Chosen Solution
So I dropped my MacBook Pro down the stairs (with my 12.9" iPad Pro), and I don’t have the money to replace them right now. I need to continue my iOS App development, so I tried to pull out my old Late 2008 MacBook Air, but I can’t install Xcode 9 et al on it. I found a site by ‘dosdud1’ that has a High Sierra patcher on it to install current macOS on old hardware, but my AirPort Extreme card in the Air is one of only 8 that won’t work. So while it allows me to get High Sierra and Xcode on it, it disables my WiFi Card. I have the usb to Ethernet dongle, but it’s a pain, so I read on this amazing guy’s site that it’s possible to replace the A1237 and A1304 WiFi Card with a different Airport card that is supported by High Sierra and fits in the Late 2008 MacBook Air. I’ve spent the last 200 mins looking, googling and trying to find which card this could be - could someone please help? I found this on Ebay: BCM94331PCIEBT4CAX But the alignment holes won’t line up, and I don’t know if it will work as it has 4 aerial attachments not 3. Thanks!
First you are doing a very risky thing here! I have not seen anything like this being done on this series. So it may not work and/or it could damage your system! Just by looking at the parts this is the closest one that has the similar connector: MacBook Pro Unibody (Early 2011-Mid 2012) AirPort/Bluetooth Board. Thats without reviewing the schematics to see if the pin assignments are compatible or not. I’m not sure if the OS will even acknowledge the AirPort considering what you are doing by forcing High Sierra, a 64bit OS onto a 32bit system. How about telling us whats damaged on your MacBook Pro maybe we can get it working here Vs taking such a large risk.
