Apple and Airport

I've gotten fed up with the 10.4.10 problems on AirPort for my MacBook Pro. It's been unbelievably flaky.

So I did what any self-respecting geek would do: I ran a backup, then started screwing around with system internals.

I'm pleased to report that if you replace IO80211Family.kext in 10.4.10 with the version from 10.4.9 the problems go away. I'm now back up to my old speed.

Lest you become dismayed, the driver *does* load. I'm absolutely sure. The key is some permissions have to be set right or the system will refuse to load the kext (try with kextload manually for a helpful error message).

Note that I'm not willing to offer much (if any) help to people to allow them to do this. If you want to go mucking around in system internals, it's at your own risk and I'll have no part in helping you shoot your own foot. I have no idea how well Software Update will handle swapping kexts like this, so be wary on the whole.

But my wireless works fast and without flakiness again. No speed stalls or random dropouts yet!