Extra Antenna in my Macbook Pro?

[Guess]

So I was replacing the hard drive on my 3 day old Macbook Pro to a 500gb Samsung when I noticed that there was a spare wrapped antenna inside my macbook pro.

I have a black one that is connected to the primary on my wifi card, a blue one that is connected to the aux, and then a gray one that currently has heat wrapping on it to prevent it from shorting anything.

Anyone know what this is for?

My understanding is that the old macbook pro's had 3 connections on the airport extreme, mine only has two, anyone know why?

 

[Dmac77]

I really have no idea, but my best guess is that it is for the bluetooth.

Don

P.S.

Sorry that I can't be of much more help.

 

[tip]

I believe the current Airport Extreme has three antennae connections.

 

[Xipper]

I know I'm off topic, but how is the performance on the 500gb Samsung? I am seriously tempted to order one. It appears it should be far better than the Fujitsu MHW2160BH that is in it now.

thx!

 

[microq]

This is correct

So I was replacing the hard drive when I noticed that there was a spare wrapped antenna inside my macbook pro.

Hey there, that is correct. It all depends on what type of Airport Extreme card is in your machine - Apple used two types based on two different chipsets, one Atheros (3 antennae) and also a Broadcom based card (2 antennae).

As someone here incorrectly comments - this extra antenna is not for bluetooth, there is a seperate bluetooth antenna elsewhere in the machine.

Hope that explains why you have an extra antenna.

Dave

 

[alphaod]

It depends on what network card your computer had; if it has the Broadcom card (which has better reception and signal strength) it uses 2 antenna; if you have an Atheros card it uses 3 antenna.