Disable internal wifi hardware on MacBook

Post date: 2024-03-29 08:26:13

I have a 2012 Retina MacBookPro that works fine except the built-in wifi is so out of date/spec that it hogs spectrum and makes other devices take a shit. I have a nice shiny new 801.11/ac USB wifi adapter that I want to use instead of the built in hardware.

When I plug in the USB wifi adapter, it's mounted and recognized, but isn't used as a network adapter. I can't seem to select it, nor to specifically disable the built in hardware. The OS is Catalina, 10.15.

I'm not averse to opening the machine up and pulling the native hardware out, but I'm not sure that's possible, and would rather choose a software configuration solution if one is available.

(NOTE: web searches for this specific issue of "macbook disable built-in wifi hardware and use usb wifi adapter instead" appear to be especially fruitless, so please don't just "google it for me" because that probably won't be helpful.)

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