<< Solved >> I'm struggling with detecting my Fenvi T919 on my BigSur X299

[zabalex]

What happens with the card in Windows 10 once the drivers from the Fenvi website for Win10 are installed ?

First of all, thank you Trs96 for helping me with this issue!

To answer your Windows question, I do not have Windows at all, I could try to boot into Live Linuxmint again if that would help to debug something, but I don't think I have the original USB setup I was using to make my first set of SSDTs.

Regards,

 

[trs96]

To answer your Windows question, I do not have Windows at all, I could try to boot into Live Linuxmint again if that would help to debug something, but I don't think I have the original USB setup I was using to make my first set of SSDTs.

Have you tested out any other SMBIOS options ? iMac Pro 1,1 or MacPro 7,1 ? It's a long shot but may be worth trying to see if it makes any difference.

 

[zabalex]

Have you tested out any other SMBIOS options ? iMac Pro 1,1 or MacPro 7,1 ? It's a long shot but may be worth trying to see if it makes any difference.

Hello Trs96, I think I got something wrong.
I tried entering SMBIOS exactly as it is written above: "iMac Pro 1,1" but the app refused this as invalid entry, said it must be in the correct time iMac18,1 3 or something like that. So I just entered iMac7,1.
Please suggest which format to use when entering into smbios generate utility and I'll rerun.

 

[P1LGRIM]

Mac-F42386C8 is an iMac7,1 which does not meet the minimum requirements for Big Sur, the latest OS you can install on it is Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

The OpenCore guide includes a section on setting up the SMBIOS.

 

[trs96]

View attachment 513070

Hello Trs96, I think I got something wrong.
I tried entering SMBIOS exactly as it is written above: "iMac Pro 1,1" but the app refused this as invalid entry, said it must be in the correct time iMac18,1 3 or something like that. So I just entered iMac7,1.
Please suggest which format to use when entering into smbios generate utility and I'll rerun.

Not sure what you are using. GenSMBIOS ? If so remember there are no spaces, the second number after the SMBIOS is for the number (amount) of serials to generate. It would be like this for MacPro6,1 to generate one serial.

 

[zabalex]

MacPro 7,1

Great, thank you.
With that I managed to enter MacPro7,1

Immediately got warning that I have more memory than supported by the OS, however taking memory aside for a moment the wifi behaves same way, switches to red dot after just a few quick attempts of yellow.

 

[zabalex]

Should I try a higher number, like 18 or 19?

 

[zabalex]

I just tried iMac19,1 - no difference in wifi.

I just received a new Fenvi card, I'm going to quickly swap it off, just so I exclude the possibility that my original fenvi is defective somehow. I'll be right back.

 

[zabalex]

Ok, took my questioning of my Fenvi T919 not working out of the equation, exactly the same behavior. Oh well, I was hoping for a quick fix...

 

[trs96]

Here's some interesting info I dug up. The BCM94360CD is a perfect match for the 15,1 SMBIOS as that's what Apple used them in. Both the late 2013 14,2-4 iMacs and the 2014 15,1 iMacs.

After the Mid 2015 they switched to a different Broadcom card for the Late 2015 27" 5K iMacs, the 17,1 models.

Here's the page of a seller of genuine iMac Wifi/BT cards for various iMacs.

https://beetstech.com/product/imac-late-2015-airport-wireless-card-661-02893

I have noticed that in general that people using a newer SMBIOS than iMac 15,1 seem to have problems with the Fenvi cards that are using BCM94360CD exclusively. There is a lot of evidence of this in the CaseySJ threads. Some people can't get the Fenvi cards to work on newer hardware using a newer SMBIOS like iMacPro1,1.

No idea if it will make a difference but you could buy a genuine iMac 17,1 card and use an adapter that's suitable and see how it works or doesn't in your system.