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MacBook Pro 802.11ac upgrade
- Thread starter simplekid
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Bootcamp is for running Windows 7, 8, etc.
Don't need to worry about Bootcamp if you're only using Mac OS X.
Hello all !
I have some connection in China who can provide me stuff bought on Taobao.
Now searching the site, the only reference I could find is the following :
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.4.ocImM0&id=38397212421
The chipset doesnt LOOK like the regular one one can find elsewhere :
http://www.agreetao.com/taobao/view/id/36781400512
Can anyone telle me if this is the real thing ?
I have some connection in China who can provide me stuff bought on Taobao.
Now searching the site, the only reference I could find is the following :
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.4.ocImM0&id=38397212421
The chipset doesnt LOOK like the regular one one can find elsewhere :
http://www.agreetao.com/taobao/view/id/36781400512
Can anyone telle me if this is the real thing ?
2013 Airport -> 2011 MBP still going?
I have a 17" late 2011 MBP and recently updated my Access Point to one of those brand-new 4-antenna ASUS AC-supporting ones. Now I feel left out not being able to do the higher-speed wireless on it.
I'm very interested in updating my 17" late 2011 MBP airport card if it is possible.
So, is this project still ongoing? Did someone manage to get it to work? If the little daughterboard/converter for the main connector was available I'd likely want one, as the antenna connectors don't seem that intimidating to me.
Enquiring Minds and all that...
I have a 17" late 2011 MBP and recently updated my Access Point to one of those brand-new 4-antenna ASUS AC-supporting ones. Now I feel left out not being able to do the higher-speed wireless on it.
I'm very interested in updating my 17" late 2011 MBP airport card if it is possible.
So, is this project still ongoing? Did someone manage to get it to work? If the little daughterboard/converter for the main connector was available I'd likely want one, as the antenna connectors don't seem that intimidating to me.
Enquiring Minds and all that...
My Success Story!
Hi all,
I know that this thread has been dead for a month but I figured I would share my knowledge and story with the group.
I wanted to upgrade my 2012 rMBP with the new 802.11 AC card (BCM94360CSAX) that is currently shipping with this year's model. After going the TaoBao route via Agreetao and waiting 1 week plus for an invoice I finally gave up and purchased via a US vendor DVWareHouse out of Los Angeles, CA (unfortunately it was $40 dollars more). After receiving the part next day (living in San Diego shipping was super quick) I installed the card without any issue and OSX immediately saw the AC link speed after rebooting.
http://www.dvwarehouse.com/661-8143...ok-Pro-13-Retina-Late-2013---NEW-p-41343.html
So far what I have noticed is that the AC 5Ghz link is VERY unstable, if I move further than 10-15 feet from my router my link rate drops from 1.3 Gbits\s to 866 Mbits\s. Also my ping times increased from 30 MS to around 60-80 MS with the throughput bouncing between my max internet speed (65 Mbits) to about 1/3rd that speed (20 Mbits). The 2.4 Ghz link on the other hand is very stable and the internet connection is at its max throughput.
Thinking that I may have had a loose cable (those pig tails are very flimsy) I reopened my machine and reconnected the cables to the Airport Card. The other things that I did to troubleshoot the machine were to flush the DNS Cache, remove\reconnect locations in the network panel and what finally made the connection stable was to delete the network plist files\reboot. After deleting the Plist files and doing a PRAM zap the 5 Ghz connection became a lot more stable (almost no throughput drops, and 30MS ping time restored). My hypothesis is that OSX was defaulting to the lowest level drivers because it saw it had new hardware but originally had the old N card in before.
With the release of OSX 10.10 Yosemite, I will perform a fresh install of the OS and see if the performance will increase with the correct drivers be activated the first time. If anyone has any questions about my process feel free to ask!
Hi all,
I know that this thread has been dead for a month but I figured I would share my knowledge and story with the group.
I wanted to upgrade my 2012 rMBP with the new 802.11 AC card (BCM94360CSAX) that is currently shipping with this year's model. After going the TaoBao route via Agreetao and waiting 1 week plus for an invoice I finally gave up and purchased via a US vendor DVWareHouse out of Los Angeles, CA (unfortunately it was $40 dollars more). After receiving the part next day (living in San Diego shipping was super quick) I installed the card without any issue and OSX immediately saw the AC link speed after rebooting.
http://www.dvwarehouse.com/661-8143...ok-Pro-13-Retina-Late-2013---NEW-p-41343.html
So far what I have noticed is that the AC 5Ghz link is VERY unstable, if I move further than 10-15 feet from my router my link rate drops from 1.3 Gbits\s to 866 Mbits\s. Also my ping times increased from 30 MS to around 60-80 MS with the throughput bouncing between my max internet speed (65 Mbits) to about 1/3rd that speed (20 Mbits). The 2.4 Ghz link on the other hand is very stable and the internet connection is at its max throughput.
Thinking that I may have had a loose cable (those pig tails are very flimsy) I reopened my machine and reconnected the cables to the Airport Card. The other things that I did to troubleshoot the machine were to flush the DNS Cache, remove\reconnect locations in the network panel and what finally made the connection stable was to delete the network plist files\reboot. After deleting the Plist files and doing a PRAM zap the 5 Ghz connection became a lot more stable (almost no throughput drops, and 30MS ping time restored). My hypothesis is that OSX was defaulting to the lowest level drivers because it saw it had new hardware but originally had the old N card in before.
With the release of OSX 10.10 Yosemite, I will perform a fresh install of the OS and see if the performance will increase with the correct drivers be activated the first time. If anyone has any questions about my process feel free to ask!
Thanks I was starting to get paranoid lol! I think that the easy\logical answer is that the 5Ghz signal attenuates (bounces and degrades) much quicker than the 2.4 Ghz signal does, its just kinda frustrating to be one room away and see such a drop off.
Thanks man! I was going to wait for my rMBP's warranty to run up but I might not have the patience....from what I've read its pretty straight forward...already had to have my rMBP repaired once though (faulty dGPU) so a bit nervous if that has to happen again, I have a cheap 802.11n USB adapter that works great though for back up (I use it with a directional antenna when I need to yank on a signal extra hard). That doesn't surprise me that the 5GHz band isn't as stable....WiFi data rates drop like lead as soon as you stop hovering over the router! Still having the ability to connect at 1.3Gbps or even 866Mbps is nice. Also as you know the 5GHz band attenuates much faster than 2.4GHz, I do allot of RF testing and see it allot even in the 2.4GHz band (I have a spectrum analyzer).
Yeah! I work in the RF industry working for cellphone/wifi switch vender and it's amazing how hard it is to tune (with a VNA) for high frequencies and the signal drop off. I'm thinking of adding a 5GHz extender to my home network just to get up one level in my house.
Hi all
I've changed the card of my 2012 rMbP as well.
I got it as mentionned earlier from Taobao, through some people I work with in China.
I switched the card, had a very hard time plugging the antennas back, but ended up having the card working.
A few days later, I realize some coating on my screen was starting to peel off. check the forum, you'll see other threads on the subject.
Since I already got my screen replaced twice because of hot pixels, I decide to go back to the Apple store to have it replaced once again (congrats to the Apple client service, they accepted to do it at no charge even though the mac was over 2 years old, without Applecare).
I didnt want to be a hipocrit, so I just left the new card on the system. Thinking they might actually plug the antenna back in better than I did.
Anyway, a tech guy calls me, telles me the card isn't been recognized by his tools, I explain why, and tell him I'll bring the original card back in.
A few minutes later, he calls back, telling me everything was working OK, that they changed the screen and that I could pick up the machine.
He warned me though : the card I had bought was missing the thermal insulator pad that should be there, and that I saw was indeed on the original card.
So I reopened the machine, unplugged the card without removing the antennas and put that pad from the old card to the new one.
The tech told me this SHOULD be there, cause if the card was to heat up, it could damage the motherboard...
So be warned, it's a detail, but one must know this before proceeding...
I've changed the card of my 2012 rMbP as well.
I got it as mentionned earlier from Taobao, through some people I work with in China.
I switched the card, had a very hard time plugging the antennas back, but ended up having the card working.
A few days later, I realize some coating on my screen was starting to peel off. check the forum, you'll see other threads on the subject.
Since I already got my screen replaced twice because of hot pixels, I decide to go back to the Apple store to have it replaced once again (congrats to the Apple client service, they accepted to do it at no charge even though the mac was over 2 years old, without Applecare).
I didnt want to be a hipocrit, so I just left the new card on the system. Thinking they might actually plug the antenna back in better than I did.
Anyway, a tech guy calls me, telles me the card isn't been recognized by his tools, I explain why, and tell him I'll bring the original card back in.
A few minutes later, he calls back, telling me everything was working OK, that they changed the screen and that I could pick up the machine.
He warned me though : the card I had bought was missing the thermal insulator pad that should be there, and that I saw was indeed on the original card.
So I reopened the machine, unplugged the card without removing the antennas and put that pad from the old card to the new one.
The tech told me this SHOULD be there, cause if the card was to heat up, it could damage the motherboard...
So be warned, it's a detail, but one must know this before proceeding...
I did notice that the card I bought had the thermal pad with it, I bought it from a U.S. vendor so maybe they added it? But if I were you I'd just go on Amazon and by some adhesive thermal padding, it's pretty cheap and like you said will protect the mother board. How's the performance of the new card in your estimation?
Yeah I'm thinking of doing a 5GHz ac router on my first and second floor...I think that will solve allot of the issues I have, previously I was simply blasting the signal from my first floor router with some amplifiers and directional antennas with good results but kind of clunky. BTW, you should have done a video on how to install this! I'm sure someone has on YouTube but its still relatively uncommon I suppose.
I didnt have the chance to try on an AC router yet. The internet box I have works in N mode. My ISP (Illiad, the one that was interested in buying TMobile) is supposed to release a new one at the end of the year working AC. I'll see then. But generally speaking, the range is better. Where I had a Tx of 70-80, I have now 145-170-195...
So the card with the new screen really makes me feel like I have a new machine.
Now I switched to Yosemite as well, so i might be influenced on that side as well. Safari is snappier than before i.e.
Well Im glad you got good results, I think what seems to be giving me and some other users issues is the 5Ghz band. Both the AC and N 5Ghz wifi seems very susceptible to interference (but again probably just because it's a higher frequency).
Meh I always reccomend buying a seperate router from the ISP.....allot of the times the routers they issue are pretty basic and don't pump out the signal as strong or with the multitude of other advanced features....one with external removable antennas is nice as well since you can easily get slightly better antennas to boost your performance (like max data rates at the opposite side of your house).
Hey there, thanks for the update!
Got a question for you: how do you update the drivers over at bootcamp? I sometimes bootcamp/Windows 7 for gaming
Thanks!
I've been following this thread for a while and decided to take the plunge on upgrading my Early 2013 15" rMBP. I ordered the card linked above from DV Warehouse. Installed today and did a clean install of Yosemite 10.10.1.
I'm happy to say that the upgrade works perfectly. The card is recognized by the system and the I can connect at to my AC Airport Extreme in AC mode. The biggest benefit has been a huge increase in speed transferring large files to and fro from my DROBO NAS wirelessly. All connections are stable with no dropouts.
I'm happy to say that the upgrade works perfectly. The card is recognized by the system and the I can connect at to my AC Airport Extreme in AC mode. The biggest benefit has been a huge increase in speed transferring large files to and fro from my DROBO NAS wirelessly. All connections are stable with no dropouts.
Yep
I can confirm I'm now at AC.... just replaced the card as well! (bought it on eBay)
Though the transmit rate fluctuates between 878mbps to 10XXmbps.... is this normal?
I have the late 2013 version of the rMBP 15. I see this behavior too even though I have the factory installed 802.11ac. You have to be in the same room as the router to get the full 1.3gbps.
Just confirming my success with this.
Upgraded my Mid-2012 15" Retina Macbook Pro to the ac chip and everything works flawlessly.
Bought my chip off eBay and it came with the thermal pad on it.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/271699488002?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
Main reason for doing so was to get my full internet speeds in my bedroom. On 802.11n with my ASUS AC66U, I could only get a tx-rate of 162Mb/s. Not enough to get 170Mb/s out of my Comcast extreme 150 (it's over provisioned so you get around 170Mb/s). It would max out around 140Mb/s.
With this new AC chip on the same router I'm able to get a tx-rate of 351Mb/s which is more than enough to pull 170mb/s down constantly in my bedroom. Of course the closer you get to the router the faster the established rate is. But overall whatever you get on N, just about triple it for AC in the same location.
Upgraded my Mid-2012 15" Retina Macbook Pro to the ac chip and everything works flawlessly.
Bought my chip off eBay and it came with the thermal pad on it.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/271699488002?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
Main reason for doing so was to get my full internet speeds in my bedroom. On 802.11n with my ASUS AC66U, I could only get a tx-rate of 162Mb/s. Not enough to get 170Mb/s out of my Comcast extreme 150 (it's over provisioned so you get around 170Mb/s). It would max out around 140Mb/s.
With this new AC chip on the same router I'm able to get a tx-rate of 351Mb/s which is more than enough to pull 170mb/s down constantly in my bedroom. Of course the closer you get to the router the faster the established rate is. But overall whatever you get on N, just about triple it for AC in the same location.
Sorry guys, I've unfortunately come to realize that the antenna connectors on the cMBP are too large to be used with the new rMBP 802.11ac cards. I feel like I got so close to finishing the project, yet failed. This would've been an excellent Kickstarter. I even spent the time on developing an adapter board.
Photos:
Can you make more of these? I'm really interested, and if necessary i'll replace the antenna's, need to pull my MBP apart anyway!
Hi, I don't think you read all my posts however; it's not possible unfortunately because the cMBP doesn't recognize the WiFi card/adapter board.
What's the difference between the BCM94360CSAX and the BCM94360CS cards that are on ebay? It looks liek the BCM94360CS (non AX) are advertised for the 13 inch retina macbook pros while the BCM94360CSAX is for the 15 yet they look identical.
The BCM94360CSAX are almost twice as expensive as the BCM94360CS...
BCM94360CSAX http://www.ebay.com/itm/27169948800...&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&afsrc=1&rmvSB=true
BCM94360CS (according to the image) http://www.ebay.com/itm/WiFi-Blueto...802?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d16893dd2
The BCM94360CSAX are almost twice as expensive as the BCM94360CS...
BCM94360CSAX http://www.ebay.com/itm/27169948800...&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&afsrc=1&rmvSB=true
BCM94360CS (according to the image) http://www.ebay.com/itm/WiFi-Blueto...802?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d16893dd2
Don't go by the images, plus they are most likely electrically equivalent and just a revision in model numbers, but they should be identical as far as the machine is concerned.