[Good Info] Acer/Compaq/Etc. WiFi Killswitch Fix

[applehacker]

im sorry to say that that doesn't work at all.

[quinielascom]

Some info, may be good or bad, but here is.

 

Push at same time Airport Icon + Button Enable/Disable wifi or hold Button Wifi then click Airport icon.

 

This work for me in my AcerMac Aspire 4320.

 

PD. If this work for you please post it.

[homer007]

follow my signature guys it works!!!

[applehacker]

still a no go for me

[psxtc]

My bcm4311 is running! Don´t know if it works cause of this package because I installed it without anything worked. So I taped Pin20 and now it runs very well and stabel at the moment!

[darbid]

This topic has been sleeping for a while. This Acer Kill switch is something I have been searching for. Has anyone solved it?

[applehacker]

compaq c500 series still dead here.....

[r0987]

Yarrix's tip on taping pins 11 and 13 works on an Atheros AR5BMB5 mini-PCI wireless card. I no longer have to mess with the on/off switch! Thanks for the tip Yarrix.

 

For those who are absolutely unable to follow the discussion in this topic here is what the pins look like.

 

 

The main and aux antennae plugs should be facing upwards. The first two pins from the left should be taped over.

[TheDynamo]

It's the one on the opposite side of the one in red (if you flip the card over. there's a pin labeled 18, it's right beside it). sorry don't have a cam on hand to take a picture of the back side.

 

By the way, tried the fix. Works in Windows, i.e. the switch on my laptop doesn't do anything + LED stays on. In Mac OS, no light, still nothing detected in network prefs or system profiler.

 

 

 

OMG - it actually works - i cant believe it! Finally working wifi on my Hackintosh - my baby is now complete!

 

Cheers folks

[kocoman]

Pin 20 is called W_DISABLE# Wireless disable (active low)

[Nadeo]

Thanks for all this information. I bought a Acer 5920G (look at my sig) - but then i recognized the inbuild Intel 4965 agn isnt the best choice for mac. So i bought many usb and express card adapters, and now finaly a 1390 from dell. It was recognized immidiatley, but there was no effect if i pressed "activate airport". so i tried the 20 pin method - it works! i have to tape both, back and front of the card. now it works - now i will test a download, to see if its constantly or not.

 

thanks for you help love you guys.

[Stacker2]

Hey Nadeo, Acer 5920G with taped 20pin here too ;-)

 

Have you try to turn on the card on windows?

 

I didn't, but I was wondering if turning the card on on windows will let it on for OSX too...

I'm even afraid that tape will melt on the PCI-E , mine was VERY hot when I toke it out from the laptot to tape it! X-(

[ludacrisvp]

@Stacker2 - I tried to turn on my card in Windows Vista, It would show in device manager but it wouldn't find any networks. In OSX it was detected as 3rd Party AirPort and refused to turn on.

 

Seems to work on my Tosh Satellite, I just removed pin 20 completely with a razor blade. - No fear of melted tape and it was way easier than trying to tape it.

Windows started using it right away. Havent used it in OSx86 yet, but I am installing PCWiz's iPC beta release and we shall see what happens.

 

-EDIT

Card works Perfectly in 10.5.6 iPC Beta no PPF Patches applied. Card recognized and it asked me to pick my wireless network during the welcome to osx wizard.

[Detosx]

I am running IPC_OSX86 beta and covered pin 20 but the card is still not detected in OS X (though it is in Vista). I am confused, though. Could someone who got this to work clarify. You are only covering the pin next to the one marked 18 and only on ONE side of the card, yes? Otherwise it would be pin twenty and pin... whatever the pin on the flip side of the card is. Post 61 seems to be saying both sides of the card. My laptop is an Acer 4720z; the model listed below works without any modification using the same card. I did select the broadcom wireless package during install of IPC_OSX86.

[Detosx]

Detosx you not need tap or cover some pin, you need use the IOPCIFamily.kext patched by Chun-Nan (the attached file).

 

I got this working using better quality tape - a relatively thick red colored pvc heat resistant rather than Scotch tape - I smoothed it down with a lollipop stick so that the pins and spaces stood out prominently and the thickness of the tape made it easier to make a clean cut with a sharp craft knife. I had that Eureka moment when I came across a post about Chun-Nan's kext and a woot when I found it worked. You beat me to the post but if I hadn't found it, and I was so fed I might have thrown in the towl at 4am, I would be praising you to the heavens right now! So, good call and I can confirm it does work in my case. My only problem, now, is that the connection gets dropped every ten minutes or so. Google has not been my friend on this one. (Edit - re-setting the wireless router may have done the trick, will report back). Reporting back... re-setting the wireless router fixed the flakey connection. All working now.

 

If you are using the BCM4311, could you tell me which antenna wires you have in which post on the card? Frustratingly not all cards seem to be the same and while the card's sticker clearly marks which antenna socket is main and which is aux, I'm not sure which lead with the 4720z iis which, as a google search showed it varies from laptop to laptop and card to card! I have tried to find Acer service manuals but no joy.

[epuk]

White Cable = MAIN / Black Cable = AUX

 

I will try the 20 pin trick on a BCM4311 that i've got yesterday. I have an 4720Z Acer Aspire.

[epuk]

Hi all,

I got my BCM4311 working covering pin. According to me it's pin 19 not 20.

Something weird is that i can't see the status of airport in the menu bar, it appears as unconfigured, so i removed the airport icon from the bar. Do you know if there's a fix for that?

EDIT: I recall, pin 20 it's correct i missunderstood the picture and covered the ping with the card facing front and not backwards. It's the pin located next to pin 18.

[markymids]

I just want to report that taping pin 20 worked for me and I am a complete NOOB. If I can do it, anyone can.

 

Insanelymac is a fantastic resource, I now have Acer Aspire working perfectly on 10.5.6

 

Thanks so much guys!

[Reptar]

This worked beautifully for me. I bought an actual Apple Extreme N mini pci-e on Eb*y for my Acer 3680 to replace the Atheros 5007EG. The pin 20 tape trick was the key to getting it to work. Brilliant!! Absolutely Brilliant!!!

 

Thanks to all.

[SMAKY]

With acer aspire 6930 and broadcom bcm3411 it (20 pin) doesn't work ;/

Anybody know any tips for this ?

Pleas help

[M@dMac]

hi, I´ve got an acer aspire one D250, I had to take it appart (brand new) to be able to remove the non-working ar5007eg half-mini-pci-e card and I had to even open up the monitor casing to be able to modify the wiring for the antennas etc, I mean... I build it from scratch! ha! but then the new card, a broadcom with id 4315 would not work either! the system kept saying the same as with the atheros! something like "Airport link down en0 Reason 1 (or 4 sometimes) unespecified (or it being innactive)" oh man.... then I found this thread and tried the tape on pin 20, the system keeps saying the message about it being down due to an unspecified reason and BAM! it brings the link up right after it shows the first one! marvellous! simply genius! I still can turn the radio off trough Snow Leopard, but I thing I have to restart after I turn it back on, no biggie... well.... thanks, truly amazing hack... thanks to you all!

[coolmast3r]

Clevo M570RU here.

 

I went all around the net using LAN connection searching for solution of WiFi (BCM4311 @ BCM94311--although MacOSX 'lspci' command detected as BCM4312) on my laptop.

 

The 20-pin solution did the trick for me!!

 

The card is actually a Dell DW1490. It was 'flashed' and now recognized as Apple Airport Extreme!

 

Before applying the 20-pin trick, the card was detected in MacOSX, but cannot be turned on whatever i did.

 

I had tried using various different kexts, deleted system kexts , re-configure Networks, etc.

 

BUT THIS 20-PIN MOTHOD DID THE TRICK FOR ME!

 

Now I have a working Wifi on my Hackintosh. Yay!

 

edit: Oh by the way, I am using Snow Leopard 10.6.4.

[izenhower]

I can't thank you enough! This little strip of sticky tape attached to the pin certainly did the trick for me, running on Snow Leopard 10.6.5. I applied it on the other side too to prevent it from coming loose when I inserted it into my Samsung R60 Plus laptop and thus far, it works like a charm.

 

After days and days of trying to get it to work with 100's of kexts and other methods and hacks, switching between various network cards and even flashing the card to an Apple AirPort Extreme card with some hassle and a dirty trick in Linux, it finally came down to a little piece of tape solving all wireless LAN issues. Thank you!

 

Funny to think about the process though, covering your network card enables WiFi.

[otsox]

Here I am, reporting a workin Broadcom card

 

Acer Aspire 5315, has software killswitch

Snow Leopard 10.6.0 and 10.6.8, both working.

Broadcom BCM4312 Mini PCI-Express card. Device ID 14e4:4315

 

Kext: AirPortBrcm43xx.kext

 

 

In fact, I've taped it twice. When I first installed with [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url], I tried so many different methods to make the card work, and didn't get the Kext to load at all.

 

Nawcom's OSX86 ModCD did the trick and the card loaded! Then while I had my laptop open I decided to take the tape off from the pin 20, because I thought it had no effect. Airport went crazy, and after some time wouldn't activate anymore. So, confirmed! Thank you!