Can I update my macbook pro early 2011 to use bluetooth 4.0

Well now that 10.10 is officially out, and iOS8 is officially out - I am about to run the 10.10 full version from the App Store, and see what happens. I have an old kext that someone put out with Public Beta 2 or 3.

Just wanted to re-energize this post for those of us with a Late 2011 MBP - and upgraded our BlueTooth card.

I have an iPhone 6 Plus. Late 2011 MBP, and iPad 3 w/ Retina (before they changed the charger port).

Anyone have any comments before I run 10.10 tomorrow? I assume ill lose my wifi until I run the kext - but just wondering what anyone has to say.

Is there maybe an updated kext?

please keep us posted. I have an mbp Early 2011 as well (and iPhone 5S ) and already energized by this thread to update to Bluetooth 4.

One interesting observation, after updating to official Yosemite and 8.02 on my 5S, the phone call handoff is working! Seems like Bluetooth 4 is required for Mail handoff and airdrop but not for phone calls!

Just wanted to share some experience i've got on the topic. I have the MacBook Pro 15 late 2011, iPhone 6 and iPad Air.

Been following the thread from the very beginning 'cause it was an easy guess that once swapped the bluetooh card all the features should work. And it was proved to be correct but with some limitations. So I've ordered the card from OS-Store as sandervkn suggested. And the wrong BCM94331PCIEBT4AX card arrived because it was just the same as I already had. So I tried e-bay, one seller sent me 3 cards one by one: first the same BCM94331PCIEBT4AX with was dead, then again BCM94331PCIEBT4AX which was ok and finally the correct BCM94331PCIEBT4CAX but the wi-fi part of that was dead. Even though I was thoroughly explaining exactly what I needed the seller failed to provide the correct module. But luckily I received a full money back including the returns. So no hard feelings. But for instance the OS-Store never replied so they just ditched me. Well after that before the purchase I contacted another seller and he assured me that he has the correct module (the link if someone interested http://www.ebay.com/itm/161385647970?_trksid=p2060778.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT) and I made the purchase. This time everything was just fine, the module was correct and once installed It started working immediately without any extra manipulations: no drivers, no kext manipulations. Be careful when you order the module, better ask first if you could get exactly what you need.

So today I have updated the MacBook Pro to Yosemite but Handoff feature did not work straight away. Calls and messages are working though. If anyone would upload the kext for Yosemite it would be very much appreciated.

Anyways the update of the module totally worth it and with appropriate kext manipulation I'm pretty sure that the Handoff would work.

apple11235813 wrote:

One interesting observation, after updating to official Yosemite and 8.02 on my 5S, the phone call handoff is working! Seems like Bluetooth 4 is required for Mail handoff and airdrop but not for phone calls!

That is because that is Continuity, which works via WIFI, not Bluetooth.

I also read somewhere that Hand-Off might improve with iOS 8.1 (coming next Monday)

Hi Guys,

I have a 17" MBP late 2011, I changed the Bluetooth board for a CAX from a MacBook Air 2012, everything works (WiFi, Knock) but not Handoff... I guess I need to update the .kext file... Is there a version for Yosemite 10.10 somewhere?

Could someone help?

THX,

Tom

So I updated my personal MBP Late 2011 to OS X 10.10, which has the hacked kext. Knock To Unlock still works, phone calls still work too. However Handoff does not.

I know Handoff is working from my iPhone 6 Plus because I have a work MBP Retina and it works great with that.

Can someone (one of you smart kext guys) help? The option for Handoff is not in my General setting on my personal MBP, but it is on my work MBP.

Please help if you can. Thanks.

Greetings, all. The correct chipset that you want is #BCM94331PCIEBT4CAX. Note that the chipset without the C (BCM94331PCIEBT4AX) will NOT improve your situation. It's the one already in the 2011 MBPs.

When searching on eBay, watch out for sellers who are offering "...2011, 2012..." compatible chipsets. These are invariably the older Bluetooth version.

I found only one seller who apparently has the correct chipset. Here's the link:

New MacBook Pro A1278 A1286 A1297 Unibody AirPort Extreme Card for 2011-2012

Hope this works! 🙂

Just did what was described in post 848 and it works seamlessly. Airdrop works both ways as well. Here is the tutorial, all credits go to UncleSchnitty from macrumors forum:

TUTORIAL

1. Download and install 0xED in your Applications folder, you can get it from here:

http://www.suavetech.com/0xed/

2. Download and install KextDrop in your Applications folder, you can get it from here:

http://www.cindori.org/software/kextdrop/

3. Open Terminal and type :

Code:

sudo nvram boot-args="kext-dev-mode=1"

4. Restart your machine.

5. Open Finder, type CMD+Shift+G and go to /System/Library/Extensions/

6. Copy the files below to your desktop and then delete the originals. Make an extra backup copy of the 2 files in a separate folder just in case.

Code:

IO80211Family.kext

IOBluetoothFamily.kext

7. Go to Terminal, and type: (exactly as below)

Code:

ioreg -l | grep "board-id" | awk -F\" '{print $4}'

8. Your result should look like : Mac-742912EFDBEE19B3, (yours might be different.). Copy it to your clipboard (Select and CMD+C). Don't close terminal yet.

9. Open Finder and hit CMD+Shift+G, go to ~/Desktop/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/Plugins/AirPortBrcm4360.kext/Contents/Mac OS

Note: if you have a different OS language, you might need to replace "Desktop" in the path with your local translation.

10. Right Click on AirPortBrcm4360, and choose OPEN WITH: OTHER: 0XED

11. In the upper right hand corner under “search text" search for "Mac-" (without the quotes).

12. Look at the first result, for example, it might be Mac-00BE6ED71E35EB86

13. Delete the numbers after Mac- and Manually type your Mac- numbers (from step 8 be very careful not to delete anything else just the numbers.

14. Press down arrow till you get to the last Mac- (should look like Mac-2E6FAB96566FE58C)

15.Delete the numbers after Mac- and Manually type your Mac- numbers (from step 8 be very careful not to delete anything else just the numbers.

16. Click Save (the red circle)

17. Open Finder and hit CMD+Shift+G to open the "Go to" popup, and go to ~/Desktop/IOBluetoothFamily.kext/Contents/MacOS

18. Right Click on IOBluetoothFamily, and choose OPEN WITH: OTHER: 0XED.

19. In the SEARCH field (upper right corner) type:MacBookAir then enter.

20. You will find a block of text containing

Code:

'MacBookAir4,1''MacBookAir4,2''Macmini5,1''Macmini5,2''Macmini5,3'

Manually replace the numbers with ones only so they all look like:

Code:

'MacBookAir1,1''MacBookAir1,1''Macmini1,1''Macmini1,1''Macmini1,1'

Important: Be careful not to add any character while doing the replacement.

21. Click SAVE (the red circle button) and quit 0xED.

22. Open KextDrop, and Drag and drop the IO80211Family.kext that you modified into the window.

23. Click INSTALL.

24. Repeat steps 23 and 24 but for your modified IOBluetoothFamily.kext

25. Go Back to Terminal, and type the following commands. Wait for each one to finish.

Code:

sudo kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel

Code:

sudo kextcache -system-caches

26. Reboot. Make sure you have an Internet connection for the next steps.

27. Go to > SYSTEM PREFERENCES> GENERAL, at the bottom click ENABLE HANDOFF.

28. Go to > SYSTEM PREFERENCES> ICLOUD, click on SIGN OUT.

29. On your iOS Device, go to SETTINGS> ICLOUD and SIGN OUT.

30. Restart your Mac and iOS device.

31. Go to > SYSTEM PREFERENCES> ICLOUD, and enter your credentials to sign in.

32. On your iOS Device, go to SETTINGS> ICLOUD and SIGN IN.

and the original link http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=20123318&postcount=848

Just follow the instructions and you will succeed 🙂

Izzy_q,

Open your MBP and see what chip is inside, this will give you an answer. This is what I did to find out what chip I needed for my 2011, if you look on the net you will get lost.

Hope this helps,

Tom

Per my earlier post:

The correct chipset that you want is #BCM94331PCIEBT4CAX. Note that the chipset without the C (BCM94331PCIEBT4AX) will NOT improve your situation. It's the one already in the 2011 MBPs.

When searching on eBay, watch out for sellers who are offering "...2011, 2012..." compatible chipsets. These are invariably the older Bluetooth version.

I found only one seller who apparently has the correct chipset. Here's the link:

New MacBook Pro A1278 A1286 A1297 Unibody AirPort Extreme Card for 2011-2012

Hi guys,

for those people that didn't modify the kext file yet, I wrote a script in bash that do all the stuff. It's also useful because probably we'll have to do these steps each time that Apple will release an update. The script saves automatically a copy of the original kext in the same folder of the script, so if something goes wrong you'll be able to return to the original situation.

This is the link to download it: https://mega.co.nz/#!rkYGwRAK!2w8OpwZZMyAuX-YL_piagmaGKhKretpjzxh9rcmTrCE

1) Open terminal

2) write: sudo nvram boot-args="kext-dev-mode=1"

3) reboot

4) open terminal and type:

cd Downloads/ (or the folder in which you saved the script)

sh patch_wifi

5) Reboot.

I tried this script with a MacBook Pro 2011 and I hadn't problem.

Contact me if you want

I have read a lot of this thread but not all of it. (Sorry if this has already been covered)

But if possible can someone Please explain how my bluetooth chipset Broadcom 2070B0 in my MBP isn't compatible to work with handoff etc?

To my knowledge this chipset is capable of version 4.0 which is the highest version of bluetooth available unless I am mistaken? I fail to see that Low Energy Support is the problem here? surely these features should work on a Full powered device?

If I am correct then I see no hardware reasons why these features are disabled Just apple purposely disabling features so eventually people feel the need to splash out on a brand new Mac?

Yes, you can

buy this card

Airport/Bluetooth Board

Product code: IF161-083-1

Apple Part #: 661-5867

Product Details: Airport:802.11n , Bluetooth: 2.1+EDR

and here is the link

https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/MacBook-Pro-Unibody-Early-2011-Late-2011-Mid-20 12-Airport-Bluetooth-Board/IF161-083

Thank you. You are correct. If luis276 will refer to earlier posts, there is a link to an eBay seller that is selling the correct card. Please, everybody, don't go out and buy the "...AX" card when you need the "...CAX" card. You will go through trouble only to find that it doesn't work. Save yourselves the effort. There are good videos online about how to install. It's not terribly difficult.

If you've not taken your laptop apart before, like to replace the SSD or whatever, one tip you should attend to:

Take a sheet of typing paper. Draw a matrix on it of about 12 squares. In the center of each, afix a loop of scotch tape. As you take apart the laptop, stick associated screws onto each loop and label: "Front" "Left Side" "BT Card Bracket," and so on. Then you will save yourself the pain of putting screws into the wrong position, which can cause problems like pushing your keyboard up when your re-assemble. Do you suspect I write from experience? You suspect correctly. 🙂

Good luck! Buy the CORRECT card!

Here is one, expensive but it's the right card.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MacBook-Pro-Unibody-Airport-Bluetooth-Board-BROADCOM-BCM 94331PCIEBT4CAX-CARD-/111491142397?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19f563d2fd

If you look at pic 3 and zoom in you will see CAX

Tom