WiFi problems, 5.1.

[Wiltonian]

Hi!

Awoke my 5.1 this morning to find no Internet connection, and the OS reporting "WiFi: No hardware installed" on the icon bar. Bluetooth is working fine.

Short-term, an Ethernet cable across the house works fine.

Advice on where to start would be appreciated. I have a 1.1 which I rarely use; could I raid its WiFi card for the 5.1?

TIA, Stuart.

 

[tsialex]

Hi!

Awoke my 5.1 this morning to find no Internet connection, and the OS reporting "WiFi: No hardware installed" on the icon bar. Bluetooth is working fine.

Short-term, an Ethernet cable across the house works fine.

Advice on where to start would be appreciated. I have a 1.1 which I rarely use; could I raid its WiFi card for the 5.1?

TIA, Stuart.

You can use your 1,1 AirPort on a 5,1, but Sierra removed support for BCM94321MC and Mojave beta removed for Atheros 9280.

Even if your 1,1 AirPort is BCM94321MC and unsupported beyond 10.10, you could boot El Capitan with the 5,1 AirPort installed and check if it's not working, then replace with the 1,1 and test if the problem is the AirPort or something else.

If you need to replace it, buy a Apple AirPort Extreme BCM94322MC, it's Mojave supported on a MP5,1 and it's only $10/$12 on eBay. I've bought two of these for my Mac Pros.

 

[Wiltonian]

Thanks! No sellers in the UK, but £4 part ordered from Hong Kong! No point cannibalising the 1.1 at that price!

 

[tsialex]

Thanks! No sellers in the UK, but £4 part ordered from Hong Kong! No point cannibalising the 1.1 at that price!

Nice! Just a warning if you bought a 3rd party one, sometimes they just support 2.4GHz. A easy way to recognise the original is the white label with Apple © at front and the gray label with serials and SKU on the back, just like this:

 

[mattspace]

tried a full power cycle? I had a problem with my 4,1 where the wireless driver would crash, you'd lose bluetooth and wifi, then after reboot you'd have bluetooth, but no wifi, with the same "no hardware installed" error. Power cycle would fix it.

Don't remember what cured it - reinstalling the OS, keeping bluetooth peripherals out of the cMP's blind spot etc.

 

[bookemdano]

I would take it one step further than a power cycle. Try powering off and unplugging the power cable to the Mac Pro for 30 seconds. Then plug back in, turn it on and cross your fingers.

That has worked for me several times in the past.

 

[Wiltonian]

I would take it one step further than a power cycle. Try powering off and unplugging the power cable to the Mac Pro for 30 seconds. Then plug back in, turn it on and cross your fingers.

That has worked for me several times in the past.

Well, I finally remembered to try this, and it worked! While power-off and on had not, doing the full power-down with cable removal (and leaving it overnight to be sure), restored WiFi functionality. Thanks!

Stuart

 

[alphaod]

Recently I just realized I lost WiFi too and the power cycled didn't work for me at all. I still have Bluetooth though my Mac Pro is next to my switches so not really a big issue... I'm starting to think this is good excuse to get AC wireless for AirDrop, etc.