Discovering what type of Wifi Card you have

[ZackMacAttack]

Ok lets dig into what type of built in wifi card you have. There are three Basic types:

 

1. PCI, These cards are found in most to all Desktop PC's that have Wifi Capability.

2. Mini PCI, These cards are found in older Laptops

3. Mini PCIe (Mini PCI Express), These cards are found in Newer Laptops.

 

Also there is a shorter type of Mini PCIe card, They are about half the length of the standard Mini PCIe card but with the same interface and in most cases the laptop has space and mounts for the longer type. The example is a Broadcom 4324a and is NOT supported in OSX.

 

OK now let's list some wifi cards that work natively in OS X:

 

PCI Cards for Desktops:

Asus WL-138g v2 (Not Confirmed but should work in Snow Leo natively)

 

Mini PCI Cards for older laptops

Atheros AR5008 XSpan (A bit expensive, so try to find a fix for your card)

 

Mini PCIe Cards for newer laptops:

Broadcom BCM94321MC (802.11n, 300MB) works out of the box with both Leopard and Snow Leopard

Dell/Broadcom BCM4321 (802.11n, 300MB) works out of the box with both Leopard and Snow Leopard

Atheros AR5BXB6(-M) (802.11B/G, 54MB) works out of the box with Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard

Atheros AR9281 (K32 only) (802.11n, 300MB) works out of the box with Snow Leopard (maybe not 10.6.2)

Atheros AR5BXB72 (802.11n, 300MB) works out of the box with leopard and snow leopard

 

So i hope that this helps you find a AirPort solution!!!