USB/ ExpressCard Wireless adapters?

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Hi everybody,

The signal reception from the internal Airport Card on my 17" MBP 2.33GHz has weakened of late, and it is not a router issue, as there is another mac in my household that is not experiencing problems. I've read that the cards on these early Core 2 Duo MBP's can be a bit dodgy sometimes.

I would really like an ExpressCard wireless adapter, or one of the slimline USB devices, but I am really struggling to find one that is 10.6 compatible.

I've read some of the stuff about RaLink drivers supposedly working, but what brands use this type of chipset?

Many thanks!:)
 

chscag

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Why don't you just change out your built in Airport card? They're not expensive ($114) and the procedure is fairly straight forward.

See this LINK

Here's the card: LINK
 
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Thanks chscag. I did not buy the MBP new, so I opened it up last night to see if anything was awry. Looks like somebody has put a longer screw into the back of the casing, by the screen hinge, and it has pinched one of the antenna wires! argh. Looks like one is slightly frayed, which explains the loss of signal over the last couple of months i guess?

Sorry, for the late reply due to time difference here in London. Can I buy a replacement internal antenna? my Airport Extreme card has 3 antenna inputs (i've seen some with just 2 before, so could i potentially bypass the frayed wire with one of these?)

thanks
 

cwa107


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Assuming you can't get another one (and I'd check on iFixit: The free repair manual), you could conceivably cut and solder the existing one.

Aside from doing this, I have tested an ASUS USB-N10 and it works fine on 10.6. Another option might be to check this site out, which specializes in Mac WiFi adapters.
 
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Thanks cwa107, the Asus stick looks perfect. Shame its not 300mbps, but the form-factor is great.

I saw an iFixit tutorial to change the antenna, but its a big job, and by the looks of it, the Asus usb may actually be better?

Thanks!
 

cwa107


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The ASUS card has its own software for managing connections. It's a little clunky - you can tell it might have been ported from Linux. Other than that, it works great.

My company ordered a truckload of these adapters and we didn't even use 1/3 of them. So, I took one home to test it out on my deck (which had always been a problem area for my last MBP). It worked great, no trouble getting on or staying on the wireless. I can only imagine it's because the normal antennas are internal, behind the aluminum enclosure, whereas this one is in a plastic case and external to the machine.

Anyway it will definitely do the job and it's not intrusive whatsoever. Personally, I would try to splice a bit of wire in there to fix the issue - but not sure how comfortable you are with it.
 

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