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iMAC Intel 27" EMC2390 Can I swap out the original wifi card for an Intel 7260 card that gets 802.11ac? The connectors look the same but the intel card has Bluetooth on it as well, would this be an issue? I run nothing but windows on my imac now. It sure would be nice to get gigabit wireless as I am upgrading to an SSD hard drive. Thanks in advance!
The connectors are proprietary but they seem to be using the same design. Check for physical size to see if the card fits or not. If the card fits, the chances for antenna mismatch is actually not so much. 802.11ac use the same RF band with 802.11n@5Ghz. But the problem is that it is not worth the effort, yet. There is no such application that requires 802.11ac
Well, I have done it, - finally! :) I have upgraded successfully a 24" iMac 7,1 and a 24" iMac 9,1 with an original 802.11ac & BT 4.0 Apple Broadcom BCM94360CSAX combo card. So far I can say the WiFi and Bluetooth functionality is working perfectly (and independently from each other) under Mac OS X and Windows 7 & 10. The original two 802.11n and the Bluetooth antennas can be reused (with adapters), - although they are of course not 802.11ac optimized. Okay, what’s needed? an Apple Broadcom BCM94360CSAX combo card, approx $10.- on ebay OR an Apple Broadcom BCM943602CS (BT 4.1) combo card, approx $17.- on ebay AND a compatible Apple “pseudo-NGFF” to mini PCIe adapter (it is usually named as BCM94360CD to mini PCIe adapter), approx $4.- on ebay3x U.FL female to MHF4 male plug antenna adapter cable, approx $3.- per piece, so total $9.- on ebaya 10mm to 12mm washer (to hold Apple “pseudo-NGFF” to mini PCIe adapter at its position)a small piece of electrical tape (for isolating one side of the washer) Note, - the washer is not needed if you buy a (compatible) adapter with two “mounting jut” (left and right). My adapter had only one “mounting jut”, - at the wrong side. However, - regarding the hardware cost this will give a total of around $30 per 802.11ac & BT4.x upgrade. Why I have chosen the BCM94360CSAX card? Simply answer, because it has only 3 antenna connectors! The BCM94360CD would also work but it has 4 antenna connectors. So on an iMac, there would be one antenna too little. (Installing a fourth antenna can be a very hard task.) Regarding the antennas it was unclear for me in which order these should be connected to the new BCM94360CSAX card. On the installed card I decided me for: 5Ghz antenna, white or gray cable on ALU, black on PLASTIC models, J0Bluetooth antenna, blue cable on ALU, black on PLASTIC models, J12.4GHz antenna, black cable on ALU, grey on PLASTIC models, J2 Update: 20.12.2016: My first antenna config seems according the several Apple 802.11ac upgrade threads not “right”. Well, as of 2019, this config seems not the better one. ;-) white cable (topmost connector) J0black cable (lowermost connector) J1blue cable (middle connector) J2 Update: 10.08.2019: Although it worked for me quite good, the above mentioned second config is not the optimal one. The really best Antenna configuration for our Apple iMac line computes is my first selected configuration, this is confirmed here. The middle J1 connector is always for Bluetooth, and not J2. Keep in mind that the cable colors can vary between the iMac models. This relatively simple 802.11ac & BT 4.x upgrade will work for any 2006, 2007, 2008 & (early) 2009 Aluminum iMac computer. All more recent Unibody Aluminum iMacs (late 2009 and above) needs unfortunately, like some Apple Mac Pro models, a special (“version 3” labeled) mini PCIe adapter with external USB cable. This makes the whole upgrade process MUCH more complicated. To “strip down” the mini PCIe slot design at these newer iMac models is a totally stupid & myopic decision. Really weak Apple! :( So much for that… Nice to know, - the minimum Mac OS X version will be different. Because of the needed 802.11ac drivers the lowest supported OS will be 10.8 Mountain Lion, recommended is Mac OS Mavericks 10.9 and later. IMPORTANT note, - there (may) exist furthermore also a software issue on the 2010 and 2011 iMac model range. The 802.11ac upgrade will also work, but you will run into problems with the OS X Internet Recovery feature. As a result you will have at every startup a strange error message. It seems that the OS X Internet Recovery which is incorporated into the EFI firmware is not able to recognize a 802.11ac card. As a workaround you can make a firmware downgrade below iMac EFI Update 1.8 which will remove the whole OS X Internet Recovery feature. The following models are most likely affected by that annoying problem: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202313 Some last words to the (2015) BCM943602CS combo card. Main difference to the BCM94360CSAX combo card is support for Bluetooth 4.1. The BCM943602CS card will NOT work under OS X Mavericks 10.9, - it needs OS X Yosemite 10.10 or later. There exist also no official Windows 7 support from Apple for that combo card. The available Windows 10 drivers seems to have currently some stability issues (as of December 2016). For more information regarding the installation check my pictures, - sorry for the bad photo quality. ;) Update: 30.07.2019: I have clarified the naming of the Apple “pseudo-NGFF to mini PCIe Adapter”. It may looks somewhat like a standard M.2 NGFF connector but it is NOT the same. Therefore a normal M.2 NGFF to mini PCIe adapter will (most likely) NOT work.
It seems that the situation has changed during the last months. There exists meanwhile the possibility to install an original Apple BCM94360CD, BCM94360CSAX or BCM943602CS 802.11ac & Bluetooth combo card into an older Aluminum iMac. With that solution you will obtain at yours old iMac 802.11ac WiFi and full Bluetooth 4.x functionality. You have just to look for the right Apple pseudo-NGFF to Mini PCIe adapter. There are several sellers on ebay that offer “BCM94360CD upgrade kits”. Because it’s an original Apple card it will work out of the box in Mac OS X, - at least in more recent versions like Mavericks and Yosemite. Under Yosemite you will also get the new Continuity & Handoff OS features. Keep in mind that with only two antennas (in 2x2 mode) you will only reach approx. 867 Mbps and not full 1.3 Gbps performance. The third antenna will be used for the new Bluetooth 4.0 function of the BCM94360CD card; - the old Bluetooth module has to be removed. Of course you can add a fourth antenna to get the maximal (3x3) 1.3 Gbps 802.11ac performance. On an iMac computer it should be possible to install a further aerial but that may be not so easy. The simplest 802.11ac (3x3 antenna config) upgrade can be realized with the BCM94360CSAX or BCM943602CS combo cards. They will internally shift between Bluetooth and 802.11ac. With the three available antennas of an iMac it should be possible to reach (near) 1.3 Gbps WiFi performance. More information can be found at my second answer to this 802.11ac upgrade question. It is important to note that this “simple upgrade” possibility belongs primarily to the Apple iMac line computers. They seem to have “normal Mini PCIe slots” which incorporates also USB functionality. Well, this is true for the Aluminum iMac model range. Note, several MacBooks and MacPro computes do not offer USB functionality on their Mini PCIe slots. To enable also the Bluetooth 4.0 function of the Apple 802.11ac & Bluetooth combo card you need in such cases a special Apple pseudo-NGFF to Mini PCIe adapter. With that you can apply through an external cable also USB functionality to the 802.11ac & Bluetooth combo. Coming from the adapter, this cable has to be connected to the old Bluetooth module connector on the PCB which is in fact an embedded USB port.
Great post!!! I have a 20" 2007 iMac that I am about to upgrade the x7900 core2extreme that I put in it a few years ago to a E8135 out of a 2008 iMac so I can install macOS Sierra. Im also going to follow this guild to upgrade the wifi/BT card. This is the only post I have found about doing this on a 2007 model. So thank you. Ill post pics of the cpu and wifi card swap if anybody wants to see them. Thanks again, Nandor690
I upgraded my imac 2007 with a Penryn T9500 2.6 GHz Core 2 Duo, a Samsung EVO 860 and the BMC943602CS airport card. Under El Capitan everything works great, the old imac seems really fast but under High Sierra and Mojave (dosdude1.com) bluetooth is “not available” and the sound incl. keyboard volume control is messed up. There is a strange echo and artificial click in the overall sound, which is synchronous to the rythm of the music and which sounds like the speakers are broken or their membranes touch something on every beat. This is only on speakers, headphone sound is fine. And yes, I installed all of dosdude’s patches for the 7,1 platform. Any thought, ideas?
The audio board from the 2009 A1225 is not compatible, one the flat cable connector is wider than on the 2008 and 2007 models. What worked for me was a downgrade of AppleHDA.kext to the El Capitan version (v. 274.12) instead of dosdude’s Legacy Audio Patch, sound is back to normal. Reg. bluetooth, that is fine too with 10.14.4 and dosdude’s patch tool 1.3.
Making the switch to wireless ac is worthwhile and the best way to go about it is just as you are doing by updating one device at a time as the opportunity presents itself. Since wireless ac is compatible with all previous forms of wifi, interconnectivity will not be a problem. There is one issue with using the Intel 7260 card in your specific computer, though. I have read somewhere that the 7260 will only work on Intel Haswell-based computers. I believe it even mentions that on the Intel web site.
Interesting topic, - but even if the card will fit physically, the main problem with the Intel 7260ac card is the missing driver support in Mac OS X. So far I know there is currently absolutely no Intel Wi-Fi driver available. Therefore, on an iMac you will only get you Intel 7260ac card working under Linux or Windows operating system, - not Mac OS X. That doesn’t make a lot of sense for me. However, it makes absolutely sense if you are using a “Mac OS free” iMac computer…. ;) Well I can confirm that the Intel 7260ac card (with Bluetooth 4.0) does NOT require an Intel only or Intel Haswell-based system. I installed it at an Acer Aspire One 721, AMD Athlon II Neo CPU based Netbook. It works with latest Intel drivers absolutely perfect!!
Hi Guys, I know this is an older post so I apologize for hijacking it. I bought an Early 2009 iMac, 24", 2.66Ghz. I removed the WD 1TB hdd and replaced it with a 2TB SSHD. As above I would also like to possibly update my wifi card. I have a 240mb Fiber Optic connection. With unlimited downloads. At the moment this iMac is getting between 17mb and 24mb speed. My phone gets 50mb over the wifi, and my laptop which is an Acer Aspire 5750 gets 90mb speed. So if I put a gigabit wireless card in this iMac will i get better than 24mb. Thanks for the help.
I have just upgraded to wifi AC and Bluetooth 4 using the kit from osxwifi.com and the ifixit and osxwifi guides. Awkward but straightforward and everything is working perfectly, including continuity, etc. Also, mouse, keyboard etc are working much better. I am retired with no special computer skills so anyone should be able to do this if they follow the instructions to the letter and are patient, especially with the screen data cable which is the only real problem for me. I have a mid-2011, 21.5" iMac with 500GB SSD (upgraded using fixit guide) 20GB RAM and macOS Sierra version 10.12.3 Beta. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking but my computer seems to be faster with these upgrades than the equivalent newer models. It’s certainly a cheaper way of enhancing performance.
I just upgraded my iMAC 20" Early 2008, using the 802.11ac & Bluetooth BCM94360CSAX combo card (I also removed the original BT board), and it worked perfectly. I now proudly have a Transmission rate of 867Mbps on my old Imac, versus ~300Mbps previously :) thank you for sharing your experience !
I could not get the antenna adapter cables to mate with the WiFi card. I may have the wrong size of U.FL adapters for this project. The HiRose U.FL catalog shows five or six size options. Any idea on size required for the antennas on the various aluminum iMac models?
I’m really glad I found this thread. I got an early 2008 imac 24". I already bought a BCM94360CD card. But I got two questions. First, I can only find u.fl to mhf cables of 8 cm length on ebay - would that be long enough for an early 2008 imac 24"? Or is there another source for purchasing longer cables? I can only find this one seller on ebay. Second, I don’t know which miniPCI express to M.2 adapter to buy. There is always something about keys, and I don’t get from which side to count the pins. Does the BCM94360CD have 6 pins or 12 pins, i.e. do I need an adapter for key B or key E, or something different? Would appreaciate hints! Thank you.
Hello, I just launched in the upgrade of my iMac 20 ’’ mid 2007. I ordered the wifi card BCM94360CSAX, as well as antenna adapters and wifi card adapter. The Bluetooth works correctly but the wifi does not work, it looks but can not find a network. I’m in wifi 2.4 GHz at home, do you have a solution?
has anybody ever had bluetooth problems after the upgrade of the wifi/bt card and sierra? i use a logitech bluetooth keyboard and mouse and get some stuttering/lag of the cursor from time to time. same setup as before the upgrade, where it never occured.
I did essentially the same upgrade (20” iMac 7,1 completed Dec 2018, but I used the BCM9430CD Wifi/Bluetooth card - not that it should make any difference ) and have had no such problems with sound (I’m using Mojave now, but I did go through Sierra and High Sierra previously) . Occasionally, the computer will boot up and show “Bluetooth unavailable”, but I run the maintenance actions in Onyx and then its ok. Only suggestion I can make is to re-run the “Post Install app” and see if that improves anything and try Onyx as well.
I find the sound problem really annoying in a mac that works quite well as a video streaming client. I found the audio board 820-2364-A of the 2009 imac in the bay . I’ll get back to this thread, if that does the trick. Reg bluetooth I did both fresh install of Mojave and upgrade from High Sierra and re-ran post-install several times - all with experiment character. As soon as I have Mojave bluetooth is gone. I got around that with an ext iogear usb dongle.
