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AzureWave AR5891 (Atheros AR928x) driver


Hoptek
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Hello :(

 

I've installed 10.5.5 using iDeneb on an Asus 1000HE. Everything works other than wireless. It looks like the wireless card is AzureWave AR5891 (Atheros AR928x) and it's not recognized by the system. The same computer has XP and Ubuntu 8.10 also installed and wireless works on both.

 

Does anybody have an idea where to get the driver or have the will to develop it or possibly port it from Linux? :blink:

 

Thanks!

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Hello Hoptek,

 

As far as I know, there's no driver yet for the 928x card in the 1000HE. If you haven't already looked at it, you might check out the extensive comments over at http://smallcomputing.net/2009/02/25/how-t...-1000he-netbook for more info.

 

Theres a bunch of us over there with 1000HEs working on a bunch of different issues. No one has gotten the original wireless card to work yet, but 4 or 5 of us have switched to Broadcom wireless cards and have it working now. Its a pretty hard process to replace them but not impossible.

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Thanks for the advise, but I would not want to take my computer apart. It doesn't feel like it could handle being dismantled besides voiding the warranty.

 

I was looking for a solution more in the lines of the Atheros L1E - ATL1E driver solution (ported from FreeBSD to OSX, see http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=140907).

 

 

 

Hello Hoptek,

 

As far as I know, there's no driver yet for the 928x card in the 1000HE. If you haven't already looked at it, you might check out the extensive comments over at http://smallcomputing.net/2009/02/25/how-t...-1000he-netbook for more info.

 

Theres a bunch of us over there with 1000HEs working on a bunch of different issues. No one has gotten the original wireless card to work yet, but 4 or 5 of us have switched to Broadcom wireless cards and have it working now. Its a pretty hard process to replace them but not impossible.

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I totally understand. Taking it apart is not an easy process, and yes, may void the warranty. Having done it once, I would not want to do it again. That said, I am glad I did it now that the wireless card swap is done-I have native airport in my 1000HE.

 

There seems to be enough interest in the 1000HE and this particular card that maybe someone will be able to get the driver ported. Might as well be patient and see what happens.

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Does anybody have an idea where to get the driver or have the will to develop it or possibly port it from Linux?

 

I've looked at the OS X driver model, and it's fairly easy to comprehend. The problematic part is understanding what the Linux driver does, and I haven't spent enough time in this area yet. The most common approach seems to be deriving the driver from IOEthernetController, rather than IO80211Controller. The former requires you to write your own tools for managing settings, connections to APs etc., while the latter registers the card as a standard "Airport" device, thus allowing you to use the tools built into OSX. The problem is that IO80211Controller is undocumented, and not intended as a part of the public driver API (probably since there's not a huge market for 3rd party WLAN cards) and thus Apple might change it without forewarning.

 

Now, I don't have a 1000HE yet, nor any prior driver hacking skills, but if there's anyone else also interested in writing a driver for this card, I'd be happy to join the conversation.

 

A possible stopgap solution for wireless would be to get an external USB dongle. I have no idea which ones are supported, but I'm sure there's a list somewhere.

 

Additional resources:

http://developer.apple.com/documentation/D...ntro/Intro.html

http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/ath9k

http://code.google.com/p/iwidarwin

 

There seems to be enough interest in the 1000HE and this particular card that maybe someone will be able to get the driver ported. Might as well be patient and see what happens.

 

The same particular card can also be found in the MSI Wind U100 and U120 models, as well as the EEE PC S101, so hopefully there's a lot more people in the same boat.

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I'm Italian, and I have the same problem in my 1000he :(

Everybody does, of all nationalities!

 

External USB dongles do work; I have a RT73-based dongle that works fine. It's kludgy, though. I don't plan on using OSX as my primary OS until the wireless works.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Hello Hoptek,

 

As far as I know, there's no driver yet for the 928x card in the 1000HE. If you haven't already looked at it, you might check out the extensive comments over at http://smallcomputing.net/2009/02/25/how-t...-1000he-netbook for more info.

 

Theres a bunch of us over there with 1000HEs working on a bunch of different issues. No one has gotten the original wireless card to work yet, but 4 or 5 of us have switched to Broadcom wireless cards and have it working now. Its a pretty hard process to replace them but not impossible.

 

What is the Broadcom card that you got, from where and how much? I ripped apart my 1000HE today hoping to put my old MBP 802.11g card into the netbook, but the network card seems so tiny. Is there such a thing as micro PCI-E?

 

The card I have is like this: but it's obviously too big for the spot

 

09bb_2.JPG

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What is the Broadcom card that you got, from where and how much? I ripped apart my 1000HE today hoping to put my old MBP 802.11g card into the netbook, but the network card seems so tiny. Is there such a thing as micro PCI-E?

 

The card I have is like this: but it's obviously too big for the spot

 

09bb_2.JPG

 

Here's the info on the card I bought. http://tinyurl.com/d2jsf9 The number BCM4321 is what is listed on the ebay page, there was nothing on the card itself that matched this exactly. I have also seen this card listed as BCM94321 The seller did not list it with the “9″ in the number. Here’s the whole info on the card from System Profiler/Airport Card after install: Wireless Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0×14E4, 0×88); Wireless Card Locale: Worldwide; Wireless Card Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.10.38.27)

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Hi all,

 

I try to find a solution like you to have wifi card working on my 1000HE.

 

I read this post : http://forums.msiwind.net/osx-software/ath...928x-t8939.html

 

It says that atheros chipset is reconized in OSX and if we add the device id in plist.info, it should be worked.

 

Do you think the solution is possible and so simple??

 

I'll try this night. ;)

 

Have a nice day.

 

PS : Excuse for my poor English

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...
nemorigolo, does it work?

 

I've tried to modify this file: /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirPortAtheros.kext/Contents/Info.plist

 

I've added the pci168c,2a string in the IONameMatch array but it doesn't work.

 

Does anybody have a working solution to make the Atheros AR928x chipset recognized in Leopard?

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  • 1 month later...
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