How To: Build your own "Real" Airport Card

[adriangb]

Hi, I'm looking for a wifi/bluetooth combo since I need bluetooth too and it seems stupid to put 2x mini pcie to pcie adapter + 2 cards when there are good combo cards out there (just not much info/availability)…
The last card I've been looking at is the one bundled in the MacBook Air 2011, the BCM943224PCIEBT2BX.

I can't find it anywere… too new? Do you think it would work once it becomes available?

 

[alpha90]

Hi, I'm looking for a wifi/bluetooth combo since I need bluetooth too and it seems stupid to put 2x mini pcie to pcie adapter + 2 cards when there are good combo cards out there (just not much info/availability)…
The last card I've been looking at is the one bundled in the MacBook Air 2011, the BCM943224PCIEBT2BX.

I can't find it anywere… too new? Do you think it would work once it becomes available?

Yes, it seems too soon to find that MBA wifi-BT combo card in the secondary OEM market. When it appears, presumably it will work OOB as a native Apple part.

Until such a combo card is available, meanwhile you would only be using a single PCIe slot: just for wi-fi, examples in this thread.
The customary bluetooth solutions are just tiny dongles that take up a rear USB jack and barely protrude from the I/O panel, such as these two:
http://www.amazon.com/IOGEAR-Bluetooth- ... 0018O9JIG/
http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-BT-USBT-W ... 002SBF108/

There are several other BT dongle OOB solutions reported on this forum.

 

[adriangb]

Hi, I'm looking for a wifi/bluetooth combo since I need bluetooth too and it seems stupid to put 2x mini pcie to pcie adapter + 2 cards when there are good combo cards out there (just not much info/availability)…
The last card I've been looking at is the one bundled in the MacBook Air 2011, the BCM943224PCIEBT2BX.

I can't find it anywere… too new? Do you think it would work once it becomes available?

Yes, it seems too soon to find that MBA wifi-BT combo card in the secondary OEM market. When it appears, presumably it will work OOB as a native Apple part.

Until such a combo card is available, meanwhile you would only be using a single PCIe slot: just for wi-fi, examples in this thread.
The customary bluetooth solutions are just tiny dongles that take up a rear USB jack and barely protrude from the I/O panel, such as these two:
http://www.amazon.com/IOGEAR-Bluetooth- ... 0018O9JIG/
http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-BT-USBT-W ... 002SBF108/

There are several other BT dongle OOB solutions reported on this forum.

I have a CRS based dongle, but it won't work on reboots, etc. I'ts not even flashable (I found an Apple firmware fore it CRSs…). I live in Argentina, so it's not the best move to get a "temp" card, and I don't need one anyways… I'd rather wait till that one pops up, sounds good…

PS: thanks for the response

 

[r4man2]

I have a new lion hack (details in my profile) and needed to setup wireless access. I read all the posts and finally bought a Broadcom card which is supposed to be a New Apple Extreme card on eBay.

Bought a Pcie card like the ones recommended. They arrived today and I put them together and installed them in an empty Pcie slot. 'About Mac' reports there is a network card, but Airport install utility doesn't recognize it. IOW no sign it is working. How should I proceed? How can I tell if the card is working? Is there something in Bios or Multibeast that I need to change?

Thanks

 

[alpha90]

Is the card a 4321 or 4322?

I have a new lion hack (details in my profile) and needed to setup wireless access. I read all the posts and finally bought a Broadcom card which is supposed to be a New Apple Extreme card on eBay.

Bought a Pcie card like the ones recommended. They arrived today and I put them together and installed them in an empty Pcie slot. 'About Mac' reports there is a network card, but Airport install utility doesn't recognize it. IOW no sign it is working. How should I proceed? How can I tell if the card is working? Is there something in Bios or Multibeast that I need to change?

Thanks

 

[r4man2]

Its a '4322' with a date of 2008 on the sticker. Had my knee operated on today and system is upstairs so will have to wait a few days before I can get to it.

Thanks for any and all suggestions.

 

[alpha90]

Its a '4322' with a date of 2008 on the sticker. Had my knee operated on today and system is upstairs so will have to wait a few days before I can get to it.

Thanks for any and all suggestions.

Apparently the BC 4322 model, although later, does not work OOB with 10.6 or 10.7 like the 4321 does. In fact, according to several comments in this thread, no one has yet gotten the 4322 to run, even after tweaking the kext.

Here's the 4321 model I bought New, took 10 days from Hong Kong.

Here's Apple brand that crburton bought, used, but sold from U.S.

You must have overlooked the warnings in this thread about the 4322 being a dead end, at least for now.

Hope your knee feels better.

 

[bhorozal]

My rebranded bcm94321 card is listed as AirPort Extreme in System Information but it is listed as Wi-Fi not AirPort even though Card Type is AirPort Extreme. Any reason why?

 

[jamminjman]

Worked like a champ in 10.7.1. Thanks for the idea!

 

[alpha90]

My rebranded bcm94321 card is listed as AirPort Extreme in System Information but it is listed as Wi-Fi not AirPort even though Card Type is AirPort Extreme. Any reason why?

It would appear that your AirPort NIC Service was renamed "Wi-Fi" in the Network preference pane, so it shows as Wi-Fi in your Network Utility screen.
You can change that by using "Rename Service" per this config dropdown: