MBP not detecting 5GHz Channel 144

[Kyle1519]

Hi Everyone,

Need some help with an issue I'm having with a Mid 2012 15" MBP.

My 5GHz channel is setup to use channel 144 for wifi. This channel gets the best speeds and signal in my apartment so I don't want to change to another channel. The issue is, the channel doesn't show as a supported channel in System Information for the MBP. I've read that this channel was recently opened for use in 2013/2014 by the FCC so there isn't a restriction on it anymore.

My question is... is there a way that I can enable this channel on the MBP so that I can connect to my 5GHz network maybe through terminal or some other update?

Below is my system information and a screenshot of the supported channels. 144 is the only channel missing of the standard 5GHz channels... kind of annoying haha. This is also happening on a 2013 13" MBP. All other Apple devices I have work fine on this 5GHz network so it's not an issue with the network, just these two MBPs.


Both the 2012 15" and the 2013 13" are running 10.13.3 fully up to date.

 

[chscag]

My question is... is there a way that I can enable this channel on the MBP so that I can connect to my 5GHz network maybe through terminal or some other update?

You would need a newer airport card, one that supports the new channel. You could try one of the newer USB dongles, but frankly, I don't have a lot of faith in WiFi dongles as they are notoriously unreliable.

 

[Kyle1519]

You would need a newer airport card, one that supports the new channel. You could try one of the newer USB dongles, but frankly, I don't have a lot of faith in WiFi dongles as they are notoriously unreliable.

Thanks for the quick response!

That's what I figured but I also wanted to post on a couple forums to see if anyone had any ideas or some different information. There were other channels that were locked when this computer was made and I'm assuming a firmware update opened up the other channels for use so I thought that maybe there was a way I could get this channel to be opened up too.

I feel the same about those wifi dongles so if the onboard doesn't work then I'll just connect over ethernet. Probably just going to end up getting another thunderbolt to ethernet adapter for it and leaving it plugged in to LAN but I wanted to see if i can fix it in the meantime.

Anyways, thanks again!

 

[jerryk]

Older systems with wifi chips from pre 2014 when channel 144 was opened in the US. Also still not open in EU. In fact, the channels list of shown does not show most of the channels open in US and not open in the EU. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels