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The Acer aspire 3680 is listed twice as working on the Wiki page but with very vague explanations. After thoroughly searching the forums I found the Atheros tutorial and followed pretty much every version of it that I could find and still no wifi. I'm trying to find someone that may have this laptop, preferably the ones that posted on the wiki, to maybe explain how they have had better results... Any help would be great. I also have no sound, but this is not as important to me right now as getting the wifi or at the very least getting the lan working. The pcmcia slot also appears to have no power... :-( please help!

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I've had an Acer Aspire 3680 running JAS 10.4.8 for a couple of months. Built-in WiFi works (I'm using it to send this reply).  Although I was advised to swap out a kext for WiFi, I found an easier fix somewhere, probably on this thread: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...20846&st=40

 

You just need to edit a couple of files. First, open system/library/extensions/IO80211Family.kext [show package contents] plugins/airportatheros5424.kext [show package contents]/contents/info.plist.

 

Edit IONameMatch to look like this:

 

<string>pci168c,1a</string>

<string>pci168c,1A</string>

<string>pci168c,001A</string>

<string>pci168c,001a</string>

 

Only one of the above lines is crucial, but whoever came up with this fix didn't bother to figure out which, nor did I. The others do no harm.

 

Save, reboot and the NetworkInterface file will appear. Edit it,

Mac/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist

to change 0 to 1 and en0 to en1 and built-in WiFi thinks it’s Airport

and works!

 

Occasionally Airport forgets the WEP password, but re-entering it gets WiFi working again.

 

Now, what else? PCMCIA? I'm told there's a fix for that on Insanely Mac, too, but I haven't found it. I don't really need it, but if you track the fix down, let me know.

 

Oh, sound? It works. I can't remember the fix. Probably on the above thread. If you can't find it, let me know and I'll try to track it down.

 

The 3680 has got to be the least expensive OSX86 laptop, at $399. The Mac OS and software runs fine, and with VMware Fusion I can run XP, too, when needed.

 

 

The Acer aspire 3680 is listed twice as working on the Wiki page but with very vague explanations. After thoroughly searching the forums I found the Atheros tutorial and followed pretty much every version of it that I could find and still no wifi. I'm trying to find someone that may have this laptop, preferably the ones that posted on the wiki, to maybe explain how they have had better results... Any help would be great. I also have no sound, but this is not as important to me right now as getting the wifi or at the very least getting the lan working. The pcmcia slot also appears to have no power... :-( please help!
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Hello !

 

Thanks for your reply, I tried your fix and it didn't work for mw. I'm using the Jas 10.4.8 updated to 10.4.9 but I also have the IO file from 10.4.5 that I could use if that is what you used. Another question that I have is, there seems to be severals revs of this laptop, does yours have a switch on the front of it for the wifi? I read in another thread that people were having problems with the laptops that have the switches because OSX and linux didnt know how to use the switch and therefore didnt give power to the PCIE bus that the chip is connected to.... Thanks for your help again!

 

I should be more specific and mention that I never get the NetworkInterface file to be created. In fact, none of the fixes I have tried on this forum have ever produced this file.

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I've gotten some replies indicating that that the above fix doesn't work on their laptop. My 3680-2022 came with Atheros AR5005G wireless. Other 3680s may have other wireless chips.  If you have a Broadcom or other chip, you'll need to do some searching through Insanely Mac and Google to find the right fix for it. 

 

Yes, my 3680 does have a switch in front to turn wifi on and off. I've accidentally hit the switch when running XP, Vista, and OS X, so I've learned the hard way that the switch is software-independent, at least on the 3680-2022.

 

 

Hello !

 

Thanks for your reply, I tried your fix and it didn't work for mw. I'm using the Jas 10.4.8 updated to 10.4.9 but I also have the IO file from 10.4.5 that I could use if that is what you used. Another question that I have is, there seems to be severals revs of this laptop, does yours have a switch on the front of it for the wifi? I read in another thread that people were having problems with the laptops that have the switches because OSX and linux didnt know how to use the switch and therefore didnt give power to the PCIE bus that the chip is connected to.... Thanks for your help again!

 

I should be more specific and mention that I never get the NetworkInterface file to be created. In fact, none of the fixes I have tried on this forum have ever produced this file.

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thanks again. I reinstalled vista and it DOES show up in device manager as a broadcom. I think I saw a tutorial on getting that working so I reinstalling jas again to see if I will have any luck (might as well dual boot anyway right?) I'll let you know if I have any luck

 

 

How can I find out my card's device ID?

 

oops

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...mp;#entry244885

 

 

the search function in this forum is not so good, but the community is great so whatver i guess

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OK, I followed the " Broadcom Wireless Tutorial" here:

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=23684

 

and my dev ID (4311) was already listed, I still followed the rest of the directions, HOWEVER, I do NOT have /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist on my system. What could be the problem? Is this file generated somehow? When I was first booting to the jas dvd I noticed some text saying something about missing airport driver, not sure if this is normal but I can't change the en0 to en1 because I have no NetworkInterfaces.plist. Here is a screenshot of my dev id so you know i'm not taking crazy pills:

 

hwidvs0.jpg

 

 

*EDIT* I'm going to start a new thread so people don't think this is just about the laptop

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  • 2 weeks later...

ok:

 

with uphuck 1.3 i couldnt open the network tab in system preferances, it would crash every time.

 

so i went with JAS 10.4.8.

 

then i used this:

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...mp;#entry238508

 

make sure you do the extra step where you set the integer and the et to 1 from 0.

 

with uphuck the sound worked out of the box with the speakers, i am working on fixxing that now.

 

peace

 

 

ps:

 

yeah 75 is a steal, it was at a best buy with no battery, they were really looking for a sale and i made the offer.

 

HOLLA

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The Acer aspire 3680 is listed twice as working on the Wiki page but with very vague explanations. After thoroughly searching the forums I found the Atheros tutorial and followed pretty much every version of it that I could find and still no wifi. I'm trying to find someone that may have this laptop, preferably the ones that posted on the wiki, to maybe explain how they have had better results... Any help would be great. I also have no sound, but this is not as important to me right now as getting the wifi or at the very least getting the lan working. The pcmcia slot also appears to have no power... :-( please help!

 

Their are many variant for Acer Aspire 3680. Maybe at the wiki website is the old one.

My friend bought the same model (series) with Broadom (can't remember the exact model), able to use the wireless device after following tutorial from this forum. However, I'm bought the same model (a year later), got Atheros AR5007EG (AR5BXB63 chipset), not able to get it to work. Right now I'm using USB wireless device for temporary solution. I tried the PCMCIA wireles device, however the driver cannot recognized the hardware. Maybe my PCMCIA adapter is not configured properly, even though it started properly at startup. (after editing the memory range and I/O range at IOPCCardFamily.kext, and replaced IOPCIFamily.kext with 10.4.4 version)

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ive scene enough, is it an atheros card? If so which atheros card do you have?

 

Is it pci-e?

 

It's fully working?

 

my wireless wouldnt work, until i held down the wireless power switch while i turned on the computer.
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