Fixed My Dropped Connections With a New Airport Card

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Level 1

5 points

Fixed My Dropped Connections With a New Airport Card

I was plagued by dropped wireless connections when using battery power and WPA ever since the 10.4.10 update. My MacBook is 2 years old and I do not have Applecare so I decided to try swapping out the airport card myself. I bought an 802.11n Airport Extreme card from a third party for $89. It took about 30 minutes to swap cards. My connection has been solid for several hours now. I couldn't maintain a connection for more than a few seconds before, so I'm pretty sure that all is well now.

The old card was manufactured by Atheros Communications and the new card is a Broadcom.

I hope that this information helps someone else.

Posted on Apr 9, 2008 5:31 PM

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Answer 1

DonH49

Level 6

16,716 points

Apr 9, 2008 6:11 PM in response to dj235

tx all mine are broadcom and they all work well.

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Answer 2

fabioluz

Level 1

5 points

Apr 10, 2008 10:42 AM in response to dj235

Hi,

Please, I'm interested to try the same.
Have you replaced by your self the Airport card inside MacBook? Can you please send me some info on how to do it?

Thanks,
Fabio

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Answer 3

dj235 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 10, 2008 1:30 PM in response to fabioluz

Yes, I did it myself, but it is not for the squeamish. I bought the card from here:

http://www.ifixit.com/MacBook-Parts/MacBook-802-11n-Airport-Extreme-Card/IF185-0 38

I also found instructions at the same website. I am not in any way affiliated with this company.

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Answer 4

fabioluz

Level 1

5 points

Apr 10, 2008 5:41 PM in response to dj235

Thanks,

I accessed the ifixit web site and saw the way to do.

That's interesting.
Also, it was a surprise for me that the Airport antenna inside MacBook is located below the keyboard with metal all around. I always thought that wifi antennas on laptops would be located on the top of screen, my mistake.
The metal on the top (keyboard) and below (circuity) the Airport Extreme Card for sure reduces the antenna gain.

I checked my one and is the same as yours old - manufactured by Atheros.
I guess I will do the same replacement.

Thanks

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Answer 5

ericmeyers

Level 4

1,410 points

Apr 17, 2008 8:54 AM in response to dj235

Yup, same thing for me. I replaced the original Atheros card with a Broadcom one from iFixit and finally all my wireless woes are gone.

For 3 months I was convinced it was a software issue and it turned out to be hardware.

Eric

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Answer 6

Apr 20, 2008 11:45 AM in response to ericmeyers

Can you provide a link to the product that you purchased? I see the Airport extreme cards on there but I don't see anything about broadcom.

Edit: Or are they all broadcom adapters there? Ok, never mind. I see on the pic it has the card stamped with broadcom. How did you determine what your previous card was?

Message was edited by: BigMoosey

Message was edited by: BigMoosey

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Answer 7

ericmeyers

Level 4

1,410 points

Apr 20, 2008 2:03 PM in response to BigMoosey

When I took it out it had Atheros written on it (top next to left antenna connector)

BTW, new card is still working beautifully.

Eric

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