't disable it because then you have to modify the plist again to get it working)

So it looks like they changed some power state related things in the kext, and that is the problem. Btw I read on some forum that there is people with bluetooth problems on real macs too. So still hoping that this is just some bug.

edit: tested every function that I could, and looks like everything works, file sending, browsing the bluetooth device, etc... Just can't disable bluetooth, and can't change the "discoverable" setting anywhere. I just can't find the place for discoverable option... And I see that discoverable is disabled (and greyed out) in the cmd+click bluetooth menu.

edit2: just noticed the stretched bluetooth icon on the file sending window, it looks like bluetooth is not completed yet..."

 

[davidether]

Just wanted to confirm this guide worked like a charm for me. My only hiccup was that I wasn't finding "AirPort_Brcm4360" at all under IORegistryExplorer so I wasn't sure I would be able to follow this guide to get things working.

After rebuilding caches, reinstalling kext files & drivers, etc. to no avail, I just decided to follow your steps regardless, given I had the same motherboard & same chipset. And sure enough, it worked immediately with no issues.

Thanks a lot!!!

 

[davidmwd]

Hey! Nice post. Thank you!

Have you upgraded to 10.9.2 and is this solution still working for you? Do you have any issues with your wifi or bluetooth waking up from sleep?

 

[barranco]

Great Post,

Was able to setup under 10.9.2 following this guide, wasn't showing up in registry explorer but worked using the same address, it does wake from sleep and all, but after 24 hours, I stated having issues with BT connectivity, magic mouse connects but goes laggy after a while and a razer orochi 2013 pairs but only moves for a second and stalls.

anyone having a similar problem?

 

[barranco]

Also for whatever's worth, I can't see my wifi n (dlink dir-827) only my neighbour's, however my g(?) is showing up and working as expected.

 

[spang1974]

Oooh, Just waiting for my card to arrive! Will give this a go (it's seems a bit easier to understand than some other posts here) as soon as it does and let you know how I get on

Spang1974

 

[Surferdude81]

Thanks to Toleda and others for making this work and yzp801 for posting up easy to follow guide.

Stoked to have WiFi and BT working perfectly

 

[konsti]

Hi ypz801 and everyone, thank you all for your valuable input. I have installed Mavericks 10.9.5 directly, and have troubles making BT work properly.

While installation reqiured minimum additional efforts (i.e. Realtek kext, patching for SSD, using GenericUSBXHCI for USB 3.0 support and installing Chimera 4.0.0) I also installed the same card AzureWave AW-NB290H (BCM943225HMB) but on 10.9.5 despite the mini-PCIe being detected and BT showing in system preferences, I cannot pair any accessory at all...

Even tried many times to delete the com.apple.Bluetooth.plist file. However, the tag inside "ControllerPowerState=1" remains OK, but the Bluetooth tab in System Preferences just has the icon rotating cannot see any accessory

I even injected the vendor/product IDs in the Info.plist of BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport plugin in IOBluetoothFamily.kext, which allows me to turn on/off. But that didn't help detection/pairing issues.

May I ask if you guys have installed GenericUSBXHCI ? What is your setting in BIOS of xHCI? Smart Auto or Enabled? Maybe this has an effect? Did you all install totally vanilla system?

Many thanks in advance.

 

[dwideschrude]

Just wondering if anyone has gotten this to work on El Capitan. I purchased this card thinking I'd be able to have it working on my Z97N Wifi board and I can't seem to get it to work for the life of me. I'm currently on El Capitan 10.11.3 running the latest version of Clover. I found slightly different instructions for clover, but I'm like 99% sure I did everything right and after I enable the "Drop OEM" box in Clover Configurator and rebuild the cache, I'll reboot the computer and the boot screen takes forever to get about half way until it gives up showing me a gray circle with a line through it. Once I disable that tick box from another computer and boot it up again it boots normally again but I'm not able to get the wifi working.


Any help would be greatly appreciated. I haven't yet gotten a single response on anything I've ever posted on this website.