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Mid 2010 Model A1278 / 2.4 or 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo processor

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Can I get my airport to work again?

I have a Macbook pro mid 2010. A time ago I replaced my superdrive with an extra hard drive. All worked fine. But I replaced the second hard drive, and managed to damage the Airport connector (a tiny piece of plastic got stuck when I tried to reconnect it). The pins were misaligned but I managed to realign them, at this point I don't see any fysical damage to the connector or cable.

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I've searched google for my options. I found out that the airport card is for wifi and bluetooth. Bluetooth works fine to my surprise. But no airport card is found says OS X.

I tried an external wifi adapter, it doesn't work in yosemite (but it works in bootcamp). Sure I've seen all the hacks and programs to get it to work in Mac. But this doesn't work in Yosemite.

So I want to know my options:

  • Is the motherboard damaged (the connector on the motherboard, bluetooth still works though)? Replacement not an option in this case?
  • Is the cable damaged and can I simply order a new cable, attach it to the existing airport card and connect it?
  • Do I need to order a whole new airport card with connector cable?
  • Do I need to give up hope and try to live with my ethernet cable?

In other words: I know from the ifixit site how to replace the connector cable. But I want to know if that is the problem.

Thanks guys!

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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Can you take some pictures of the damaged connector and cable. Post time in your question (edit mode). So we can have an idea what the problem is here.

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@Dan, I added the photos in my first post. But as you'll see, there isn't any damage visible, I think.

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Sadly, the logic board connector is somewhat damaged. If you look closely the metal shell detent plates are bent up (one maybe missing) they help hold the cable in and align the interconnecting contacts. Even with the slightly blurred image it looks like the shell its self is also pulled up on the right which is also a bad sign.

At this point I think you'll need to find a board repair person to replace the connector. You could try carefully bending down the tabs and shell but I find the metal is to far fatigued to hold its shape or the tabs just snap off.

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Ok thanks for your quick reply.

A motherboard is too expensive to repair in a MacBook that is 5 years old, so I'll just keep using my Ethernet cable and look out for a new MacBook.

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I was putting my superdrive back inside my macbook, so I could use the original CD to reinstall Snow leopard and update to mountain lion on my macbook (since the USB wifi adapter I bought only supported up to this version), this worked but mountain lion was just to %#*@ ugly. So I placed my second hard drive back in my macbook, wanted to do a clean install of Windows 10 (because there the wifi adapter would work without a problem) and during the windows setup, it asked me to which Wifi network I wanted to connect. I didn't believe my eyes, rushed myself to an internet recovery for OSX Yosemite and now my wifi is working again!! I think by switching to the superdrive and back to the second hard drive I aligned the airport adapter cable perfect .. And I will never ever open my laptop again to replace something haha!

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