How To: Installing an Airport Extreme Card in an Intel Mac Pro
Posted on 18 Jul ’07 by Earl
Installing an Apple Airport Extreme Card in a Intel Mac Pro is not considered by Apple to be a user installed option so you’ll find little or no instructional help from Apple.
It’s not a job for the timid. You’ll need a steady hand and patience. It will also help if you have small fingers. It’s difficult mainly due to the cramped space and small parts involved.
I purchased my intel Mac Pro from Apple as a refurbished unit and it didn’t have the 802.11b/g/n Airport Extreme Card installed as a factory option. I wanted this capability, so I purchased a compatible Airport Extreme (802.11n) from FastMac and did it myself.
Disclaimer: Here’s the procedures I followed. Use them at your own risk. It worked for me but I’m not responsible for any damages you might do to your computer.
Instructions for Installing a Airport Extreme Card in an Intel Mac Pro:
1. Lift the rear latch and remove the side panel of the Mac Pro.
2. Place the Mac Pro on it’s side on a desk or workbench where you can have easy access. Note the location where the new Airport Extreme Card will be installed.
3. Remove hard drive bays 1 & 2 to give yourself some extra room. The latch in the back that was used to remove the side panel will have to remained released to remove the drives bays. The drive bays pull straight out once this latch is released.
4. Note the mounting points for the Airport Extreme Card. The card slot is spring loaded so when you put the card in the rear of the card will be elevated above the two rear mounting tabs.
5. Gently push the Airport Extreme Card into the mounting slot leaving the rear slightly elevated.
6. Carefully press down the rear of the card and insert the two mounting screws. A small magnetic screwdriver may be of help here. Locate the two WiFi antenna leads stored in the area above the cards mounting location and attached them to the two antenna post on the card. There will also be a bluetooth antenna lead in that same area. Inserting these screws and attaching the antenna leads is the most difficult part of this install due to the limited space and the small size of the parts involved. Be patience and careful not to force things.
7. Slide the two hard drive bays back into their correct slots. Double check everything and remount the side panel.
8. Reconnect the Mac Pro to the keyboard, mouse, monitor and network and boot. On the Apple Menu check “About this Mac” to confirm that the Airport Extreme card is being recognized.
9. Go to System Preferenced/Network and configure your new Airport Extreme card.
10. Download and install the Airport Extreme Enabler from Apple in order to use the card in 802.11n mode. Reboot you Mac Pro.
11. You’re finished! Enjoy your new WiFi capabilities.
Hey guys. This is an awesome thread, thanks for starting it!
Anyways I need to purchase two cards for two Mac Pros. I looked on FastMac and the 802.11n card is $89.99 http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.php?cPath=10_11_39&products_id=207. Amazon has the card for $34.99 http://www.amazon.com/Apple-AirPort-Extreme-Card-Mac/dp/tech-data/B003U61UIM/ref=de_a_smtd
Any difference in these?
Also where do wires 1,2,3 come from? Do they already exist in the tower or do they come with the card?
Hi and sorry for my bad english….
I have been looking for information about a personal install of the Airpot Extreme 802.1.1.n card on my mac pro cuad core 2008. Information in this website it´s good but it´s not clear the cable positien. Looking for aditional information i found this tutorial:
http://guides.macrumors.com/Adding_Bluetooth_and_Wireless_to_a_Mac_Pro
Here you´ll find all the info about the cable configuration and i found all the solutions to my problems.
Mini card running and no problems with bluetooth. 20$ ebay… Whow!
Best,
Nacho.
WOW.
The macrumors guide you are referring to is utter nonsense (re. the bluetooth cable). Keep in mind that the bluetooth antenna for the 2006-2008 models separate from the WiFi antenna and is hidden behind the grey plastic frame surrounding the PCI express slots (the one that shows the serial numbers).
This is the one you need to use the BT reception. and it will work fine
The antenna connectors (1,2,3) all lead to the wifi antenna array in the bottom of the case (hidden by the grey model label underneath the mac).
Generally #1 goes to the bottom and #3 or #2 goes to the top of the card. The wifi performance may vary depending on the chosen WiFi card model and the type of network G versus N and I would swap the 2 cables to test for best signal.
Thank’s a lot brother…
This is really helpful thanks guys – anyone know which wires I should connect if my Airport Express card has 3 antenna slots (labelled 0,1,2 from top to bottom)?
Thanks for doing this! life saver.. If you’re like me then you’re a complete novice at this – but take heart I just did it! wihoo
Note for me, at first I couldn’t find the antennas. They were hidden behind the motherboard. the 3 of them are together and just split separately at the end. the group was actually taped to the top part (so I had to remove the black tape with small pliers to access the antenas). I could barely see the label 3 on one of them, but that was the right group.
Also, it took me ages to get the antennas clicked into the airport card. You really just have to keep trying. In the end both of them went in pretty smoothly. But now my hands and back are sore from the maneuvering.
And also, even though I had the magnetic screwdriver, I lost one of the screws. Oops, hope that doesn’t do any damage. Ha. Luckily I had the first one screwed in so it should stay in place.
Don’t give up – you can do it! I powered everything up and went into network preferences and it works!
Glad it all worked out for you…good job! Thanks for the feedback/comment!
Thanks, This helped me more than the mac support.
Curis, I’m happy you found this article to be of service.