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Where to install drivers on El Capitan

Not often i have to ask a question but this one has got me beaten.

My trusty Mac Pro 5.1 has a faulty ethernet connecttion on the main board so i use an aftermarket RealTek PCiE card.

This has been fine for years however El Capitan appears to have broken the set up some how.

I have tried reinstalling the drivers (http://lnx2mac.blogspot.com/p/realtekrtl81xx-osx-driver.html) which seems to go ok but the computer still does not recognise the card.


I can only assume that the drivers are not being read / are in the wrong place....

Mac Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11), GTX 680, 24GB, SSD, Apricorn Velx2

Posted on Oct 4, 2015 9:43 AM

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6 replies

Oct 6, 2015 1:13 PM in response to Paul Simpson

I can only assume that the drivers are not being read / are in the wrong place....

I don't think your assumption about placement is correct, but not loaded might be an issue.


Drivers with .kext extensions go in the /System/Library/Extensions folder.


But there is an important issue you may not have confronted yet. Since about 10.10.4, Extensions must be SIGNED by the developer or by Apple.


You should look in the System log and see if there is an indication this kext was rejected and not loaded because it is not signed. You look for the "BOOT TIME" line and the time as the start of a new Startup.


Or post on the developer's site, asking when the kext will be SIGNED.

Oct 14, 2015 11:35 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

You should look in the System log and see if there is an indication this kext was rejected and not loaded because it is not signed. You look for the "BOOT TIME" line and the time as the start of a new Startup.

You can also open System Information (quickly accessible from the Apple menu if you hold down the option key) & click on the "extensions" item in the sidebar to get easy to understand info about what kext files are not loading.


It will take some time for the info to be collected, so give it up to 30 seconds or so for it to appear. Once it does, you can click on the "Loaded" column to sort the list that way or on the "Obtained from" column to sort by that. For El Capitan, anything listed as "not signed" or "unknown" in the "Obtained from" column won't load, but anything listed as from Apple or with "Identified Developer" will, if it is needed. (Some kexts won't load at startup time even if they are properly signed because the hardware they support isn't attached to the Mac.)

Where to install drivers on El Capitan

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