Replace Airport/Bluetooth Card

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ohsnaphappy

ohsnaphappy

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 14, 2013
238
64
Hey guys, I have an early 2011 MBP with i7, ssd, 16gb of ram. So it's still plenty powerful for my occasional needs.

GPU died. Apple replaced entire logic board, even gave me a new battery. Sweet!

Got it back and a month later wifi died. Apple told me to piss off if I wanted anything else free. Also told me if I wanted wifi to work I'd need a whole new logic board for $700.

Then I found this: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Unibody+Early+2011+AirPort-Bluetooth+Board+Replacement/5886

A wifi/bluetooth board/cable replacement!!!!!!! Yay!

So will that fix it? Or was Apple right and I need a whole new logic board? Thanks!
 

T

treekram

macrumors 68000
Nov 9, 2015
1,849
401
Honolulu HI
In the comments in the link you supplied, it looks like several of the posters couldn't get their replacement Wi-Fi card to work. So buyer beware. There's also a comment that starts "I recently replaced" where the poster said just tightening things up made the card work again. I don't know if Apple would have taken your old Wi-Fi card and used it in the replacement motherboard. If you know what your original Wi-Fi MAC address was, you could compare it with what you have now. It could be that they weren't careful in replacing the Wi-Fi card so checking the connections may help and it looks like there's quite a few connection points to worry about. In any case, you might want to check that before buying a replacement.
 
ohsnaphappy

ohsnaphappy

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 14, 2013
238
64
In case anyone ever finds this thread, if you're having the same problem, I wouldn't recommend replacing the wifi/bluetooth board. So in my case, the bluetooth works, but the wifi does not. Like many others, my wifi icon has an X in it, and when you mouse over it, you see that the hardware is not installed. It is installed of course, but the logic board is not picking it up. I replaced the wifi card and cable, as sold by ifixit, and unfortunately that didn't fix my problem. An Apple genius told me I needed a whole new logic board and I guess he was right. From my point of view, it was worth $60 in ifixit parts to see if I could fix the wifi. But like I said, it didn't work. So don't waste the time and money. If your bluetooth works but your wifi doesn't, you probably need a new logic board.
 

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