Hello all,
it looks like Catalina will not get any more security updates. For me this was a reason to upgrade my good old Mac Pro 3.1 now to Monterey.
So I would like to thank you very much in this thread for your support in the past with many problems. I appreciate it very much.
As you can see in my signature, the upgrade was successful. I now have an up-to-date Mac with Airdrop, Handoff, Continuity – and even Universal Control!
To give something back, I'd like to briefly describe to other Mac Pro 3.1 owners how I did it.
The Mac Pro still had the original Bluetooth module and an older Atheros WiFi card (this one could still do Airdrop in Mojave), both components were installed in the designated places on the motherboard. Airdrop, Handoff and Continuity never worked in Catalina and there were warnings for kernel panics if you tried to upgrade to Big Sur or Monterey with these components.
These modules should therefore be removed for an upgrade to Big Sur or Monterey. So how could Wifi and Bluetooth be replaced with more modern components?
Through a little research, I discovered the
Fenvi FV-T919 PCIe card with native Airport WiFi support and a BT 4.0 chipset.
The Bluetooth module on the card needs its own power supply, unfortunately I didn't find a connector for it on the Mac's motherboard. But I had an idea: Since I knew that there are PCIe cards with external and internal USB 3 ports, this was an option and worth a try.
The card I'm using now is called
Inateck RedComets U23 USB 3.2 Gen 2 PCIe Card with 1 USB-C & 4 USB-A Ports.
Connected the Bluetooth power cable of the Fenvi card with a
USB 9 Pin Internal Motherboard Male Header to USB Type A Adaptor cable (just a sample link, you can get this kind of cable at many other places).
And lo and behold, this is how Airdrop, Handoff, Continuity already worked in Catalina.
Now for the software upgrade:
This was done (of course!) with the
OpenCore Legacy Patcher.
First I tried a clean install of Monterey and migrating the rest of the data from another boot volume. However, that didn't work, so I then simply upgraded an existing Catalina installation to Monterey.
Now I'm sitting here feeling like I just bought a new Mac! So far, everything works just fine, except for the sleep mode (the Mac only goes to sleep for a short time and then doesn't wake up properly - only a reboot helps then ...), but hopefully there's a fix for that somewhere.
I hope it is helpful for one or the other who is facing a similar situation. 🤞