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MacBook Pro 802.11ac upgrade
- Thread starter simplekid
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No, not without my adapter board. To my knowledge no one else has tried to make any either.
What's the consensus on the best method to get AC to work with a rMBP? Entire reinstall of the OS? I saw some comments about deleting the networking .plist.
You don't need to reinstall the OS. This is what I think you need to do:
I believe that you'll only need to delete the 'NetworkInterfaces.plist' file since that is the only plist I found that contains the Broadcom chip model reference in it.
Shut down your computer and do a SMC and PRAM reset.
Possibly do a disk permission repair after everything else is done.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1721
Navigate into the Drivers folder, Broadcom, then it should either be BroadcomWirelessWin7x64.exe or BroadcomWirelessWin8x64.exe (the name is pretty self-explanatory).
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Out of interest, does the wifi network selection work in the boot up screen (where you can select the drive to boot up) after replacing the card?
My experience:
Purchased the card from here - http://www.ebay.com/itm/331090574802 (Bought it for $45.99... price has jumped up to $59.99)
Swapped it out following the instructions on iFixit. Booted it up and OS X immediately recognized the card. Didn't have to do anything. Now under System Profile, it's showing Wi-Fi as having supporting 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac. Booted into BootCamp Win7 and ran the BroadcomWin7 install file from the BootCamp download link above. Rebooted and now it's up and running. Device Manager shows a Wifi AC network adapter.
Mid 2012 rMBP 2.7Ghz 16GB 768GB, and now wireless AC... Nice little upgrade!
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Strangely, it doesn't work for me. It doesn't show any Wifi networks and you can't manually enter it either. Why would that be?
Purchased the card from here - http://www.ebay.com/itm/331090574802 (Bought it for $45.99... price has jumped up to $59.99)
Swapped it out following the instructions on iFixit. Booted it up and OS X immediately recognized the card. Didn't have to do anything. Now under System Profile, it's showing Wi-Fi as having supporting 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac. Booted into BootCamp Win7 and ran the BroadcomWin7 install file from the BootCamp download link above. Rebooted and now it's up and running. Device Manager shows a Wifi AC network adapter.
Mid 2012 rMBP 2.7Ghz 16GB 768GB, and now wireless AC... Nice little upgrade!
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Strangely, it doesn't work for me. It doesn't show any Wifi networks and you can't manually enter it either. Why would that be?
From what I've deduced, it seems that when it boots up it uses the wifi driver that's associated with the mac model (hardcoded or something) instead of dynamically detecting it real-time. It's probably the same reason why the AHT fails for the wifi as well (at least that's what I remember reading). Correct me if I'm wrong.
Probably something along the lines of that. Why would apple assume people are going to swap components in their pentalobe sealed macbook pros? :roll eyes:
Here's my results for this item. It looks like they raised the price up from $45. http://www.ebay.com/itm/331090574802?_trksid=p2060778.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
I'm able to get a full wireless AC connection near the airport extreme ac router with over 100mb/s transfer speeds. It only drops off to about 800mbps in the bedroom. Amazing upgrade for just $45.
Sorry i missed that, i thought the problems where only the cables!
But the old connector is also a PCIe version isn't it?
It is not PCIe physically, it's Apple's proprietary version of it, but electrically it is PCIe.
I've done the change and the only thing that really scares me is putting the 3 antennas back on the board. I really have a hard time doing so, and am afraid to crush the connectors.
Is there any proper way to do it ? Must the female connector be aligned somehow to the male ones (except for them being aligned ?)
Thanx for your input
Is there any proper way to do it ? Must the female connector be aligned somehow to the male ones (except for them being aligned ?)
Thanx for your input
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.Feel free to chime in.
Photos:
Hello,
are there any news in prototyping for the Macbook Pro Unibody and Wifi ac?
best regards from Germany
Alex
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I'm sorry, I wanted to double check that I'm ordering the right board for my 2012 rMBP - so I can order either one?
There seems to be a large price discrepancy between those available in China and America
also - these are the instructions to follow - https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBoo...splay+Mid+2012+AirPort+Board+Replacement/9707 ?
Out of the tools listed, are all absolutely necessary?
Thanks in advance
Finally it's possible to upgrade the old unibody MBP to Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11ac, with the Ucard 4 from Quickertek http://quickertek.com/products/Ucard.html
Has anyone tried the Ucard 4 on their MacBook Pro?
I'm interested in finding out what the "CD with patch software" patches. I'm imaging it is the Bluetooth 4 patch as the site says WiFi will work without drivers. Does the patch require System Integrity Protection to be disabled?