Contribute
Register

How To: Build your own "Real" Airport Card

Hi there

BIG PROBLEM here
i'm using the famous BCM94322MC to mimic the true apple card.
bough spare parts on ebay, built it, installed it in a pci-e slot of my gigabye p45-ds4.

it works but is it not recognized as an APPLE airport card but an "unknown" card.

I guess that is why SLEEP mode kills my device, when the hac wakes up, airport shows up deactivated (empty menubar triangle) and there is no way to turn it back on unless i reboot.

tried multiple solutions but none of them work, that's why i pray for help here...

i read that the io80211family.kext is not 64bit, is it still the case ? (i'm running 10.6.4 SL 64bit kernel)

is there an option to tweak in the AppleAirportBrcm4311 ?
or maybe in the iopcifamily ?

Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated :)
 
Ignore ... probably spoke too soon!!

Chris
 
giles, thanks for the reply. required careful examination of the card and adapter before installing :headbang:
 
giles said:
this combo is working for me:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... K:MEWNX:IT
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... K:MEWNX:IT

had a scary moment when it wasn't showing up at all on the first reboot. a hasty inspection revealed that there was some tape stuck onto the pci connectors, after removing the tape it is working perfectly. so far 9,000 packets sent and received and 0 errors! :headbang:

Please, can you post a link to the pcie adapter as it is no longer available, or some information about manufacturer/model.

Thanks!
 
javimdq said:
Please, can you post a link to the pcie adapter as it is no longer available, or some information about manufacturer/model.

Thanks!

hey, didn't come with any packaging or branding. i'll pull it out and have a look after i post this. in the meantime this one looks very similar, be sure to ask for 3.3v:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... ESINDXX:IT

Edit: my one says molex on it but i can't find any specific product info. The one above and this one both look very similar and should work for you:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Mini-PCI-E-PCI-E ... 3a5be30d09

This is the original from the blog post, not sure about voltage though, i would check with them if i were you:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... ESINDXX:IT

Good luck
 
I finally received my parts from China.

I got the 2008 Apple Branded BCM94322MC and one of the 3.3v Adapters off of ebay.

Installing was a little rough getting the wires to sit nice, but I got it to still look pretty.

I plugged it in and turned on the computer...NOTHING. not even recognized.

I took it out and noticed the airport card wasn't sitting nicely...fixed it and tried again...NOTHING

No airport cards are found, but the ethernet keeps showing up as a self-assigned IP address even though nothing is plugged into ethernet.

I don't know how to fix this. Anyone have any ideas?


~ Midsyde

EDIT:

FIXED. I don't know what necessarily fixed it, but I pulled the card out, put it back in, made sure the cables that were touching it weren't. Turned on the computer and BAM! it works!

I think it probably just wasn't sitting in the PCIe slot correctly....any who it now works wonderfully and am very happy I did it.
 
javimdq said:
giles said:
this combo is working for me:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... K:MEWNX:IT
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... K:MEWNX:IT

had a scary moment when it wasn't showing up at all on the first reboot. a hasty inspection revealed that there was some tape stuck onto the pci connectors, after removing the tape it is working perfectly. so far 9,000 packets sent and received and 0 errors! :headbang:

Please, can you post a link to the pcie adapter as it is no longer available, or some information about manufacturer/model.

Thanks!

I got this one ...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0540419545

Got it in the US in 7 days from their location in Hong Kong.

Chris
 
Midsyde, this card is working in Windows? I set card in my notebook (Lenovo S9) and it's work well only in Mac OS. In Windows it's says connecting...connecting.. connecting.. and nothing happens :( Win XP and Win 7-same ****-connecting and.. nothing.. :beachball: In Ubuntu it's work well :crazy:
 
Back
Top