Attention: There is a more or less high possibility to brick your card, in case you don't know what you are doing.

Identifying the device: It doesn't mean your card will not be bricked "following another guy's guide" or "using his IDs", although you two have the "same card"... Most people think tools like lspci provide sufficient information, in order to judge whether your card is the same as another guy's card or whether it's an "a/b/g" or "b/g-only" card. An AR5006EG for instance. These cards aren't all the same since their chipsets and subchipsets differ.

Possible scenarios are: You don't have the EXACT same card as the guy you got information form (such as ID's and Memory and byte locations => you ignore the previous fact and apply the foreign settings on your card's EEPROM => usually leads to grief , sorrow and suicide

The idea: Replacing the Subsys IDs (Subvendor and Subdevice ID) of your device (e.g. Hp, Gigabyte or "Unknown") with Apple's IDs

Profits: You will end up with a fully functional Apple Airport Extreme Card. No more disconnects and no CRC Errors in your files. Use Apple's kexts nomore modifications. Just fully native a.k.a. Vanilla.

First Step: Install Ubuntu (Hardy Heron) and Subversion

Install this OS. Do not use Live CDs for this guide if you aren't familiar with Linux.
If you need help with installing it without screwing up your Partition Table and Bootloader check this post (GUID).

When you are in the OS ensure you are connected to the Internet and launch the terminal.
Type following: (Enter your password if you have one.)

CODE

sudo -s
apt-get install subversion

Second Step: Install madwifi tools in Ubuntu

http://www.stchman.com created a wonderful guide for this. Even a script to get things easier for you. Here are the most important excerpts offering 2 ways to install the madwifi tools

A) Easy Way

Get the script created by stchman (attached to this post), copy it to your home directory and run it by typing:

CODE

chmod 755 ~/madwifi.sh
sudo ~/madwifi.sh

B) Not-so-easy Way

Get the source here.

Get what is needed to compile the source:

CODE

sudo apt-get -y install build-essential bin86

Once that is done you will need to do the following:

Copy the .tar.gz to the /usr/src/ folder. This command assumes you downloaded the archive to your home folder. replace ~ if your downloaded to a different location.

CODE

sudo cp ~/madwifi-0.9.3.2.tar.gz /usr/src/

Change to the /usr/src folder.

CODE

cd /usr/src

Decompress the tarball.

CODE

sudo tar -xzf madwifi-0.9.3.2.tar.gz

Install the sharutils from the package manager.

CODE

sudo apt-get -y install sharutils

Change to the folder that the tarball extracted to.

CODE

cd /usr/src/madwifi-0.9.3.2

Make the drivers (during this time the procedure may ask you to remove the older drivers, let it do so)

CODE

sudo make clean
sudo make
sudo make install

Third Step: Install ath_info

To get it type:


Change to the directory:


And install it:


Fourth Step: Get essential Information with lspci and ath_info

Type following in your terminal and look for your Atheros named device in the list:


Here are my definitions which are going to be used until the end of the post

• <class_id>: should be 0200 by default, meaning Ethernet Controller
• <vendor_id>: is the first ID in brackets after the name of your device. Should be 168c for Atheros cards (won't be changed)
• <device_id>: is the ID right after the colon . Should be 001c for AR5006EG-series (won't be changed)
• <subven_id>: is the first ID on the second line of the device, starting with Subsystem:..
• <subdev_id>: the second ID on the same line, the one after the colon
• <memory_loc>: the value in the 7th line which begins with Region 0:.. (8-digit)

Check if your card is b/g or a/b/g by typing following with the correct memory location


You can find the information somewhere at the beginning of the output. It is supposed to look like this:



As you can see, mine is b/g only. This is important to know since Apple doesn't use only one Subdevice ID. So their b/g and a/b/g IDs differ and you will have to replace your old Subdevice ID by the respective one from Apple, which are:

• 0086 for a/b/g cards
• 004e for b/g cards

Now scroll down to until you see the EEPROM dump. Copy-Paste it somewhere, so you can restore it easily if you mess up. It's supposed to look like this:



Of course yours will look different. So use Ctrl+F or anything to look for your

• <class_id>
• <subdev_id> (2x)
• <subven_id> (2x)

You are supposed to end up with 5 locations of the IDs. Subdev and Subven ID will each show up twice, so each has 2 different locations. I prepared a legend, so you should easily find out the locations. Look where you found your IDs and write down each location.



So write down your

• <class_id_loc>: location of your <class_id>
• <1st_subdev_loc>: a <subdev_id> location
• <2nd_subdev_loc>: the other <subdev_id> location
• <1st_subven_loc>: a <subven_id> location
• <2nd_subven_loc>: the other <subven_id> location

each is 4-digit.

Fifth Step: Replacing the Subsystem IDs

Class ID

Replace your old Class ID, 200 which stands for Ethernet Controller with the new 280 which stands for Network Controller


Subvendor ID

Replace the old Subvendor ID with the one from Apple, which is 106b


Subdevice ID

Replace the old Subdevice ID with

• 004e if you have an "b/g" card
• or 0086 if you have an "a/b/g" card

Confirm all operations with 'y' as it will ask you. I used the value 3 for all operations. If it doesnt work for you feel free to try out the digits from 0 to 5.

Check your new EEPROM dump and verify the new data


If everything went flawlessly lspci is to show your card as

• Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5006EG ...................... [168c:001c] (rev 01)
• Subsystem: Apple Computer Inc. Device [106b:<004e or 0086>]

At least that's what OS X Terminal shows you, when you are back on OS X. The Ubuntu lspci output gives some less cosmeticly results, like Apple Inc Unknown etc..


So pls report back about the results.

-----

You will have to tweak your windows drivers for your card a little to get it working there. It's only replacing some IDs in the .ini file. I will upload my .ini file in future and maybe add the stuff for abg cards too. Mine is recognized as AR5007EG in Vista, tho works flawlessly.

Another issue may be your router. Mine doesn't support WPA anymore with the vanilla kexts. This is because my router only supports WPA TKIP and Leopard seems to have issues with TKIP-only routers. So if you have an old router as me, you will have to use WEP or use modded Tiger kexts or get a not-so-outdated router with WPA-AES too.

Oh yeah I almost forgot... HP-Bios users ... good luck

Rebranding solved my problem with a Gigabyte (Atheros Chip) card.

Use ath_info from the madwifi project to change the IDs in the EEPROM.
Be careful at which addresses the IDs are saved. On my card they were not in the beginning of the EEPROM space.
In my case I had to change GPIO 3 to 0 in order to be able to write to the EEPROM.

Thats the list of changes I made

• Device Class from 200 to 280 (at 0x85)
• Device ID from 001c to 1014 (at 0x82)
• Subvendor ID from 1458 to 1014 (at 0x8a)
• Subdevice ID from e917 to 058a (at 0x8b)

I can't guarantee that these IDs will work with a rebranded card, but in case of failure try using other Device ID, which can be
seen here : http://pciids.sourceforge.net/pci.ids

That is how the rebranded card is regognized by lspci:


Although the card is rebranded, Mac OS X 10.5.4 recognizes the chip and works properly with the card.
Thats what I get in dmesg:

thx for the answer

I would like to use Apple IDs and making it to be recognized as Airport Extreme.

Does the 802.1x menu show up for you in Airport preferences now? And also did you get several disconnects per day before rebranding and is it now completely solved?

Edit:

Ok let us see.
From what I can tell when looking at the original Atheros kext from Apple , the original IDs for Apple 802.11 a/b/g cards are:

• Subvendor ID: 106b
  
• Subdevice ID: 0086
  

I don't have any disconnects.
Before rebranding I wasn't able to use the card with Mac OS at all. I got always errors when trying to load the kext.

My card is detected as AirPort Extreme (0x168C, 0x58A) by System Profiler.

I just found out that I couldnt get into the 802.1x menu because of my language.pkg. it works when I set osx language to english.

This is what I got currently and I keep getting disconnected. I will save my IDs and boot my linux live cd now. Let's hope it will work.

I've tried to rebrand my AR5007EG with strange result..
1) I've taken adress from lspci. It is fa9f0000
2) Try to rebrand with ath_info: ath_info -g 1:0 -w fa9f0000 pci_dev_id 1014 ....
3) Reboot. After reboot I see that my Atheros device ID is ff1b.. Why? ath_info says that all is OK and value 1014 has been written, but real device ID changed to ff1b.... Help me, please!

Kykc,

If you look at several posts above

* Device Class from 200 to 280 (at 0x85)
* Device ID from 001c to 1014 (at 0x82)
* Subvendor ID from 1458 to 1014 (at 0x8a)
* Subdevice ID from e917 to 058a (at 0x8b)

This is the successful rebranding. The original is 168c:001c. He change the Device ID to 1014 and Sub_Device ID to 058a, but at the end he got 168c:058a!

Maybe you should try to change your device ID back to original first to make sure the card is working under vista/XP? and then try to change both device ID and subdevice ID?

Just my two cents.




Here is the list of atheros wireless card with vendor ID 168c and device ID 001c.

> 168c:001c:105b:e000 "LAN-Express AS IEEE 802.11g PCI-E Adapter"
> 168c:001c:105b:e002 "LAN-Express AS IEEE 802.11g PCI-E Adapter"
> 168c:001c:106b:0086 "Atheros AR5006EXS Wireless Network Adapter"
> [b]168c:001c:106b:0086 "Atheros AR5006X Wireless Network Adapter"[/b] Apple Airport extreme
> 168c:001c:10cf:139c "Atheros AR5006EXS Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:10cf:142e "Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:10e9:1020 "Atheros AR5006EXS Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:10e9:1025 "Atheros AR5006EXS Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:1113:7519 "Atheros AR5006EXS Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:144f:7096 "Atheros AR5006EX Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:144f:7106 "Atheros AR5006EG Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:144f:7108 "Atheros AR5006X Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:144f:7111 "Atheros AR5006EGS Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:144f:7112 "Atheros AR5006EXS Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:144f:7116 "Atheros AR5006X Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:144f:7128 "Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:144f:7130 "Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:144f:7131 "Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:1468:0422 "Atheros AR5006EXS Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:1468:0423 "LAN-Express AS IEEE 802.11g PCI-E Adapter"
> 168c:001c:1468:0425 "Atheros AR5006X Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:1468:0427 "Atheros AR5005G Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:1468:0428 "Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:1468:042a "Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:168c:0034 "11b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Express Adapter II"
> 168c:001c:168c:0035 "11b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Express Adapter III"
> 168c:001c:168c:0423 "LAN-Express AS IEEE 802.11g PCI-E Adapter"
> 168c:001c:168c:3061 "Atheros AR5006EGS Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:168c:3062 "Atheros AR5006EXS Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:168c:3063 "Atheros AR5006EX Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:168c:3064 "Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:168c:3065 "Atheros AR5006EG Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:168c:3067 "Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:1a32:0100 "Atheros AR5006EG Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:1a32:0105 "Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:1a32:0200 "Atheros AR5006EX Wireless Network Adapter"
> 168c:001c:1a3b:1026 "Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter"


This is the successful rebranding
> 168c:1014:1014:058a "11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Express Adapter"


Hi, Did your Gigabyte card support 802.11a originally?

Could you please tell us why you selected 058a? Did you have some other try? THX!

As far as I know AR5BXB6 is the model of the original Apple Airport Extreme card. So I just checked the PCI IDs database
and the only card that came up was the one from IBM. My original device ID was 001c, but it somehow caused problems when trying to load the kext.
Changing only the PCI IDs shouldn't cause hardware problems. It may make your card undetectable until you enter working IDs.

Check if the Atheros kext (Info.plist) has the PCI IDs in it, otherwise add them to Info.plist.

BuildSmart told me that you can't fix the IDs after the card wont be detected anymore.

I think the problem is, ppl don't replace the IDs but accidentally wrong random bits

I've successfully patched device id and subsys id (both vendor and device). Device was working under XP and was detected as 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Express Adapter and working. But no luck in Macos. But after I've tried to change device class ID (from 200 to 280) my wireless card was disappeared at all. No device at xp (As if I've removed it or locked in BIOS) and no device at linux. Seems like I've no chance to get it back. Maybe someone can give me an advice?

Could you list how you patched it in details?

As we were told, If your card is still working under windows and your device id is not 001c, you should be able to get it work under mac os by changing the info.plist in AtherosAirport.kext/Contents

Device class is the thing I totally have no idea, that's why I did not try my AR5007EG yet. Could anyone help us here?

The AR5007EG is a strange beast. I have only had experiences with this card on an Acer Aspire One.
With the Linpus original-install it is recognized as a AR5006EG (!) in madwifi. On Ubuntu with the new madwifi it is recognized as a AR5007EG (!).

Now there is the unique experience. The ath_info dump differs completely under Linpus and Ubuntu....

I think the ath_info output from Linpus is wrong, since in my opinion it only emulates a AR5006EG. Whereas the lspci output under Linpus is correct....

So, what is the solution. I would say, writing directly to the registers in Ubuntu should be the way to go.

However, I have returned the Acer Aspire One. Therefore I cannot post the ath_info dumps. Yet there might be someone who still has one. If so, please post the two EEPROM-dumps.

There ist actually still a second method. A czech-guy wrote a program that can change the ids an restore the configuration. This is a highly recommended feature. As you can read, what happens sometimes . I will try to find the link an post it.

attached is the ath_info from ubuntu 8.04. I don't know if it is helpful.
Please note I masked the mac address for safety issue


-==Device Information==-
MAC Revision: 2425 (0xe2)
Device type: 3

/============== EEPROM Information =============\
| EEPROM Version: 5.3 | EEPROM Size: 4 kbit |
| EEMAP: 2 | Reg. Domain: 0x64 |
|================= Capabilities ================|
| 802.11a Support: no | Turbo-A disabled: yes |
| 802.11b Support: no | Turbo-G disabled: yes |
| 802.11g Support: yes | 2GHz XR disabled: yes |
| RFKill Support: yes | 5GHz XR disabled: yes |
| 32kHz Crystal: no | |
\===============================================/

/=========================================================\
| Calibration data common for all modes |
|=========================================================|
| CCK/OFDM gain delta: 1 |
| CCK/OFDM power delta: 5 |
| Scaled CCK delta: 5 |
| 2GHz Antenna gain: 0 |
| 5GHz Antenna gain: 0 |
| Turbo 2W maximum dBm: 38 |
| Target power start: 0x16e |
| EAR Start: 0x1b8 |
\=========================================================/

/=========================================================\
| Calibration data for 802.11g operation |
|=========================================================|
| I power: 0x00 | Q power: 0x10 |
| Use fixed bias: 0x01 | Max turbo power: 0x26 |
| Max XR power: 0x1e | Switch Settling Time: 0x28 |
| Tx/Rx attenuation: 0x19 | TX end to XLNA On: 0x00 |
| TX end to XPA Off: 0x00 | TX end to XPA On: 0x0e |
| 62db Threshold: 0x1c | XLNA gain: 0x00 |
| XPD: 0x01 | XPD gain: 0x0a |
| I gain: 0x00 | Tx/Rx margin: 0x01 |
| False detect backoff: 0x00 | Noise Floor Threshold: -1 |
| ADC desired size: -38 | PGA desired size: -80 |
|=========================================================|
| Antenna control 0: 0x00 | Antenna control 1: 0x02 |
| Antenna control 2: 0x21 | Antenna control 3: 0x21 |
| Antenna control 4: 0x00 | Antenna control 5: 0x00 |
| Antenna control 6: 0x01 | Antenna control 7: 0x22 |
| Antenna control 8: 0x22 | Antenna control 9: 0x00 |
| Antenna control 10: 0x00 | Antenna control 11: 0x02 |
|=========================================================|
| Octave Band 0: 3 | db 0: 3 |
| Octave Band 1: 4 | db 1: 4 |
| Octave Band 2: 0 | db 2: 0 |
| Octave Band 3: 0 | db 3: 0 |
\=========================================================/
/============== Per rate power calibration ===========\
| Freq | 6-24Mbit/s | 36Mbit/s | 48Mbit/s | 54Mbit/s |
|======|============|==========|===========|==========|
| 2412 | 15.00 | 15.00 | 15.00 | 13.01 |
|======|============|==========|===========|==========|
| 2437 | 15.00 | 15.00 | 15.00 | 13.01 |
|======|============|==========|===========|==========|
| 2472 | 15.00 | 15.00 | 15.00 | 13.01 |
\=====================================================/
/=================== Per channel power calibration ====================\
| Freq | pwr_0 | pwr_1 | pwr_2 | pwr_3 |pwrx3_0|pwrx3_1|pwrx3_2|max_pwr|
| | pcdac | pcdac | pcdac | pcdac | pcdac | pcdac | pcdac | |
|======|=======|=======|=======|=======|=======|=======|=======|=======|
| 2412 | 25.00 | 25.00 | 0.00 | 25.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 29.01 | 25.00 |
| | [112] | [112] | [112] | [112] | [20] | [35] | [63] | |
\======================================================================/

GPIO registers: CR 0x00000000, DO 0x00000000, DI 0x0000000b
STA_ID0: 00:1f:e1:xx:xx:xx
STA_ID1: 0x1a806880, AP: 0, IBSS: 0, KeyCache Disable: 0
TIMER0: 0x00000030, TBTT: 48, TU: 0x00040030
TIMER1: 0x0007ffff, DMAb: 65535, TU: 0x0003ffff (-49)
TIMER2: 0x01ffffff, SWBA: 65535, TU: 0x003fffff (+3932111)
TIMER3: 0x00000031, ATIM: 49, TU: 0x00040031 (+1)
TSF: 0x000000000ef4ce6a, TSFTU: 48435, TU: 0x0003bd33
BEACON: 0x00000000
LAST_TSTP: 0x10040004

Hi,
that is the info. In order to find the registers and the values we need the dump:

ath_info -d (base address)

You just have to insert the -d switch in between the ath_info and the base address, as for your current output. Sometimes you habe to be sudo to do it.

What you should do is:

Ubuntu
1. sudo ath_info -d (base address)
then cut and paste this output
2. lspci -n => note vendor id and device id
then sudo lspci -d [<vendor>]:[<device>] -xxxx
then cut and paste this output

Linpus
1. sudo ath_info -d (base address)
then cut and paste this output
2. lspci -n => note vendor id and device id
then sudo lspci -d [<vendor>]:[<device>] -xxxx
then cut and paste this output

I can guarantee that changing the class type from 0x0200 to 0x0280 will not make your card non-functional.

In windows you may need to modify the driver .inf file to change from looking for a device class of 200 to a device class of 280 and change the ID's to match to what you have changed them to so keep notes.

A dump of the eeprom is recommended as suggested in this thread to ensure the corrects bytes are modified and 0280 is not the same as 0x0280 just as 1014 is not the same as 0x1014.

I spent the better part of the day yesterday recovering a card in which the user wrote the values to the wrong locations and bricked the card so while you can make it non-functional you better double check your work before you proceed so you don't go through the painful recovery process which involves an expensive programmer and an adapter which clips directly onto the IC on the card to read it in and write it back out.

One more note, if you are unfamiliar with linux, build tools and Live CD's, it will be difficult for you to work from the Live CD so find an old IDE drive and an external USB enclosure and work from the external drive rather than the Live CD to minimize frustrations of installing and working from the Live CD.

I have (or i has ?) a card atheros with 106c, 001c then i try change device class id from 200 to 280, then like the post that i quote, the wifi card is not more detect.

The idea was change from Ethernet Controller [0200] to Network controller [0280] for mach with Wireless type, same the Broadcom BCM4311, i think that the driver or kext of OS X first check the device class ID.

Anyway here is a bit of info, maybe useful :

http://www.mobilnews.cz/blog/?p=36
http://svn.madwifi.org/madwifi/branches/

regards.

Problem is, that my card was disappeared from device manager and lspci output at all. I can't access it at all. Maybe I've overwritten something vital for card, i don't know. I can attach original EEPROM dump (I have backup) and point at byte pair I've changed..
PS Wireless switch on my notebook also don't work (led is always off)

Kykc: exactly is as if the wifi card was removed out of computer, then the question is how make for find the base address if the system no see the card and then no assign resources ?

Please attach your original EEPROM dump.

I started to think that our wifi card is now trash or in Mexican words "un pisapapeles" ...

My Original dump. Be careful. It may be or may be not equal to your EEPROM. I've changed value at 0x90 (adress in dump file) offset from 0x00 to 0x80. Note, that appropriate address in EEPROM will be different, because there is one address for each byte pair.. I know, that I'm changed exactly this byte, because I've dumped result before reboot. After reboot card no longer exist

Could you please tell us the brand and build of your laptop. Also please tell us, whether the card was recognized with lspci as AR5006EG or AR5007EG and what specific chipset it has.

By the way, it is like BuildSmart said. You cannot make a card nonaccessible by changing the registers "per se". Yet it can be the case that your card is blacklisted by the bios.... Then you need a special device for accessing it which you probably do not have.

At least my laptop Acer Aspire 4320 no has cards blacklisted by the bios.

Anyway i believe that go to need aditional hardware for fix it, and not have it ...

The card is AR5007EG. Original IDs was 001c:168c. Which chipset exactly is on my card i dunno
I have Asus F5RL notebook. Core 2Duo T5250 Processor, ATI x1100 video (SB600 ATI chipset). Computer Have AMI Bios. Is it possible to somehow crack it? I've been seen something about phoenix BIOS of HP DV series.. Is it possible here?I can provide latest bios image..

Here is BIOS image for my notebook and small windows utility for editing. I don't know if this utility can do the trick or no, I'm not experienced in BIOS hacking. Maybe someone can give me an advice?

Hi,
I have found the link to that program.....I think,
Jan Krupa homepage - Ath EEPROM Tool

I has tested it under Fedora 8 live cd & able to dump my AR5007EG (chipset AR5BXB63) EEPROM to a file. Now I need to learn how to rebrand my wireless card.

Edit: I attached here my EEPROM dump. Fedora 8 live cd detected this card as AR5006EG. It was (it is a long long time ago....) working in linux (tested with Fedora 8, Slackware 12) using madwifi's snapshot driver.

kizwan

Kykc, did you look in the values from the BIN file or from the displayed on the terminal EEPROM data ?

Use the printed values and not the Bin file.

Hi guys,
To rebrand my AR5007EG using ath_info tool, I need to make sure that I supply the right device address, right? Mine should be 0x8c100000, right? So how do I know what value of GPIO that I should use?

lspci -v


ath_info 0x8c100000


Thank you.

kizwan

Interesting.. I've decompressed my AMI BIOS image with amideco (linux util, under ubuntu is accessible by simple apt-get install amideco). After decompressing I see only two PCI modules: one for ATI X1100M Video, second for Attansic L2 Fast Ethernet, but my atheros wireless was not mentioned here. Hm...
Second funny thing, that amideco can't compress BIOS back..

Hi,
Can you change back your device id from ff1b to 001c? Can you tell me how you change your pci_class from 200 to 280? It seem that when I try to change pci_class from 200 to 280, ath_info try to change at wrong address....I think. I'm willing to lose my wireless but at least I understand what I'm doing before I proceed.

kizwan

kizwan OK, my full story.
0) I've dumped original EEPROM
1) I've tried to rebrand my card after ath_info documentation. So I've used commands like that: ath_info -g 1:0 -w fa9f0000 pci_dev_id 1014
In that way I've changed dev id, device class, subvendor and subdevice ids. After reboot card's device id is ff1b. Then I've dumped current EEPROM and compared it to original.
2) I've manage to get back to original EEPROM. It was difficult, because addressing in file and EEPROM is different. (In EEPROM each 16bits have address, in file each 8 bits have adress). I've used commands like ath_info -g 1:0 -w fa9f0000 0x01 0x169c (0x01 is address or offset, 0x169c value) After reboot all gone OK, card is now recognized like it always was.
3) Manually analyze the EEPROM dump and try to guess where my numbers are. I've successfully changed device id, subdevice and subvendor ids. In windows xp card was recognized as a/b/g Wireless Adapter and in device manager I can see the values I've just changed. Macos don't recognize card at all.
4) Try to change device class id. Manually, as before. I've changed one pair which was 0x0200 to 0x0280 and gard has gone
PS Be careful with manual flashing. Addresses in dump file are not equal to addresses in EEPROM, also pairs are in reversed order. The value 0x168c in EEPROM is equal to two bytes in dump file: 0x8c 0x16
PPS Sorry, I'll be able to write full-sized and clear tutorial about my experience, if only I knew English better.

Hi Kykc,
Thank you very much for the info. I really appreciate it. I have downloaded your original EEPROM dump file. Look like we have same value at the beginning & end of EEPROM space. Do the false device id ff1b viewable by naked eye if you execute (for example) "./ath_info -d 0x80200000"? Can you post your broken EEPROM dump (the one that you get device id ff1b)? I want try to compare with your original EEPROM dump. Thank you.

I think you can get back your card to working condition. If somehow you can get bios image for your paticular notebook, you can flash back that image to your bios. This just my theory because EEPROM just a chipset, the content of the EEPROM will be loaded by BIOS. But....emmmm....on second thought....that may not work. Don't try this at home.

kizwan

kizwan I don't have this dump :\ But I remember that I've restored two first strings from original dump file. (from 0x00 to 0x1F) But you can get the addresses of these constants pci_dev_id of ath_info. Just try ath_info -w 80200000 pci_dev_id 0x0000 (without -g) this value will not be written, but you can get an address in ath_info output =)
PS I'm happy to be somehow helpful

ok if you endure it another few days I'll do a tutorial about this.

Hi,
This is another successful rebranding story:-
Shocky's Lab

In that article, the author did change mapping for pc_dev_id, pc_vendor_id & pc_class in ath_info.c. No wonder when I try to change my pc_dev_id, ath_info try to change at different address.

kizwan



That great!! Thank you.

Hi guys,
I have lost my card in the process to rebrand it. Now I want to try to recover my card if it is possible. It is very wonderful experience even though it is complete failure to me. Is there any device that I need to recover my card? Maybe I can find it at any D.I.Y shop. There is an aluminium that cover the entire board. So, any attempt tu connect directly to the chipset may be difficult.

kizwan

You have same story like mine? Card didn't appear in lspci listing and so on?

Hi Kykc,
Yes, same story. First I got device ID ff1b but I don't lost it after I change device class 0200 to 0280 yet. I don't know what cause it but I lost is after a lot of attempt. Do you know any software that can execute low level task to communicate/access to the eeprom chipset? I think I can access the card using the base address (0x8c100000) but any attempt to access the chipset using ath_info will failed with "0xffff is not supported!".

kizwan

Ok. It's done. Enjoy it!

Thanks for the guide, but did not work for me.

My card is Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter [168c:001c] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device [103c:137a]

I make everything steb by steb, but when execute the command "lspci -vvnn" the info is the same. No change.

In the EEPROM Dump is OK - have succses
Before:

0000: a55a 0000 0020 0001 0000 5001 0000 137a
0008: 103c 1c0a 0100 0000 0002 0002 c606 0001
0010: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0018: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0f38 3a68 001f
0020: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0028: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0030: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0038: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0040: 1400 168c 001c 1402 0001 0200 140a 5001
0048: 0000 140b 103c 137a 140f 0100 1c0a 1410
0050: 5001 01c2 101a 050a 0000 1419 0cc0 0504

After:

0000: a55a 0000 0020 0001 0000 5001 0000 004e
0008: 106b 1c0a 0100 0000 0002 0002 c606 0001
0010: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0018: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0f38 3a68 001f
0020: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0028: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0030: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0038: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
0040: 1400 168c 001c 1402 0001 0280 140a 5001
0048: 0000 140b 106b 004e 140f 0100 1c0a 1410
0050: 5001 01c2 101a 050a 0000 1419 0cc0 0504


Sorry for my English

ok. as I see you have got an HP lappy. Those are famous for their whitelisted Hardware. I think you will have to mod your BIOS. Look for it on the forums , there should be smthn about it in this topic too.

Ok, a make it rebranded, but still have error
"unable to attach hardware: HAL status 13
IO80211Controller : : stop called!
start [SourceCache/AirportDriverAtheros....loaded unsuccessfully" ( I try it on another Notebook, because of my Notebook BIOS ).
I do a rebrand of another Atheros WiFi card and got the same error.
After login in MAC OS X and type in terminal "lspci" it shows me that I have Network Controler Atheros ...blabla.... AR5006EG b/g [168c:001c], Apple ......blablabla.... [106b:004e] and other info.
I dont know what to do.

do you use the latest airport kexts from apple?
and whats your OS X version

I don't know what version of kext I have.
I use the iDeneb v 1.0 10.5.4 MAC OS X.
You mean that I must update first, right?
If so, I'll check this way today.

I have the following card:

> 168c:001c:1468:0428 "Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter"

According to ath_info only G is supported by my card, so I'm curious what IDs I should use since neither the a/b/g nor b/g IDs would be accurate for this card.

How did you do that? I have the same HP crap, and I'm unsuccessful with the rebranding, by the same reason you wrote above.

I did it following the guide from the first post, but whit already installed Linux-Ubuntu and working WiFi Card ( I skip the steps of installing drivers ).
After that got Error form the BIOS. Here was the beginning of the Game , because I can't use the card with the HP notebook.
By following of another guide, I back it to the original ID's on the same notebook.
After that I try with other notebook ( MSI ) with Atheros card. Got the same same error after rebrand and loading MAC OS X.
I must say that with rebranded and no rebranded card I get the same error.
Today I make a update to 10.5.5 from SoftwareUpdate and after restart I got another error ( with no rebranded card on HP ).
There was something like:
"ath0: 0x2..."
"ath0: unable to attach the device"
and after that the other error like before.
That is for now.
Will try more this night.

See ya!!!

I have a couple easier questions that I hope someone can clear up for me.

1. When entering the locations in the EEPROM for the various IDs, what is the proper format? For example, if the location is 008a, should you put it into the command exactly like that, or 0x8a?

2. When entering in the class ID like in the guide:

ath_info -g 3:0 -w 0x<memory_loc> <class_id_loc> 280

Should it just be "280" or should it be "0280"?

3. How do you determine which number to use when changing IDs (the 3 after the -g flag in the example)?

4. Which subvendor and subdevice ID should I use if my card only supports wireless g? I left info about my specific card in a previous comment.

Sorry if these are stupid questions, I just like to nail down any unknowns before I start messing around so I don't brick my card.

Ok... just ignore my last comment; naturally I figured out the answers to my own questions right after posting.

I changed all the IDs successfully and I can see the updated values in the EEPROM, however lspci still shows the old card information.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Did you make a reboot after rebranding the card?
I was able to see the new info only after reboot.

Yes; that was the first thing I thought to try but it didn't make any difference. I'm re-installing OSX at the moment so I have a fresh installation to work with.

Well slap me silly. After I installed Leopard, I booted back into Ubuntu and checked again and now it is rebranded. Go figure. Wonder why it didn't show up the last time I rebooted.

Hmm... Leopard still acts like there is no wireless card in the laptop. Odd.