TP-Link TL-WN951N working?

[Cool McCool]

I understand there has been some success getting the TP-Link TL-WN951N wireless PCI card to work with OSX, but the discussions about this Atheros based card are somewhat old. What do I need to do to get this wireless card working in 64-bit mode with OSX 10.6.8 ??

[Cool McCool]

Ok after searching the web I found the solution. I hope this helps others.

 

I did not have to apply AtherosFix.kext or any changes to IO80211Family.kext.

 

I found the answer here: http://netkas.org/?paged=4

 

Good old netkas. Where would we be without him?

 

His solution worked for me.

 

Since I'm already running 10.6.8, what I did it was to load MacOSXUpdCombo10.6.7.dmg using Pacifist.

 

In Pacifist, choosing the "Package Contents" tab I went to:

 

"Contents of MacOSXUpdCombo10.6.7.pkg"

then "Contents of manual"

then "Contents of SUBaseSystemCombo10.6.7.pkg"

then "System/Library/SystemConfiguration"

 

I found Apple80211Monitor.bundle there, clicked on it and chose to "Extract to Custom Location", and I extracted the Apple80211Monitor.bundle file to my home directory. Then I moved the existing /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/Apple80211Monitor.bundle off to some folder for safekeeping (just in case I need it some day), and then moved the Apple80211Monitor.bundle copy that I had just extracted using Pacifist into the /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/ folder.

 

This is what it now looks like from a terminal window (I like iTerm):

 

bash-3.2# ls -ld /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/Apple80211Monitor.bundle

drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Dec 17 2010 /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/Apple80211Monitor.bundle

 

Using Apple's "System Profiler", this is what it looks like:

 

Interfaces:

en1:

Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x168C, 0x3071)

Firmware Version: Atheros 5416: 2.1.14.6

Locale: Unknown

Country Code: CN

Supported PHY Modes: 802.11 b/g/n

Supported Channels: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Status: Network Service Inactive

 

 

FYI the 10.6.8 version of Apple80211Monitor.bundle is 6.2.5. The 10.6.7 version is 6.2.4. Again, you want 6.2.4.

 

So thats it. I now have wireless 802-11n, and thats all I had to do to get it working. It seems to be a nice little $25 card, but I haven't had the chance to run any speed tests on it yet.

 

Thanks netkas!

 

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Update: My wireless connection does not wake up from a sleep, so I have more work to do here. No doubt when I get it fixed, my "Status" in "System Profiler" will show an active network service. I'll post another update when I get it figured out. Since I don't have a need to tinker with my system very often, I'll need to re-learn some things I've forgotten. Any suggestions or nudging in the right direction would be appreciated.

 

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Update: I've been too busy to spend much time on this, but this wireless card continues to work with good throughput. Its fast for sure, but it is still listed in "System Profiler" as "Network Service Inactive". Whats curious about it is if I open up a terminal window and issue the "ifconfig" command I get this response:

 

 

en1: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

ether 00:23:cd:ce:2f:af

inet6 fe80::223:cdff:fece:2faf%en1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x6

inet 192.168.1.34 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255

media: autoselect

status: active

 

Note the status is "active". It still refuses to wake from sleep, but I can manually make the card active again through "Network Preferences" and manually choosing my network. It would be nice not to have to do this step. Somehow I think its related to the fact that in "System Profiler" it states under "PCI Cards" that: "This computer doesn't contain any PCI cards. If you installed PCI cards, make sure they’re properly installed." I'm thinking if I had that situation corrected, then my wireless card would wake from a system sleep.