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julienmh

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 25, 2012
17
0
Hi,
I am considering updating the Wi-Fi or Airport card on my current MBA 11' but I was wondering what the best place would be and if anyone had experience with changing them. Thank.
 

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
The Airport cards in the 2011 Macbook Air are custom boards that are designed only for the Macbook Air. You can't upgrade them with anything but the OEM Macbook Air card of the same model.
 

DisplacedMic

macrumors 65816
May 1, 2009
1,411
1
I have the 2012 model. My Wifi is acting up and is being very slow.

if i were you, i would try some soft solutions before i started replacing hardware...

is it still under warranty? did you try seeing what they said at the fruitstand?

what does "acting up" mean?

a faulty wifi card is generally a fairly binary thing - it works or it doesn't. your problem is probably either upstream of the card itself. if it really is a hardware problem it's more likely on the router side rather than the card.

have you tried other devices on the same hotspot? have you tried your MBA on different networks?
 

stchman

macrumors 6502a
Jul 16, 2012
671
2
St. Louis, MO
I have the 2012 model. My Wifi is acting up and is being very slow.

Is it slow when you connect to other routers? My 2012 MBA wifi is very speedy.

Maybe your wireless router has poor signal strength.

If your MBA is a 2012 model, it is more than likely still under warranty.
 

Stingray454

macrumors 6502a
Sep 22, 2009
593
115
Try holding the alt-key and clicking on the wifi symbol. That gives some more information about the WiFi connection. The signal strength is the "RSSI" field in the menu. What does it say?

If the signal strength is in the range of -80 to -100, it's bad reception. Anything between -20 and -80 is ok (closer to 0 = better, but I don't think you can get better than -20 even if the laptop is sitting on top of the router). Typical value should be maybe 60-70, depending on router / walls / distance to router and such. If you have very bad signal strength even though the computer is fairly close to the router, it might be a bad antenna on either side. It can also be that the channel used is interfering with something (other wifi networks, microwaves, or whatever), you can try changing the channel in the router settings.
 
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