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How to get Atheros AR5BXB6 working on 10.4.6?

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2006 6:57 pm
by viper11885
Hi,

I just received the Atheros AR5BXB6 Mini-PCI Express card for my T60. I noticed that it doesn't work properly in OSX 10.4.6. What do I need to do now?

Any help would be great!

Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 1:38 pm
by viper11885
After many attempts, I finally got it working. Here is how I did it for those of you that want to know:

Editing plist:
cd /System/Library/Extensions

sudo nano System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AirPortAtheros5424.kext/Contents/Info.plist

Add:
<string>pci168c,1014</string>

Setting Permissions:
sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions

kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions

Once you do all this in Terminal, do a reboot and the Atheros card should be working.

Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2006 8:04 pm
by ssimon
Did you by any chance select the "Wireless Hack" in the install Options of 10.4.6? If you do it will NOT work from the getgo and require hacking.

I installed 10.4.6 JaS and did not select ANY of the optional hacks and the Atheros AR5BXB6 worked immediately and automatically!

Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2006 12:23 pm
by viper11885
No, I did not have to install the wireless networking support during the installation.

However, the Atheros card did not automatically get detected in Mac OS.

After following the steps in my post above, it now works fine including WPA encryption.

Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 10:32 pm
by gastro54
Also, replacing the existing IO80211Family.kext with the one from the 10.4.5 Intel Update will fix it as well.

Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 5:34 pm
by viper11885
gastro54 wrote:Also, replacing the existing IO80211Family.kext with the one from the 10.4.5 Intel Update will fix it as well.
Hmm.. I first tried doing it this way but couldn't get it to work. Although I have seen many posts where users have been successful in using this method.