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Rebranding NGFF M.2 Broadcom WLAN to bypass whitelist

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Hey I'm hoping someone here knows a way to do this...

So I've got the following Broadcom card in my thinkpad T440s and attempting to boot with it installed leaves me with the unauthorized network card halt during POST preventing me from using it.

BCM94352Z NGFF M.2 WiFi WLAN Bluetooth 4.0 802.11ac
Device ID 14e4:43b1

I've been trying to use a Linux distribution on another laptop with a NGFF to mPCIe adapter to reflash the card to show as the Intel 7260 AC card that is in the whitelist so i can boot past the white list issue and then use probably a combination of either a DSDT edit or clover and a kext mod to use the wifi card as a Broadcom card (which it is) inside the OS and have the bios think it's an Intel card.

This bios is locked down (encrypted) and the only solution would be to flash a bios using an external programmer which isn't something I'm able to do.

If this isn't possible with this card I'm open to suggestions on other cards that could be rebranded as an Intel device. Just needs to be the stupid NGFF M.2 format. I've not been able to find any adapters to go from a mPCIe card into an NGFF slot unfortunately.
 
Hey I'm hoping someone here knows a way to do this...

So I've got the following Broadcom card in my thinkpad T440s and attempting to boot with it installed leaves me with the unauthorized network card halt during POST preventing me from using it.

BCM94352Z NGFF M.2 WiFi WLAN Bluetooth 4.0 802.11ac
Device ID 14e4:43b1

I've been trying to use a Linux distribution on another laptop with a NGFF to mPCIe adapter to reflash the card to show as the Intel 7260 AC card that is in the whitelist so i can boot past the white list issue and then use probably a combination of either a DSDT edit or clover and a kext mod to use the wifi card as a Broadcom card (which it is) inside the OS and have the bios think it's an Intel card.

This bios is locked down (encrypted) and the only solution would be to flash a bios using an external programmer which isn't something I'm able to do.

If this isn't possible with this card I'm open to suggestions on other cards that could be rebranded as an Intel device. Just needs to be the stupid NGFF M.2 format. I've not been able to find any adapters to go from a mPCIe card into an NGFF slot unfortunately.

There is no bypass in lenovo laptops.

Ive flashed the modified bios. its not that hard, just like installing a program in windows.
 
As I don't own the hardware I don't feel like I can do a hardware reflash of the bios chip should something go wrong it would be unfortunate. Which is why I'm looking to modify just the wifi card as that is easily undone.
 
So, how did the sprom programming using a linux distribution go?

I was looking into it myself for people to use it for 5GHZ unlocking, but I did not want to risk my currently working card.
 
I wasn't able to get a Linux driver for the card that works that has the ability to change the prom.
Maybe I didn't look in the right places for it or wasn't running the right distribution of Linux for it to work.
I tried following the rebranding steps for the mpcie cards but they didn't seem to work for the NGFF card.
I don't have the needed free time to spend on doing it or trying various releases of Linux and drivers and let's just say the wife is already annoyed by how much time I spend on the computer as it is. (I work in tech support for a large IT company supporting enterprise level customers)
 
I decided to order an Atheros AR9280 card 1/2 height mPCIe ($17 shipped) and an adapter ($38 shipped) that will allow me to go from NGFF on the laptop to mPCIe WLAN card. I also ordered a pair of WiFi antennas ($10 shipped) as the mPCIe and NGFF antennas are different sized. Since I picked a half height card I may even be able to trim down the size of the adapter as I don't need the SIM card provisions ... I'll have to see when it arrives.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JESLUWQ
41rY7pWOvJL.jpg
41Vl87AJr%2BL.jpg


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LF17D6C
418lhczb52L.jpg


http://www.mfactors.com/p15s-p15f-m-2-ngff-to-mpcie-extender-board/
P15S_P15F_4_1__43214.1405397725.1280.1280.jpg



I hope that I'll be able to tuck the card in next to the current slot for NGFF as there is another NGFF port next to this one that is larger and made for a SSD... or place it where the smartcard reader was supposed to be... worst case is that I pull out the internal battery and only have the external battery.

This may seem crazy but I'm tired of trying to rebrand that broadcom card that has very limited support anywhere and nobody else is actively trying to do it... there are plenty of people that have done rebranding on the Atheros card in Linux and windows that it should be doable. I'm also really tired of having to deal with USB WiFi ... terrible performance and terrible integration into the OS.

Also, after some testing today the USB WiFi adapter is breaking sleep. If I remove the USB WiFi adapter it typically locks up the computer to the point where it has panicked but is frozen. The crash report after reboot mentions the kext for this USB WiFi device.
 
No worries. Your BCM94352 should sell instantly, a lot of people here are looking for one :thumbup:
 
Any update on the BIOS mod? I own a Lenovo X240s and have the same issue. FYI, someone on TaoBao has around 8000 Broadcom BCM94352Z NGFF cards at this time of writing. Link below.

Also, did u have to carve an extra notch into the card for it to fit into the slot? How did it go?

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=38191631476
 
Any update on the BIOS mod? I own a Lenovo X240s and have the same issue. FYI, someone on TaoBao has around 8000 Broadcom BCM94352Z NGFF cards at this time of writing. Link below.

Also, did u have to carve an extra notch into the card for it to fit into the slot? How did it go?

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=38191631476
Be careful with these Chinese distributors.

I talked to a German distributor who had these cards in stock on Ebay and he told me to stay away from these Chinese sites if you want to buy a BCM94352Z. Apparently only 100 were made as an engineering sample (at least, the cards he got his hands on were from an original batch of 100) and they are quite rare in China right now. He thinks Aliexpress and taobao suppliers are lying about the amount of stock they have.
 
I have one of those engineering sample cards in my laptop.
They have no serial number printed on backside of the board and are marked "CS1 Sample".

Ludacrispv,

Did you do any more work on rebranding the BCM94352? Indications are that it should be possible.
 
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