New Boot Camp drivers for 2013 Mac Air?

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New Boot Camp drivers for 2013 Mac Air?

I have a 2013 Mac Air that is running Windows 8 64-bit from EFI, not using Boot Camp. I'm able to boot to Windows without a problem. I installed the Boot Camp 5.0.5033 drivers. However, some of the hardware, such as the wifi adapter, still does not have a driver installed. I documented my experiences installing the Boot Camp drivers here, but that's just for background.

It seems to me that some of the drivers in Boot Camp 5.0.5033 are not recent enough to work with the new hardware on the 2013 Mac Air. I say this based on opening the driver install executables using 7Zip and looking at the contents.

For example, I opened BootCamp\Drivers\Broadcom\BroadcomNetworkAdapter64.exe and looked at the bcmwl6.inf file (that is, the setup information file for installing the driver). This file is dated as having been last modified on Dec 10, 2012, and Boot Camp 5.0.5033 was posted on Mar 14, 2013, both prior to when the Mac Air 2013 was released. Inside the bcmwl6.inf file, I can't find any reference to Windows 8, only Windows 7. More importantly, I can't find any reference to the Windows hardware ID of the Broadcom wifi adapter that's included in the Mac Air 2013.

According to this teardown, the Mac Air 2013 contains a Broadcom BCM4360. According to this page,

the Windows hardware ID for this chipset is: Windows: PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_43A0. (As I understand it, the 14E4 is the vendor ID, that is, Broadcom, and the 43A0 is the device ID.)

The bcmwl6.inf file contains a number of Windows hardware IDs named PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_43xx (where xx means various numbers and letters), but it does not contain PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_43A0.

I tried obtaining another Windows driver for the Broadcom BCM4360, but according to this page it isn't used in many devices yet. One device that uses it is made by ASUS. I obtained a driver from ASUS and was able to successfully install it on my Mac Air. After that, the wifi adapter appeared in Windows Device Manager. However, I wasn't able to locate any wifi networks, even though there are plenty around me. I suspect this is because the ASUS driver simply doesn't work right on a Mac Air (nor would I really expect it to).

Is there going to be a new release of the Boot Camp drivers to include the new hardware on the Mac Air 2013?

Thank you!

MacBook Air, Windows 8

Posted on Sep 23, 2013 4:49 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

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Sep 23, 2013 4:53 PM in response to drwells123

Is there going to be a new release of the Boot Camp drivers to include the new hardware on the Mac Air 2013?

We cannot speculate about future software from Apple. You will know when we do - when it is released by Apple.

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Answer 2

drwells123 Author

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Sep 23, 2013 8:35 PM in response to Kappy

Hi Kappy, thank you for your reply. That makes sense. I might try firing a question off to Support and see if they can drop any hints.

Also, if I am mistaken and there ARE already drivers available for that chipset, I'd certainly be glad to hear of them.

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Answer 3

Sep 25, 2013 11:23 AM in response to drwells123

Drwells, did you get any useful information from apple support yet? Thank you!

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Answer 4

drwells123 Author

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Sep 25, 2013 8:22 PM in response to filip.kirschner

Hello Filip,

I'm afraid I've been very busy the last couple of days and haven't had time to bug support yet, but I'll try to get to it tomorrow and then post what I learn here. In the meantime I've just ordered a USB wi-fi adapter (that has a Windows driver) and that should be enough to get my Mac to where I can use it.

Thanks!

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Answer 5

drwells123 Author

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Sep 26, 2013 4:02 PM in response to drwells123

Update: I looked at support and it seems my Air is past the free support period, and as Kappy mentions above it's not likely they're going to give me a release date for the new drivers anyway, so it looks like I'll just wait and hope my USB wi-fi adapter works for me in the meantime.

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Answer 6

drwells123 Author

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Oct 26, 2013 9:51 AM in response to drwells123

Update: My USB wi-fi adapter indeed allows my Mac Air to connect to the Internet.

I ran into the same issue with the built-in sound card and microphone - I don't remember who the manufacturer is (I think it's Cirrus), but I examined the .ini files in the Windows 8 boot camp driver files, and again found that the hardware in the Mac Air 2013 is simply more recent than the available Windows 8 drivers, so the drivers don't work. Again, I was able to get around this by buying a USB headset with microphone.

The good news is that there IS a driver available that is new enough to match the display. It's the Intel HD Graphics 5000 driver (in my case, the Windows 8 64-bit version). Once I installed that, I was able to adjust my display brightness. I turned it down to 10% (I prefer a dim display to a bright one), and now my battery life is even better than the reviews indicate, well over 14 hours.

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