kmos9: USB PCI card under Mac OS 9.2.2

by: Joerg Weise

Last modified: Mar 4, 2021 10:52 AM

2 4280 Last modified Mar 4, 2021 10:52 AM

Disclaimer: Apple does not necessarily endorse any suggestions, solutions, or third-party software products that may be mentioned in the topic below. Apple encourages you to first seek a solution at Apple Support. Use the information below at your own discretion.

Q: I have installed a USB PCI card in my beige PowerMac G3 (or any other Power Macintosh computer without built-in USB ports) running Mac OS 9.2.2, but the card is not working / not recognized by the system. What can I do?
A: This problem is often caused by one of the following three issues -
1.) A Mac OS installer only installs the USB extensions that are necessary to use an USB adapter card if USB ports are present on the computer at the time of installation. This would apply if the USB PCI card was installed after installing the operating system.
2.) Several reports in the past have indicated that the USB extensions that come with Mac OS 9.2.2 may not always work on computers without built-in USB ports.
3.) USB Adapter Card Support 1.4.1 is not intended for use with Mac OS 9.1 or higher. If the 1.4.1 USB extensions have been installed anyway, this can be the reason why the USB card is not working. (From the ReadMe-document: "Mac OS versions 9.1 and later include a later version of this software. Installing USB Adapter Card Support 1.4.1 over Mac OS 9.1, 9.2 or later could result in the USB adapter card not working.")
The common solution to the three issues above is to install the following USB extensions (that were included in Mac OS 9.1):

HID Library 1.4.6
Serial ShimLib 1.4.6
USB Device Extension 1.4.6
USB Mass Storage Support 2.0.9
USB Software Locator 1.4.6
USB Support 1.4.6

You can use a utility called TomeViewer to extract these extensions from either the Mac OS 9.1 download update or a (retail) Mac OS 9.1 CD.

To install them, open System Folder > Extensions, move any earlier or later versions of these extensions that might be present to the Desktop (you can delete them once your USB card is working) and drag-and-drop the extracted extensions to the Extensions-folder.

Then restart the computer to activate the new extensions.

If the USB card is not recognized after installing the new extensions, resetting the PRAM and/or resetting the CUDA chip might help.

Joerg