Q: No AirPort card installed!??

The removing the cable, cover, holding down the power button 5 second, reinserting battery, Holding Command, option, and P&R buttons while pressing the power botton Worked for me.

Don't forget to hold down the command, option, P&R bottons until you hear three start-up chimes.


Thanks, you guys are great. I guess I will return this New Airport Extreme I just purchased thinking that my old router was the problem...

Thanks again

This is GREAT info. I had spill damage and by some miracle my computer still works. The only problem was that I was showing "no airport card installed". Since my warranty was void because of the spill (dog ear wash), I decided to take the computer apart and clean it up. At first the airport card worked but then it didn't. I couldn't find the airport card in the main case so I figured it was in the display and opened that up hoping to clean it up, that didn't work. Anyhow, I saw this post and updated the OS and now it is working. My display isn't the best but it is better than paying another 2K to replace. Thanks so much for the info, I am so glad to be back wireless.

I had this problem, but i didn't have to unplug my macbook or take out the battery.... just restart and hold command-option-p-r until the trademark apple chime occurs thrice. my airport card was magically back!

Same problem here with my 2010 macbook pro 15" under warranty so I return to two different apple authorised repair centres who returned it working only to find it stops working again after a couple of restarts.

My problem is similar (maybe same cause?) but MUCH bigger.... 24inch iMac, 3.06 ghz, 1TB hd, 4gb ram (all factory installs). Been fine for 18 months, but suddenly Time machine refused to run past 56 GB, and super duper wouldn't back up either-thought the external hd had an issue so formatted it (so lost backups) and tried to back up again... same issue. Tried another external HD.... same error. So I needn't have reformatted! Other mac backs up to both of the drives fine. Then the machine started to hang every minute or so, and wouldn't accept any commands for 2-3 minutes... iMac takes ages to boot then every mouse click takes up to 5 minutes to execute... it says no airport card installed, windows can be dragged around the screen and the docking bar at the bottom animates happily but that's all the iMac will do. The machine is totally unusable and holds all my work and client files-and the errors have led me to a position where I have no backup. Have tried everything. Local mac store closed till Monday. I am one desperate graphic designer let me tell you!

PS I posted it here because the thread is about the Airport card message-seems a very funny coincidence if its not related

Holding down command-option-P-R worked for me as well! Much quicker to Google my problem and find the solution here than call Apple support - thanks!

Hi, I got the same problem, do I need to remove the battery for the command-option-p-r method...

Thanks

Add me to the list - out of nowhere suddenly my Airport Card is not recognized any more...
I did everything except removing the battery - with my Mac Pro (3,1) it would mean to remove my PCI cards first and even then it would be a hussle...
What I did notice is that my Mac suddenly consumes nearly all of its RAM (although no apps running)...
Safe start-up (holding shift-key on startup) worked shortly (the Airport icon showed up a couple of seconds in the menu bar).

So - and Apple comment on this issue?

I had a similar problem and just got off the phone with applecare. I upgraded to SL and the airport card was not detected.

He had me hold ctrlshiftopt and press the power button, then shut down and hold commandopt+pr and press the power button until the startup chime happened twice. Once I was in I went to the network preferences and used the assistant to detect the networks and the issue was resolved.

I had this problem - last week it completely froze and then it said no airport card installed. I tried the SMC and PRAM resets and neither of them worked. Well the PRAM reset worked for a few minutes but as soon as the computer went to sleep and woke back up again, back to either "no airport card installed" or airport = off and unable to turn it on in network prefs. I took it in and they replaced the airport card. I asked them to note whether or not the card was loose when they opened up the machine (this was the theory of the apple genius person) - well they did not note that it was loose, and they did replace the part. The documentation wasn't thorough so no way to know for sure but it would seem the card stopped working. Late 2008 aluminum unibody mac book.

It seems to be fixed, it has only been a day but it has gone to sleep and re-awakened without incident several times. Happy.

So just fyi here is the list of items that have been replaced on my mac book since I got it:
-Optical drive
-Hard drive
-Screen
-Airport
-Motherboard
-Mouse pad

Amazing! Over $3500 of parts and labor, I am so so glad I got apple care.

I have the same issue here on a 3 month old MBP, so it's still an issue on the latest release. I've had mixed luck with the ctrlshift+optionpower button followed by the cmdoption+pr on restart until it beeps a number of times fix thing. The first time I tried this it worked, followed by a card failure within minutes, I then spent a whole afternoon trying to get wireless back but to no avail. I've just tried again a few hours later and it seems to have worked, hoping it stays this way.

< Edited by Host >

... it didn't stay that way, it lasts a few hours then drops. Doing the key combination works each time but it's not ideal.

UPDATE FIXED:

So I got hold of Applecare and they appear to have solved it. I'd recommend calling them but this seems a safe first step:

a) Ascertain a hardware vs a software fault.
- Boot from the OSX Install DVD (with the DVD in the drive, reboot and hold down alt until the DVD boot option appears, click it.) If an Airport connection still can't be made, it is probably a hardware issue, so off to the Apple store. If a connection can be made then it's most likely just a software issue.

b) We found it was a software issue so we then rebooted from the hard drive and in finder navigated to the following folder [/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration], we then sent that entire directory to the trash and emptied the trash. After rebooting again the Airport card was in place and connected. So something in that directory was corrupted, ever hopeful it stays this way.

c) If that fails then it is backup and reinstall time. I didn't have to do that thankfully.

In summary, this fixed it on a 2010 MBP running 10.6.5, as always these things can be down to a number of factors, so give Applecare a call first if you're still in warranty.

Seems like there isn't a specific solution to the problem, since everyone's been getting the message and fixing it in a variety of ways, or not. As for me I just got it this morning when I woke my MBP up from sleep. Shut down and reset PRAM and it worked fine, until I let my MBP go to sleep again, and upon waking it up I found that the AirPort had turned itself off again. This time restarting didn't help, so I tried erasing all networks. Didn't work. I turned my MBP off and let it rest for about 20 minutes, then turned it on. Worked. I don't know if the problem is solved or if it's just by chance that it started working again, only time will tell. But it's definitely annoying.