How to build your own iMac Pro [Successful Build/Extended Guide]

[izo1]

That's the antenna that came with the GB Designare right? it states 2.4GHz antenna? what about 5GHz? no issue there? (not that I care much about 5GHz)

Question now is finding which antenna BT is connected on, J0, J1 or J2... On the card you have it's J3...

No, the antenna that came with the Designare EX was for a 2 port single antenna with a mini SMA connector (forgot the actual name for it)...but I did try swapping that antenna and it did not help with the onboard module mod.

So I went back to OSXWIFI and these extended cabled antennas helped.

BT is always 1 antenna port on 2.4Ghz band.

For 5Ghz I'm using Wifi and it works fine.

 

[panell]

I tried this one:
https://www.osxwifi.com/product/apple-broadcom-bcm943602cd-802-11-a-b-g-n-ac-with-bluetooth-4-1/

It has newer BT 4.1...but it didn't really make it any better to be honest. I returned it.

What somewhat solved my issue is to buy a cabled antenna and move the radios further away from the PC case/back ports:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00W2TYU3A/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

I got 2 of these for the OSXWIFI.

I get less stutters now, however the distance is still an issue especially across walls.

My current OSXWifi card is the older one based on this older module:

https://www.osxwifi.com/product/pc-...94360cd-802-11-a-b-g-n-ac-with-bluetooth-4-0/

A year ago I was experimenting with increasing Bluetooth range (for my Bose QC35 headphones) in my Big 3 stories floor house (it was Win back then with GC-WB867D-I (rev. 4.2) card). From my experience, I bought some strong and long antennas and they increased range a lot, however, it still was far from perfect (I expected it would be better since headphones mostly are receiving data). Bluetooth range in most devices sucks - one or two walls or ceilings and it breaks, but also sometimes breaks quite randomly.
There should be applications in Apple/Play stores that can measure Bluetooth signal strength, so you may actually verify you "internal antenna theory" and experiment with signal strength a bit.

BTW there were some fakes like this haha:

 

[RuleBreaker01]

No, the antenna that came with the Designare EX was for a 2 port single antenna with a mini SMA connector (forgot the actual name for it)...but I did try swapping that antenna and it did not help with the onboard module mod.

So I went back to OSXWIFI and these extended cabled antennas helped.

Do you have it in the PCIe card or have it connected via the original M.2 wifi port?

BT is always 1 antenna port on 2.4Ghz band.

For 5Ghz I'm using Wifi and it works fine.

ok.. good to know that despite being a 2.4GHz it works for 5GHz

 

[RuleBreaker01]

BTW there were some fakes like this haha:

The Logilink BT0015 works great 20m+ from my PC (basically me sitting outside under a tree and my desktop inside in a pretty old country house with 40cm+ walls)https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B0096Y2HFW/?tag=tonymacx8607-21

But I'm obsessed with getting the broadcom one working properly

I have no doubt it's an antenna issue. I use the 30cm antenna cables I ordered from AliExpress that goes from the M.2 adapter to the PCI plate, and then use the antenna that came with the OSXWIFI card.

 

[izo1]

Do you have it in the PCIe card or have it connected via the original M.2 wifi port?



ok.. good to know that despite being a 2.4GHz it works for 5GHz

It's on a PCIe card and PCIe is mounted on the last port. I don't think this module will fit in the onboard connector, maybe by breaking the shroud...I don't want to go that route.

Wifi can be 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, BT is 2.4Ghz...I don't know waht the new BT5.0 protocol is or what frequency its on....but after doing heavy research on this subject, USB cables, power cables etc also interfere with BT in general, so this long wired antenna helped.

I'm thinking of getting a longer extension cable and just literally moving the antennas far away from the PC case. I really think proper insulation of the card would have helped, but too lazy to do that.

I was really hoping on the onboard mod would work well, but had major issues if you remember a while back....so I just removed the Broadcom kextx and stuck to the OSXWifi module which works OOB (still Broadcom of course).

I am not sure if anyone has gotten their hands on the same module that's on the iMac Pro (I don't think its removable) so having that would be great.....I think we just need new Macs to come out with BT5.0 and maybe the range of those modules will be better...however Intel has started to put Wifi/BT inside of the chipset, so who knows maybe Apple will start using Intel BT/Wifi modules with the 9900k? (Z390 chipset).

 

[izo1]

A year ago I was experimenting with increasing Bluetooth range (for my Bose QC35 headphones) in my Big 3 stories floor house (it was Win back then with GC-WB867D-I (rev. 4.2) card). From my experience, I bought some strong and long antennas and they increased range a lot, however, it still was far from perfect (I expected it would be better since headphones mostly are receiving data). Bluetooth range in most devices sucks - one or two walls or ceilings and it breaks, but also sometimes breaks quite randomly.
There should be applications in Apple/Play stores that can measure Bluetooth signal strength, so you may actually verify you "internal antenna theory" and experiment with signal strength a bit.

BTW there were some fakes like this haha:

The issue I've had was that on REAL Macs the BT range has always been excellent and no stutters.

It's every Hackintosh that I had a problem with when it came to BT. Real Macs are insulated and they have internal antennas properly configured.

Also on the Windows side, BT seems to work ok as well...

 

[djlild7hina]

I tried this one:
https://www.osxwifi.com/product/apple-broadcom-bcm943602cd-802-11-a-b-g-n-ac-with-bluetooth-4-1/

It has newer BT 4.1...but it didn't really make it any better to be honest. I returned it.

What somewhat solved my issue is to buy a cabled antenna and move the radios further away from the PC case/back ports:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00W2TYU3A/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

I got 2 of these for the OSXWIFI.

I get less stutters now, however the distance is still an issue especially across walls.

My current OSXWifi card is the older one based on this older module:

https://www.osxwifi.com/product/pc-...94360cd-802-11-a-b-g-n-ac-with-bluetooth-4-0/

Thanks for the link for these antennas! I've been having issues lately with my air pods stuttering and lag with my magic mouse so hopefully these will help.

 

[izo1]

Thanks for the link for these antennas! I've been having issues lately with my air pods stuttering and lag with my magic mouse so hopefully these will help.

If you do get these antennas (theres others but this one was Gigabyte so I went with it) make sure the antenna cables don't touch other cables or are near other cables like USB3.0 or power cables in the rear.

I would even not mount it on top of a PC case, move it away from the case as much as you can.

 

[RuleBreaker01]

Having a hard time finding such antennas... The GB is available on eBay but from the US so > USD25 just for shipping

 

[pieropontra]

A little noob question: when @kgp updates his shared EFI Folder, we fellas should:

1. Add to his new folder all the kexts we use according to our config
2. Add all the serials of our SMBIOS stuff to his config.plist (his config.plist is empty in SMBIOS)
3. Eventually modify boot arguments (toggle of debug mode as example)

Am I missing something? Some help will be much appreciated. Thanks.