Reddit mentions of AzureWave AW-CE123H / 802.11ac/n/b/g + Bluetooth 4.0 / Half-Size PCI-Express MiniCard

Just received my wireless card today, AzureWave AW-CE123H / 802.11ac/n/b/g + Bluetooth 4.0 / Half-Size PCI-Express MiniCard https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HRFS1GQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_6nxDDbGSRMRW9 installed the next and WiFi is running. Bluetooth and the other features aren’t working but I’m fixing it. This particular model has the GT720m but I’ve disabled it, i7 model with 8gb of ram and a 512gb Sandisk SSD.

Edit: Also, the display on this laptop sucks. Colors are washed out and just not as good. I looked up panel replacement maybe an IPS and cant find anything :-(

Yeah it works with sierra but I don't need the new features, I just never bothered to upgrade (same as with my actual macbook)

just bought this wifi card should be here soon!!

According to the internet, it is a BCM4352 based AzureWave AW-CE123H.

Review of card from Amazon

i think most motherboards are going to require a wifi card anyways. here's a very solid OS X compatible one: http://www.amazon.com/AzureWave-AW-CE123H-Bluetooth-Half-Size-PCI-Express/dp/B00HRFS1GQ

>I was hoping that with a modified bios a half size wlan + BT adapter would be able to work (for OS X booting).

It should. Here's the research I did involving the 7260AC, and the X220. Removing Pin 51 allows the bluetooth radio on the card to work. It is natively sent a disable signal.

I would recommend this card. CE123H

>Also what happens to the full size PCIe slot once the white list is removed.. can a user install a SSD in that slot?

Nothing happens to it. You can install an SSD.

Hello there and welcome.

Im glad you want to take a leap into hackintosh-ing. Its a really good (and cheaper) experience, that when done properly, it can work like a real mac, and you wouldnt tell the difference.


Now for the bad news. I looked at your laptop specs (and even those not listed on the link you provide). I dont want to scare you or anything, but you will have at least two main issues here, one could be easily solved but will require you to spend a little money, this is because no Intel WiMax wifi card is (and will likely never be) supported in Mac. You will need to buy a new Wireless card for your laptop. I had to do that as well and ended buying an AzureWave CE-123H Link, and ended with a hassle free working Bluetooth 4LE, and wifi 2.4/5.0ghz. I don’t know which specific intel card you have, since the link doesn’t tell much about it, so you need to look inside your laptop for its sticker or look into windows device manager so you can find the exact model you have, from there you need to identify the form factor of your wireless card, and search for a mac-compatible replacement. See here for a really good (and also really outdated) list of compatible wireless cards per OSX version.


The second issue you will find, and believe me, this can be a total PITA for you, is that you have a formerly Sandy Bridge intel CPU, those processors are packed with Intel HD Graphics 3000, and that version was never properly introduced in OSX, so you need to force the way into it by following some guides out there, that usually require you to “spoof” it so it looks like another device. The real problem is that a combination of “never been on osx” and “some intel bugs inside the graphics api”, will give you graphic artifacts on your screens, specially when using textures that renders in 3D, this is caused by some texture memory corruption that occurs inside the HD3000 architecture when on OSX. This, as far as i know, cannot be fixed and you will have to live with it. (This is solved on the next iteration of intel GPUs, its HD4000). That texture corruption can be mitigated greatly by using at least 8Gb of RAM, and some kernel boot arguments on OSX (ie: slide, darkwake, etc), but from my personal experience (i also owned an HD3000 laptop), you will never get rid of those 100%. Download a gpu benchmark tool when already in OSX and you will see what i say. The only permanent solution to this, is to completely forgot about HD3000 graphics and use a dedicated nVidia or ATI gpu, which your laptop doesn’t have (like the one i owned before my Ivy Bridge lappy)


Anyways, if you want to try and take a look at how it behaves in your personal laptop, i can try and give you a hand on the most complicated tasks, like DSDT patching and Kext finding. And can also guide you through the process. Again, im sorry if i scared you with the previous text, but i just wanted to be completely sincere about it. Also please take in mind that i only tested it on 2 HD3000 (Sandy Bridge) systems, one for Lenovo and one for Toshiba, and that every laptop out there (even from the same model) are different, hence your mileage may vary. But im pretty confident on the results and the field-experience i have.


You will need Clover in UEFI mode, Lilu.kext, IntelGraphicsFixup.kext, and NullCpuPowerManagement.kext, just to name some kexts, just to make your system bootable until you can create a custom SSDT to enable native hardware power management. And of course the base kext, FakeSMC.kext.


Feel free to ask any more question and/or to contact me directly if you want (my) help. Now i feel kinda bad for giving you those news so directly, and also feel like that is the least i can do now. And if you don’t, then good luck and i hope you didn’t face any persistent bug and you have a nice and neat experience :-)


EDIT: These are the bugs i mentioned.


BTW: Please DONT download any of the tools available on tonycrapx86. That site is full with poorly developed and buggy-as-hell tools they advertise as the holy grail. In fact the whole site has its tricks, the people there doesn’t want to help you make the system you want, they make you build the system they want. Its their way, or they will not help you. I suggest you that every time you look for info there, take it with a pinch of salt, carefully think about it, and then also search on other sources, and build your own conclusions.

The AzureWave AW-CE123H (also known as Dell DW1550) is a Mini PCIe card with AC WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 that works with macOS.

It does require a bit of configuration, however. There's are guides here and here with the details.

I have ordered this one https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HRFS1GQ/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=mcdotechserv-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00HRFS1GQ&linkId=50420a76a52f5929b0273929c7923b5f

It supports wifi AC and bluetooth 4

Essentially a combo broadcom 4352 and 20702A3. See more here: http://www.amazon.com/AzureWave-AW-CE123H-Bluetooth-Half-Size-PCI-Express/dp/B00HRFS1GQ

Hi there.

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For PCIe half mini, I personally have an AzureWave AW-CE123H card that works well with the right Broadcom patches, although from what I see Handoff/Continuity may be in flux so you'll have to do some digging on that one to confirm. Hope this helps!

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https://www.amazon.com/AzureWave-AW-CE123H-Bluetooth-Half-Size-PCI-Express/dp/B00HRFS1GQ

Happy to help! And you're right, the github guide doesn't particularly answer your query. But I feel that it's a good place to start when you're looking to replace wifi cards. On that note, BCM94352 would be a better choice for you as it has BT4.0 (AR9280 does not).

Yes, kind of. You're going to need an adapter because the card uses proprietary connector for PCI-E and USB. That's a full-size mini-pcie and you may have clearance issues on your board. Pictures look like built-in wifi is a half-size board.

If you are limited to half-size this and toleda patches will enable Handoff.

You probably mean the Broadcomm BCM94360CD card with a PCIe adapter? No you can't use that because mITX only has one PCIe slot which is already occupied by the GPU you want to use.

But the GA-Z170N-WIFI uses an half-height mPCIe card which is probably best replaced with an BCM94352 from AzureWave.

And as /u/rsoatz said M.2 is working OOB with an SSD with AHCI BUT i recently learned that NVME is als possible now with a patch.

The linked build looks very good. I would've gone with another PSU (EVGA G2) but that's also acceptable. Also you'll need to check if the M.2 SSD is NVME or AHCI so that you know if you need a patch or not.

check out my razer blade stealth post: i've linked a wifi + bt card that should theoretically work: http://www.amazon.com/AzureWave-AW-CE123H-Bluetooth-Half-Size-PCI-Express/dp/B00HRFS1GQ