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No Wifi. Tried everything. Even formatting the Mac. No go (see pic). What?!

B

benyben123

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 22, 2013
172
26
Hi everyone.

So a few days ago this MBA lost WiFi, just like that, out of the blue.

I tried pretty much everything.

I even found another MBA of the same year, and (since I thought the WiFi card died) replaced the WiFi card.

No go.

I have reset PRAM and SMC. No go.

Today I decided to wipe it completely and install High Sierra from USB, fresh start.

Still no go (see pic).

Anyone can think of a reason WHY this is happening? Motherboard issue?

Thanks so much!!! Any advice would be much appreciated.
 

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I do have a usb adapter which I can try, but only tomorrow.

I have not tried Bluetooth (does it matter?).

Thx for the help!!!
 
Did you try the potentially defective Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card in another machine to test its functionality?

I suggested testing Bluetooth because Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are provided by the same card.
 
Does your System Information app show a wifi card?
Does your System Preferences/Network pane show a WiFi network choice? Click on that, then tell what is under Status?
Is there a choice to Turn On, or Turn Off?

If you already tried a known-good wifi card, from another MBAir, and no change on THIS MBAir --- likely a bad logic board.
What prevents you from using the OTHER MBAir?
 
Thx. Before formatting the system, I tried everything I can inside the Settings - Network (or is it called Internet?). Nothing worked. I followed the guides online.

I think you are correct, probably a MOBO issue. So odd, no drop or water damage. Just stopped working out of the blue.

PS - the other MBA has a faulty charging port.
 
The 13" mid-2013 to 2017 Air use the same charging port. It's pretty easy to replace since the charging port connects to the main logic board with a jumper cable.
 
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Update:
Seems that BT is working.

Here are some pics.

Notice: no WIFI in settings menu.
 

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Had the same issue last week. I reinstalled High Sierra from the recovery mode and everything back to normal.

You have to check the "System Report" and select wifi to see its log. Google to see what it should look like. If it's just a few lines of information, likely your system doesn't recognize the wifi card.

I know telling you to reinstall doesn't make sense but that's how I got mine fixed.
 
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Thanks! I did reinstall the OS. Still does not work. The WiFi icon won't even show on the top bar.

Update:
I just googled system report - wifi, and I can tell you that it certainly does not look like it should.

So yet, the OS does not recognize the card at all.

Another update: I tried to move the wires connected to the card. To look for damage. It seems like they are fine.

Running out of options. Sad to see this laptop go because of this. But I guess it's a MOBO issue.
 
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benyben123 said:
Hi. Thx. I did reset the PRAM and SMC.
Click to expand...
That sucks. I had this happen to an older Mac I had. The Wi-Fi Card went bad. They wanted to replace the whole board out of warranty, which would have cost more than the laptop was worth, so I just got a new one. :/
 
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Someone just suggested i'll just stick a USB WiFi adapter in it.

Will that work?

o_O
 
Last edited:
benyben123 said:
Hi everyone.

So a few days ago this MBA lost WiFi, just like that, out of the blue.

I tried pretty much everything.

I even found another MBA of the same year, and (since I thought the WiFi card died) replaced the WiFi card.

No go.

I have reset PRAM and SMC. No go.

Today I decided to wipe it completely and install High Sierra from USB, fresh start.

Still no go (see pic).

Anyone can think of a reason WHY this is happening? Motherboard issue?

Thanks so much!!! Any advice would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...


are you getting no WiFi network indication during set up / restore?
(yr attached screenshot seems to indicate so)

if so, its a known issue (meaning: it happened to me when i was re-installing Catalina onto a brand new 2019 MacBook Air in January 2020, and, if you search on line you will find several people with the same problem that WiFi could not be joined during setup. it finds networks but rejects all passwords).

in my finding this problem i knew my brand new 2019 MacBook Air had no problem with its actual WiFi hardware since after an initial setup with it the 1st time normal WiFi connections were no problem. but due to other issue i wanted to restore it and found the problem during a restore.
it wouldn't allow me therefore to even download Catalina.
i needed to use hotspot from my iPhone to download the OS and finish restore.
after getting through Restore, WiFi again worked normally.
its not a hardware issue.
 
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