Mac Pro 6,1 Late 2013 Airport Card Replacement Problem

Question

Mac Pro 2013

The 2013 revamp of the desktop Mac series known as the Mac Pro.

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Bill Dong @fancyix

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crwdns2931729:0crwdne2931729:0: Nhl 3, 2020

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Mac Pro 6,1 Late 2013 Airport Card Replacement Problem

I tried to replace original AirPort Extreme card with another one that I bought from eBay. Both cards look very same and is BCM94360CD model. The new card’s Wifi works except when there is USB 3.0 drive connected. When I plug a usb 3.0 drive, wifi started dropping and reconnecting.

I am using 5g channel so it shouldn’t because of usb and 2.4g signal interference. I tried another BCM94360CD card and see same issue.

Wifi and Bluetooth works except when plugging usb 3.0 drive and then wifi starts to reconnecting. I tried BCM943602CDP card and Bluetooth becomes 4.2 but wifi still has this problem. I tried Catalina install USB and the install program cannot connect to wifi with same problem. Mojave install program has same issue. I tried reset smc and nvram and doesn’t help. Bootrom firmware is 137.0.0.0 the newest.

I tried Ubuntu live usb and seems doesn’t have this kind of problem. Seems like Mac OS can only work with original card but Linux can work with other cards. Really strange. Please help if you have some hints.

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If you got the correct board which offers: WiFi 802.11ac / Bluetooth 4.0 (Apple P/N 661-7552) Your symptoms don't make sense!

Let's backup here I'm assuming your original board failed, maybe we are looking for a different problem.

crwdns2934271:0Nhl 3, 2020crwdnd2934271:0 Dan crwdne2934271:0

I need to replace old card with a new one. My new one is also BCM94360CD but doesn't work. You mentioned I should use BCM94360CD with Apple P/N 661-7552. How to know Apple P/N for one card? I cannot find such number on my card.

crwdns2934271:0Nhl 3, 2020crwdnd2934271:0 Bill Dong crwdne2934271:0

Lets refocus - What drove you into replacing the AirPort board in the first place?

crwdns2934271:0Nhl 3, 2020crwdnd2934271:0 Dan crwdne2934271:0

@danj My current card has bluetooth 4.0, which doesn't work with my Sony headphone. I tried to install BCM943602CDP. It works with my Sony headphone, but has this usb 3.0 problem. I also tried BCM94360CD bought from eBay and has usb 3.0 problem too. I guess this is an OS problem since Linux works well with my BCM043602CDP card.

crwdns2934271:0Nhl 3, 2020crwdnd2934271:0 Bill Dong crwdne2934271:0

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If you got the correct board which offers: WiFi 802.11ac / Bluetooth 4.0 (Apple P/N 661-7552) Your symptoms don't make sense!

Let's backup here I'm assuming your original board failed, maybe we are looking for a different problem. — Dan
I need to replace old card with a new one. My new one is also BCM94360CD but doesn't work. You mentioned I should use BCM94360CD with Apple P/N 661-7552. How to know Apple P/N for one card? I cannot find such number on my card. — Bill Dong
Lets refocus - What drove you into replacing the AirPort board in the first place? — Dan
@danj My current card has bluetooth 4.0, which doesn't work with my Sony headphone. I tried to install BCM943602CDP. It works with my Sony headphone, but has this usb 3.0 problem. I also tried BCM94360CD bought from eBay and has usb 3.0 problem too. I guess this is an OS problem since Linux works well with my BCM043602CDP card. — Bill Dong

score 1 · Answer 1 · 2020-10-03T19:32:20-07:00

@fancyix - Now I get it! You wanted to upgrade your board to support a newer Bluetooth 4.1 standard (BCM943602CDP) for your Sony headset, I wish you had made that clear from the start.

You should put back in your original AirPort board to make sure you haven’t damaged anything.

I personally haven’t needed to replace the Airport on any of the 2013 Mac Pro’s I’ve worked on. Even still one just can’t just drop in other boards as your system needs a hardware driver of some sort.

I’m suspecting in this case there is a driver but the address space it uses also sits on the USB ports address space. It might be possible to hack the driver. As Apple never offered an updated AirPort board to support Bluetooth 4.1 for the 2013 Mac Pro the address allocation issue was likely never addressed (conflicting).

So the bottom line here is you would need to find someone with deep OS driver skills to alter the USB ports allocation and if the USB driver can be altered so its not in conflict or alter the AirPort driver.

Now the rub! Apple controls access to the core device driver development to a select group of developers which have to prove they need it in order to get their driver signed so it won’t be discarded. Apple had also added additional kernel protections so they need to bless the driver as well. So clearly, this is not a workable direction!

But there maybe a way to get what you want! You’ll need to get a USB BT adapter which offers the needed BT version and unlike the direct hardware driver you’ll use the USB developer kit Apple offers in their developer forum. That is if the BT adapter doesn’t come with a MacOS compatible driver.

You may want to contact Sony to see what they say.

Mac Pro 2013

Mac Pro 6,1 Late 2013 Airport Card Replacement Problem

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