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I purchased a A1311 iMac education edition.
I was wondering if it was able to support Bluetooth if the proper parts were added or if its even possible.
Is this a good question?
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As far as I know I don't believe it's possible. If it IS possible you would need the appropriate daughterboard (Airport & wifi are on the same card, I believe), power/data cable between the motherboard and daughterboard, and internal antennae.
It's interesting to me that Apple doesn't say this model iMac "lacks Bluetooth" but it actually "does not support Bluetooth". This leads me to believe that the required interface on the motherboard for the Bluetooth daughterboard may not exist, and/or Apple has a software block in place to prevent the Bluetooth kernel from loading on this model.
It would surely be a lot simpler to use a Bluetooth USB device.
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Keep in mind the reason Apple produced this system was for school computer labs.
Clearly, Apple needed to trim out the extras and lower the price to the bare minimum. Thats not to say the missing parts couldn't be added back in. Its then a question of cost and understanding the limitations of this system.
Apple did not make the effort to stop it.
Steve is absolutely correct, Apple made internal Bluetooth not an option on the edu models
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you can get a bluetooth usb adapter and load its drivers via disk
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I haven't seen any current USB units with MacOS drivers.
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Here’s someone else who did it My iMac doesn't have a bluetooth module
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That's not showing they did it, It's showing a repair manual of how to remove the Bluetooth board and the part numbers you would need so it was just in theory not in practice
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buy a Mac compatible USB Bluetooth dongle is the only way I promise you… https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-USB-Tra...
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that "dongle" says its for windows only, not OSX compatible
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