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driver for USB 2.0 PCI card with VIA chip

Hi, I'm sorry to re-hash something thats already been flogged to death in far too many forums but I still can't find a fix for my problem.

I bought a USB 2.0 PCI card to add to my G4 PowerMac (OS 10.4.5) as I often need to transfer large files from memory sticks. The PCI card I bought advertised OS X compatibility and that it came with drivers so i figured it'd be fine.

OS X is supposed to have native USB 2.0 support but it wasn't until I installed the VIA driver that I was even able to get the ports to work with USB 1.1. The driver is supposed to support USB 2.0 also but as with everyone else who has a VIA chip in their card the 2.0 function still doesn't work.

The PCI card is chinese made (now that I look at the packaging I cannot even tell the brand!) and chip on the card is VIAs VT6212.

As I said, functionality for the 6212 is supposed to be native to OS 10.2.8 and later but from all the reading I've done that's clearly not the case (there are many disgruntled Mac users posting similar experiemnces). If anyone knows anything at all I can do to get this **** card to work please let me know.

For some final info, the card installs and works fine with windows XP, both 1.1 and 2.0, so the card isn't faulty, OS X just cant drive the 2.0 component of this badboy......yet.

I've re-seated the card many times and zapped my PRAM but there's still no USB 2.0 lovin' comin my way.

The PCI card appears in system profiler with 3 enties. The first two entries are 'pci1106,3038' and both are identified as type 'USB Univesral Host Controller' (I'm assuming these are the 1.1 entries that work fine), however the 3rd is 'pci1106,3104' which has no identity in the 'type' column and I'm assuming this is the un-installed 2.0 functionality of the card.

Lord jesus give a man a break!!!

G4 PowerMac (AGP) Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Posted on Feb 27, 2006 5:09 PM

Reply
6 replies

Mar 1, 2006 6:41 PM in response to JonBOY26

Hi JonBoy,

Have you looked at System Profiler when you have a USB 2.0 device hooked up to the ports off this card? You won't see a USB 2.0 port until you do.

If that is still not happening, then the drivers that came with the card may be out of date. You might want to try Googling for some new ones.

As an aside, can you "sleep" the Mac with this card installed and devices hanging off it?

Cheers!

Karl

Mar 1, 2006 7:23 PM in response to Karl Texler

Hi karl, thanks for the reply.

Ok, well I inserted a USB 2.0 flash drive into a port and once again it wasn't recognised. I checked system profiler but no new entries showed up (third entry still not identified as a high speed USB host which is what I'd expect).

Since I can't run any 2.0 devices from these ports I've been using them to run either my mouse or keyboard. When I had only the mouse plugged in, I noticed that when I plugged in the 2.0 device the 1.1 mouse stopped working.

Finally, alas there is no rest for the wicked in that no I cant sleep. Tried putting it to sleep and it froze like a bump on a log!

Thanks for any insight
Jon

Mar 2, 2006 12:02 PM in response to JonBOY26

Hi Jon,

If you can't get the card working via the drivers that Dave has supplied the link to, ditch the card and get one that works properly for your Mac - you'll have far less heartache and waste far less time (I've been there, done that).

I've generally found that PCI USB 2.0 cards that don't allow the Mac to sleep are pretty suspect anyway, and tend to cause other problems too.

There are other threads in this forum that discuss the merits of the various cards, maybe try searching for them - heaps of people have had the same experience as you.

Cheers!

Karl

driver for USB 2.0 PCI card with VIA chip

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