Old Mac loses its wi-fi hardware

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Level 1

4 points

Old Mac loses its wi-fi hardware

My husband has a mid2010 vintage MacBook Pro running on High Sierra 10.13.6. It’s not great but it worked until recently. Now it can’t connect to our wi-fi and when I click on the wi-fi icon it says No Hardware Installed. Is there a simple solution? Can this old Mac be saved or is it finally time to upgrade?

Posted on Aug 11, 2023 12:45 AM

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Answer 1

Jan Hedlund

Level 7

24,451 points

Aug 11, 2023 8:44 AM in response to BadKarma0077

Hi,

You could try two different methods:

The easiest way would probably be to check whether there is an appropriate compact USB Wi-Fi adapter with drivers for macOS 10.13 High Sierra. Such an adapter would then be connected to one of the USB ports of the computer. Devices from several manufacturers. For example, Asus, TP-Link or Edimax.
Another method could be to connect the Ethernet port of the computer to a Wi-Fi range extender with wireless Ethernet bridge capabilities operating in a client/adapter mode. This would a more "wired" solution (the Wi-Fi range extender/wireless Ethernet bridge is typically connected to a wall socket), but does not normally require special drivers.

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Answer 2

Allan Jones

Level 10

80,774 points

Aug 11, 2023 9:32 AM in response to BadKarma0077

He might also try an SMC reset:

Reset the SMC of your Mac - Apple Support

Use the instruction set for "All other Mac models."

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Old Mac loses its wi-fi hardware

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