Everything Wifi (including USB) for OSX

Ok I lied not the last one, the card in the mac mini is model # AR5BXB6 which will definitely work in os x according to sources and has windows drivers available for it as well!

Just wanted to give an update that I swapped in this card tonight and OS X AND Windows 7 picked it up automatically and I now have working wifi in both windows 7 and OS X with no hacks needed!

 

Yes,that's what I'm using, and Windows recognized it without even asking for a driver. However, mine appeared to be Atheros based (Atheros was printed on the card).. So Apple uses some Atheros based cards apparently, and have OS X drivers for those particular chipsets. I guess they're different Atheros chipsets to the ones on the stock Acer cards.

 

Ya that's exactly what this card was, a Atheros based card.

 

i got the dell MX846 and MACosx86 detected it by itself.
one note, the cables are switched on it, but it's labeled clearly on the wifi card.
black cable to black arrow, and white to white.

while switching out the wifi, just did the ram upgrade on the way.

 

Does there exist an external USB device that is recognized by OSX and XP and has 802.11n. It would save the hassle of installing an internal wireless card and routing the additional antenna for "n" functionality.

 

Today, I try to change Wifi card from default one to the Broadcom 4311 based one.
This works fine with a driver for Acer ferrari 1100, and also wifi slider switch works well at Windows Xp.

Needless to say, Broadcom 4311 would be automatically detected as Airmac card at OSX.
So this works well when I start up OSX. But once I turn off from OSX, this will not wake up forever till I reboot the machine.
That is only dissapointing thing.

This card maybe come from HP/Compaq’s one.

Thanks.

 

In addition to my previous post, This card is Broadcom 4311 based miniPCIe card, with BCM2050/BCM2060 basebands.
So this is wifi card for 802.11a/b/g triple band. Almost all the same as Broadcom's BCM94311 reference card.

For OSX, I installed iAKTOS_5, after I wrote the previous post, I find out a newer driver for BCM4311 at insanelymac forum.
This one works fine, effective to turn on and off wifi from network settings, and slider switch can work for only poweroff wifi function.

This thread: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index. ... try1055046
Driver link: http://www.mediafire.com/?9widdksfewe

 

I ordered a Dell 1390 card, how good are these? I just want to Airport to work good.

 

i ordered one to it showed up in windows xp and mac osx but would not find networks in neither and the card was extremely hot and burned me. it smelt like a burnt hair dryer i changed the cables many times black white to white black and still didn't find networks once it did but froze the computer maybe mine is defected i am getting an exchange and ill see what happens

 

if anybody has a dell 1390 what rev is on your card my defected one was rev A05

 

Having read this thread again I just want to reiterate:

Buy an internal Mac OS X-compatible MiniPCI card. I now have 8 different USB sticks lying around, and ALL the drivers, including RaLink's are ugly and unstable. If you intend to do any serious amount of P2P traffic, go for the real deal. Apple has spent around 10 years perfecting these drivers - other companies haven't.

If I try do to anything fancy with a USB-based device (apart from WiFi hacking in Linux and KisMac) I WILL experience kernel panics from time to time.

Maybe I'm just a heavy network user. If you don't have the nerve to open your machine (it's easy), get the previously mentioned Edimax card with the external antenna as the least bad option. It's got good coverage and if excellent for wardriving as well.

I bought two Broadcom 4321 cards with b/g/n for my 2 Aspire Ones. They work just hunky dory without any .plist editing and they're not expensive.

For the record, I also own a large number of Macs and the driver issues are not related to OSX86 installs. They are universal.

My 2 cents.

 

Installed a Dell 1390 using IO80211Family.kext, it detects it as a Broadcom 4311 using "lspci". To turn it on you have to press the wifi switch on your aao. Working great, it's even picking up signals it wouldn't pick up before.

No more kismac =]

 

did you get yours off ebay if so who was your seller also do you rember the rev

 

Yeah I got it from ebay for $12 shipped. Terminal says it's the Rev 01.

EDIT Feb 13TH
Has anyone gotten the wifi activity led to work? I can only see the one lit up on the right but the "activity" one (left) is off. Is this a normal behavior ?

 

i got myself the Dell 1505 (which also supports Draft.N)
This card is also directly supported in Leopard, and works like an charm.
If you upgrade anyway, i can realy advice to get this from ebay.

Cheers,
Tony

 

There's no led on the left. I guess Acer planned to include a Bluetooth functionality but never did. The only wifi led is the one on the right.

 

I get it now, does it blink for you ?

 

No it doesn't, as far as I know there's absolutely no led behind the translucent window.

 

Lol uhm, I mean the one on the right.

 

Oh OK, sorry No it doesn't blink, it just stays on (which I find less distracting, actually).