Post Updated September. 6th, 2024
0. Preamble
This is in fact an iMac Late 2007 to Mid 2011 Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi 802.11ac upgrade thread - which some minor adjustments one can use the guides posted here to apply this upgrade even on older iMacs and MacPro systems.
Until this first post will be fully completed you can either read through this not so long thread or take a look at this short guide. It is a short overview summing up and linking the most important facts about modifications, solder points, cables colors, software, and everything else you really need to do this upgrade.
Disabling the original BT module sometimes disconnects your BT devices in some early macOS installer dialogues - it is really helpful to have a (cheap) cable mouse!
This modification can be applied to all iMac models from Late 2009 until Mid 2011. If you take a look at this online offer it seems to me that the hardware used here can be also used unchanged in the former iMac 2007 and 2008 and Mid 2009 models.
The Late 2009 to Mid 2011 are known to run with Big Sur and later using OLCP. Adding a Metal GPU is the most important modification to run any post High Sierra macOS version.
1. Introduction
This wiki is to help you install a new wifi-bluetooth card in your iMac 2009-2011. You will gain Airdrop, HandOff, Continuity, improved AirDrop, and Apple Watch unlock.
Recommended cards are these models (you will find the macOS natively supports the card added)
The cards with an CS in their name have different and smaller antenna connectors of type MHF4. You need a different extension cable - U.FL/IPEX1 to MHF4/IPEX4. Found those recently in small lots of 10 cables on the female warrior site.
Do not use the BCM943602XXX version on iMac11,1 and older, these systems have no EFI driver for more recent BT cards and you will not be able to use BT mouse and keyboard before booting macOS. Use the BCM94360CS or the BCM94360CD.
Connect all antenna ports on your new card! In case your iMac provides less antenna connections order an additional cable antenna and place it on the top right of you iMac. Reception, performance and overall functionality will be better!
The CS versions used in MacBookPro models need two or three short IPEX adapter cables to connect to the internal antenna modules. One can survive with on 5GHz WiFi and one BT antenna using the BCM94360CS.
Basically, the process has two parts: hardware installation and macOS modifications. You are going to lose the Internet recovery using WiFi - the TFTP client within the boot rom of these iMacs cannot drive the new WiFi hardware. (A firmware patch may be able to bring internet recovery back)
But you can use a cable connected to a router to have the recovery, back. A special thanks to @Ausdauersportler as most of the information in this Wiki has been pilfered from his guide!
2. Hardware Installation
You have to decide if you prefer a plug and play option, which can be fairly expensive OR a hardware modification option, which is cheaper but may require some soldering. Lately one user found cheaper preconfigured adapters cards making the soldering unnecessary! This is currently the optimal option.
To make things clear:
It is the adapter and the cabling involved which needs soldering or not. The BCM card itself can be plugged into each adapter model easily. Some recent adapters are designed badly and cannot be used with the bigger BCM943602CDP cards.
Plug and Play (spend money, save time and hassle)
After years of reading here some Chinese resellers finally offer fully plug and play adapter cards usable with all BCM cards listed above. Even a German company offers a product at the same insane price point as OSXWIFI. You will find some posts on page 34, on product is called HZL6000. You will need to find current offers on eBay or AliExpress. Those expire too fast to add links here. A short reality check: Used complete iMacs are cheaper nowadays than those add on solutions.
Another more expensive kit will be offered by OSXWIFI:
or the German HZL6000 (no affiliation here)
lrzt.de
or
This Wiki cannot provide further information on these possibilities.
DIY (Do It Yourself)
Before having a complete solution some sellers came up with plug and play adapters for the cards listed above. You simply need to reroute the BT cable in the 2011 from the left back to the center to the PCIe slot - which needs some work. But you can get a fully revertible solution.
This could be a cheaper option. You will need to buy a cheaper miniPCIe adapter board and one of these cards BCM94331CD, BCM94331CD, BCM94360CD, BCM94360CS, BCM943602CS and BCM943602CDP. You may have have to solder three cables, depending on the PCIe adapter solution you are will purchase.
Check this post and this post to check how to use a connector to plug in the standard BT cable - so the original cable remains unchanged and one can revert to the former setup.
Tools:
Everything to open an iMac, a simple 10W solder iron to connect three cables.
1. using a normal PCIe adapter card (cheap ~ 10 USD available on AliExpress.com)
2. A matching connector has been found on AliExpress preventing the need to butcher the Bluetooth cable or module.
FPC connector spacing of 1.0 mm 6 pin plating lie connector FFC flexible ribbon cable socket 6 p needle seat
3. Another solution using this connector has been recently found. A small PCB with the connector, the soldering remains the same, you avoid cutting the original cable (1.0 mm 6 pin version)
www.aliexpress.com
Note the original cable plug will not snap in perfectly and it is required to use some tape or glue to fix the plug.
The D+/D- lines are necessary to enable the BT module on the new card. The 3.3V line is only necessary if you plan to run BT independently of wifi. If you disable wifi using the system preference the power is shut down to the card holder slot and so the new BT 4.x module will be disabled, too. Having the additional 3.3V power source connected (preferably from the BT cable) you can use the BT 4.x independently.
You can get the three sources/cables by cutting the original BT cable (look at posts #120 and #269 where do you exactly get the D+/D-/3.3V signal from and which parts in general you need) - in this case the old BT module will be out of order and do not conflict with the new one.
Please notice: The cables are always in the same order, but the cable colors can vary from iMac to iMac. Therefore no simple color mapping is possible.
If you chose to get D+/D-/3.3V from the SD card reader cable you will end up with two working BT modules in the iMac. You have to disable the old, take a look at step 9 of this guide.
Soldering (there is no plug and play solution!)
This seems to be the major obstacle on the way to success. Instead asking constantly for a non existing cheap plug and play solution just de-install the BT cable (the black one connecting system board and the BT modules), get the instructions from this thread and the mini PCI adapter board to the next cell phone repair shop and let these guys doing the soldering! Live can be that easy!
3. macOS Modifications
All versions:
Optional: To disable the old BT module (if it is still working) just follow the instructions in step 9 of this guide. Normally it will not since you used the BT cable for the new module.
High Sierra and older:
Normally the new BT/WiFi should work out of the box.
dosdude1 patcher: Mojave and Catalina
You need to reinstall Mojave or Catalina (whenever you change hardware like BT/WiFi or GPU) and uncheck the legacy wifi patch (needed for the original Atheros wifi card, only) during the post installation patching of the @dosdude1 patchers.
Unfortunately the @dosdude1 post install patcher now annoyingly reminds you on every new reboot to install the missing legacy wifi patch. Do not apply this patch. You will loose the watch unlock feature.
You may modify the @dosdude1 Catalina patcher in advance. The legacy wifi patch as the legacy video patch will not be installed then on the first install. But the reminder will still come up on every reboot. This modification is not really easy.
You may also boot into the Mojave or Catalina installer of your current choice and re-install the @dosdude1 patches from there - just deselect the legacy wifi patch and you are hopefully done with it.
To enable Continuity and HandOff by patching the current installation following this guide.
OCLP: Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura
Using OCLP you will have full support for HandOff and Continuity and watch unlock out of the box with all cards listed above. No manual intervention, no adjustments, no patches. The Mojave and Catalina installation process need moderate spoofing set and SecureBootModel in the OpenCore config.plist disabled. One can revert to light spoofing after installation (stock OCLP settings). Booting into High Sierra needs SecureBootModel disabled.
You need to rewrite your OC using the OCLP app after changing the hardware once and reboot the system.
OCLP: Sonoma and later
Apple dropped in Sonoma the hardware support for all those cards but using the OCLP app you can get still support after patching and after macOS booting. This time patching drivers is necessary. But this already happened with graphics drivers on Ventura. HandOff and Continuity and watch unlock should work. Have not tested the latter one.
Important to note: During the macOS installation and OCLP patching process you will not have WiFi support and in case OCLP needs to download additional files you will need a cable ethernet connection!
You need to rewrite your OC using the OCLP app after changing the hardware once and reboot the system. You need to revert patches, reboot, re-apply patches, and finally reboot in some cases (Sonoma and later).
4. success stories
All these cards will work on all Late 2009, Mid 2010 and Mid 2011 iMac models. Take a look at this thread to read about the successful installations.
On Early 24" iMac 2009 the BCM94360CS2 enabled WiFi, but connecting the D+/D- stopped booting (black screen). So I used an BT4.0 USB dongle and got Big Sur / OCLP with HandOff. According to @dfranetic cutting the D+/D- lines on the adapter near the miniPCI - i.e. disconnection the signals from the slot - solves this problem. We can confirm this after multiple tests.
31/01/2021: A report has been added on this post with a lot of pictures.
5. known hardware issues and problems
All these cards are not new when offered on the well known online platforms. You may get a module with flaky or not working BT or a not working card at all.
WiFi should work without any additionally soldering, the D+/D- and 3.3V connections are needed for BT, only.
So if you experience BT failures after connecting D+/D- with High Sierra the BT module may be broken. Instead of starting long discussions about how to fix it (there is no fix for broken hardware) please just send it back to the seller and replace the module and or adapter. Cheap sometimes really means cheap.
6. OCLP and macOS issues
Sonoma and later broke support for all PCI connected WiFi cards. Patching will be necessary, but OCLP supports all listed BCM360XXX cards with full functionality.
Sometimes OCLP (Sonoma and later) cannot recognized a newly added hardware, mostly the BT module. There is no other way than booting High Sierra or Sierra without OpenCore and run the OCLP app from there to build a new OpenCore configuration with properly detected WiFi and BT module.
~~~~~~~~~~
Original Post from @Czo September 16th, 2014.
Hi,
I'm planning the last upgrade on my aging iMac. I discovered, this iMac using seperate bluetooth (usb) and wifi module (minipcie), but the newer 2012 and 2013 series using combined m2 (ngff) module. I'm plannig the following "upgrade"
- buy this http://www.osxwifi.com/apple-broadc...-bluetooth-4-0-with-adapter-for-pc-hackintosh
- remove minipci-e wifi and usb bluetooth from my iMac Mid 2011 27"
- try to reroute bluetooth antenna cable close to minipcie slot
- bring usb d+/d- from original bluetooth cable to the adapter, if the minipcie slot on the imac's logic board omits usb signaling.
- install minipci-e to ngff converter and the broadcom bcm94360cd to the slot and connect four antennas
- install the original minipci-e wifi module to with the pci-e adapter to my hackintosh on my workplace
Anyone has done this before? Anyone know the length of the cable or the position of the original bluetooth antenna on the iMac Mid 2011 27"?
0. Preamble
This is in fact an iMac Late 2007 to Mid 2011 Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi 802.11ac upgrade thread - which some minor adjustments one can use the guides posted here to apply this upgrade even on older iMacs and MacPro systems.
Until this first post will be fully completed you can either read through this not so long thread or take a look at this short guide. It is a short overview summing up and linking the most important facts about modifications, solder points, cables colors, software, and everything else you really need to do this upgrade.
Disabling the original BT module sometimes disconnects your BT devices in some early macOS installer dialogues - it is really helpful to have a (cheap) cable mouse!
This modification can be applied to all iMac models from Late 2009 until Mid 2011. If you take a look at this online offer it seems to me that the hardware used here can be also used unchanged in the former iMac 2007 and 2008 and Mid 2009 models.
The Late 2009 to Mid 2011 are known to run with Big Sur and later using OLCP. Adding a Metal GPU is the most important modification to run any post High Sierra macOS version.
1. Introduction
This wiki is to help you install a new wifi-bluetooth card in your iMac 2009-2011. You will gain Airdrop, HandOff, Continuity, improved AirDrop, and Apple Watch unlock.
Recommended cards are these models (you will find the macOS natively supports the card added)
- BCM94360CD / BCM94360CDAX (until Sequoia)
- BCM94360CS (until Sequoia)
- BCM943602CS (until Sequoia)
- BCM943602CDP (until Sequoia)
The cards with an CS in their name have different and smaller antenna connectors of type MHF4. You need a different extension cable - U.FL/IPEX1 to MHF4/IPEX4. Found those recently in small lots of 10 cables on the female warrior site.
Do not use the BCM943602XXX version on iMac11,1 and older, these systems have no EFI driver for more recent BT cards and you will not be able to use BT mouse and keyboard before booting macOS. Use the BCM94360CS or the BCM94360CD.
Connect all antenna ports on your new card! In case your iMac provides less antenna connections order an additional cable antenna and place it on the top right of you iMac. Reception, performance and overall functionality will be better!
The CS versions used in MacBookPro models need two or three short IPEX adapter cables to connect to the internal antenna modules. One can survive with on 5GHz WiFi and one BT antenna using the BCM94360CS.
Basically, the process has two parts: hardware installation and macOS modifications. You are going to lose the Internet recovery using WiFi - the TFTP client within the boot rom of these iMacs cannot drive the new WiFi hardware. (A firmware patch may be able to bring internet recovery back)
But you can use a cable connected to a router to have the recovery, back. A special thanks to @Ausdauersportler as most of the information in this Wiki has been pilfered from his guide!
2. Hardware Installation
You have to decide if you prefer a plug and play option, which can be fairly expensive OR a hardware modification option, which is cheaper but may require some soldering. Lately one user found cheaper preconfigured adapters cards making the soldering unnecessary! This is currently the optimal option.
To make things clear:
It is the adapter and the cabling involved which needs soldering or not. The BCM card itself can be plugged into each adapter model easily. Some recent adapters are designed badly and cannot be used with the bigger BCM943602CDP cards.
Plug and Play (spend money, save time and hassle)
After years of reading here some Chinese resellers finally offer fully plug and play adapter cards usable with all BCM cards listed above. Even a German company offers a product at the same insane price point as OSXWIFI. You will find some posts on page 34, on product is called HZL6000. You will need to find current offers on eBay or AliExpress. Those expire too fast to add links here. A short reality check: Used complete iMacs are cheaper nowadays than those add on solutions.
Another more expensive kit will be offered by OSXWIFI:
iMac 2009, iMac 2010 and iMac 2011 - Apple Broadcom BCM94360CD - 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with Bluetooth 4.0 Upgrade Kit
802.11ac, BT 4.0 and Continuity & Handoff for HACKINTOSH, Mac Pro, iMac with Native Support for Apple Broadcom BCM94360CD for PC, HACKINTOSH, Mac Pro, iMac
www.osxwifi.com
or the German HZL6000 (no affiliation here)
HZL6000 Bluetooth 4.0 Modul einbauen - Laptop Reparatur Zentrum Thüringen
Sie müssen den Inhalt von reCAPTCHA laden, um das Formular abzuschicken. Bitte beachten Sie, dass dabei Daten mit Drittanbietern ausgetauscht werden. Mehr Informationen Inhalt entsperren Erforderlichen Service akzeptieren und Inhalte entsperren
lrzt.de
or
Apple AirPort Extreme WiFi 802.11ac & Bluetooth 4.0 Upgrade Kit w/Adapter For iMac 2009-2011
For Apple iMac 2009 - 2011 ( 21.5' / 27')
www.local338shop.com
DIY (Do It Yourself)
Before having a complete solution some sellers came up with plug and play adapters for the cards listed above. You simply need to reroute the BT cable in the 2011 from the left back to the center to the PCIe slot - which needs some work. But you can get a fully revertible solution.
This could be a cheaper option. You will need to buy a cheaper miniPCIe adapter board and one of these cards BCM94331CD, BCM94331CD, BCM94360CD, BCM94360CS, BCM943602CS and BCM943602CDP. You may have have to solder three cables, depending on the PCIe adapter solution you are will purchase.
Check this post and this post to check how to use a connector to plug in the standard BT cable - so the original cable remains unchanged and one can revert to the former setup.
Tools:
Everything to open an iMac, a simple 10W solder iron to connect three cables.
1. using a normal PCIe adapter card (cheap ~ 10 USD available on AliExpress.com)
2. A matching connector has been found on AliExpress preventing the need to butcher the Bluetooth cable or module.
FPC connector spacing of 1.0 mm 6 pin plating lie connector FFC flexible ribbon cable socket 6 p needle seat
3. Another solution using this connector has been recently found. A small PCB with the connector, the soldering remains the same, you avoid cutting the original cable (1.0 mm 6 pin version)
1PCS FFC / FPC Adapter Board Flip Type 1.0MM To 2.54MM Soldered Connector 4/6/8/10/12/14/16/20/24/30P - AliExpress 13
Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com
www.aliexpress.com
Note the original cable plug will not snap in perfectly and it is required to use some tape or glue to fix the plug.
The D+/D- lines are necessary to enable the BT module on the new card. The 3.3V line is only necessary if you plan to run BT independently of wifi. If you disable wifi using the system preference the power is shut down to the card holder slot and so the new BT 4.x module will be disabled, too. Having the additional 3.3V power source connected (preferably from the BT cable) you can use the BT 4.x independently.
You can get the three sources/cables by cutting the original BT cable (look at posts #120 and #269 where do you exactly get the D+/D-/3.3V signal from and which parts in general you need) - in this case the old BT module will be out of order and do not conflict with the new one.
Please notice: The cables are always in the same order, but the cable colors can vary from iMac to iMac. Therefore no simple color mapping is possible.
If you chose to get D+/D-/3.3V from the SD card reader cable you will end up with two working BT modules in the iMac. You have to disable the old, take a look at step 9 of this guide.
Soldering (there is no plug and play solution!)
This seems to be the major obstacle on the way to success. Instead asking constantly for a non existing cheap plug and play solution just de-install the BT cable (the black one connecting system board and the BT modules), get the instructions from this thread and the mini PCI adapter board to the next cell phone repair shop and let these guys doing the soldering! Live can be that easy!
3. macOS Modifications
All versions:
Optional: To disable the old BT module (if it is still working) just follow the instructions in step 9 of this guide. Normally it will not since you used the BT cable for the new module.
High Sierra and older:
Normally the new BT/WiFi should work out of the box.
dosdude1 patcher: Mojave and Catalina
You need to reinstall Mojave or Catalina (whenever you change hardware like BT/WiFi or GPU) and uncheck the legacy wifi patch (needed for the original Atheros wifi card, only) during the post installation patching of the @dosdude1 patchers.
Unfortunately the @dosdude1 post install patcher now annoyingly reminds you on every new reboot to install the missing legacy wifi patch. Do not apply this patch. You will loose the watch unlock feature.
You may modify the @dosdude1 Catalina patcher in advance. The legacy wifi patch as the legacy video patch will not be installed then on the first install. But the reminder will still come up on every reboot. This modification is not really easy.
You may also boot into the Mojave or Catalina installer of your current choice and re-install the @dosdude1 patches from there - just deselect the legacy wifi patch and you are hopefully done with it.
To enable Continuity and HandOff by patching the current installation following this guide.
OCLP: Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura
Using OCLP you will have full support for HandOff and Continuity and watch unlock out of the box with all cards listed above. No manual intervention, no adjustments, no patches. The Mojave and Catalina installation process need moderate spoofing set and SecureBootModel in the OpenCore config.plist disabled. One can revert to light spoofing after installation (stock OCLP settings). Booting into High Sierra needs SecureBootModel disabled.
You need to rewrite your OC using the OCLP app after changing the hardware once and reboot the system.
OCLP: Sonoma and later
Apple dropped in Sonoma the hardware support for all those cards but using the OCLP app you can get still support after patching and after macOS booting. This time patching drivers is necessary. But this already happened with graphics drivers on Ventura. HandOff and Continuity and watch unlock should work. Have not tested the latter one.
Important to note: During the macOS installation and OCLP patching process you will not have WiFi support and in case OCLP needs to download additional files you will need a cable ethernet connection!
You need to rewrite your OC using the OCLP app after changing the hardware once and reboot the system. You need to revert patches, reboot, re-apply patches, and finally reboot in some cases (Sonoma and later).
4. success stories
All these cards will work on all Late 2009, Mid 2010 and Mid 2011 iMac models. Take a look at this thread to read about the successful installations.
On Early 24" iMac 2009 the BCM94360CS2 enabled WiFi, but connecting the D+/D- stopped booting (black screen). So I used an BT4.0 USB dongle and got Big Sur / OCLP with HandOff. According to @dfranetic cutting the D+/D- lines on the adapter near the miniPCI - i.e. disconnection the signals from the slot - solves this problem. We can confirm this after multiple tests.
31/01/2021: A report has been added on this post with a lot of pictures.
5. known hardware issues and problems
All these cards are not new when offered on the well known online platforms. You may get a module with flaky or not working BT or a not working card at all.
WiFi should work without any additionally soldering, the D+/D- and 3.3V connections are needed for BT, only.
So if you experience BT failures after connecting D+/D- with High Sierra the BT module may be broken. Instead of starting long discussions about how to fix it (there is no fix for broken hardware) please just send it back to the seller and replace the module and or adapter. Cheap sometimes really means cheap.
6. OCLP and macOS issues
Sonoma and later broke support for all PCI connected WiFi cards. Patching will be necessary, but OCLP supports all listed BCM360XXX cards with full functionality.
Sometimes OCLP (Sonoma and later) cannot recognized a newly added hardware, mostly the BT module. There is no other way than booting High Sierra or Sierra without OpenCore and run the OCLP app from there to build a new OpenCore configuration with properly detected WiFi and BT module.
~~~~~~~~~~
Original Post from @Czo September 16th, 2014.
Hi,
I'm planning the last upgrade on my aging iMac. I discovered, this iMac using seperate bluetooth (usb) and wifi module (minipcie), but the newer 2012 and 2013 series using combined m2 (ngff) module. I'm plannig the following "upgrade"
- buy this http://www.osxwifi.com/apple-broadc...-bluetooth-4-0-with-adapter-for-pc-hackintosh
- remove minipci-e wifi and usb bluetooth from my iMac Mid 2011 27"
- try to reroute bluetooth antenna cable close to minipcie slot
- bring usb d+/d- from original bluetooth cable to the adapter, if the minipcie slot on the imac's logic board omits usb signaling.
- install minipci-e to ngff converter and the broadcom bcm94360cd to the slot and connect four antennas
- install the original minipci-e wifi module to with the pci-e adapter to my hackintosh on my workplace
Anyone has done this before? Anyone know the length of the cable or the position of the original bluetooth antenna on the iMac Mid 2011 27"?
Last edited:
