235 replies to this topic

[marcelol]

genzai, on 10 June 2011 - 12:27 AM, said:

Hey all,
It's been a while but there is a new issue with the USB 3.0 Lacie drivers. Basically they flood the system log with errors and bring the whole machine to a halt when they are used with the VLI810 hubs built in to many new boards. I noticed there is a new driver from Sonnet that they offer with their USB 3.0 add-on card (also NEC based). It seems to be based on the same driver as Lacie and even says in the description that it wont work with hubs on OS X but i still feel its worth a shot. The driver itself see,s to be a later release. The odd thing though is even though it has the same ioclass entry in plist as the lacie, while the lacie will load the sonnet driver never seems to load. Can someone take a look at this and see if they can edit the driver to load on generic hardware? I tried messing with plist definitions but that did not seem to help any.
Here is the link to the driver:
http://www.sonnettec...mp;action=a3#a3

Many thanks,
g\

badur, on 12 June 2011 - 12:32 AM, said:

Firstly, thanks to Modbin and the people who tested out the patched driver. I have the Lacie USB3.0 express card in a MacPro 1,1 (late 2006), and the driver patch works great so far. The only thing I have to test it with is a Toshiba external usb3.0 drive, and I am getting 100MB/s speeds, compared to 36MB/s with USB2.0.

Unfortunately, I am getting the same sleep issues as other users. With or without the USB3.0 drive plugged into the computer, when I sleep the computer, the hard drives spin down, the display turns off, and it acts like it goes to sleep. But, the fans continue to spin at low rpm, and the computer never completely shuts off. It sure would be awesome if this problem could somehow be fixed without having to resort to unloading and reloading the kext every time I sleep my machine.

Though I am not a hugely knowledgeable programmer or anything, if I can help this effort by providing log files or anything else, let me know.

@Genzai:   Has anyone gotten the Sonnet driver to work with a non-Sonnet Expresscard ( obviously, one with an NEC 720200 chipset ) ?

@badur: What filesystem was on your Toshiba USB 3.0 drive ? And if NTFS, WHICH drivers (Macfuse/NTFS-3G, or Paragon NTFS) were you using for your filesystem ?

[gabrielepizza2010]

Hi everybody,
i tried the patched kext on my NEC/renesas USB 3.0, when i reboot it shows me correctly the Super speed bus in System Information/ USB, but when i connect any device the OS freeze and i had to do a hard shut down holding down the power button. I tried to change also the ID device (mine is 1033-0194) in info.plst, but the result was i didn't see anymore ay superspeed bus in System Information.
Any idea?
Thanks

[Petia]

Hi guys, I'm not a hackintosh wannabee, I just want to get my noname (NEC-based) expresscard 3.0 work in my MBP 3.1 (early 2008). That's for context ;-)

It seemed to me that the Caldigit route was the easiest since they released open source code of their driver etc but it seems that the forum has been quiet on this solution for a while now. People are focusing on LaCie, although a number of posts have reported stability issues with this driver.
So what is the current consensus on the most effective way to get USB 3 on Mac OS X (10.6.8, in my case) with vanilla hardware?

FYI I tried Andy VanDijck's solution based on CalDigit drivers but to no avail (now I can see that a manager is installed for the expresscard, but nothing happens when I insert a USB 3 key - should I also change an ID somewhere in Info.plist? --but I can't see that USB key in the system informations, even when plugged and operating on a 2.0 port). Right now I'm trying to understand whether I should continue messing up with the CalDigit version or switch to the LaCie solution.

Thanks for your input/help.

Petia

[marcelol]

Has anyone encountered situations where the drive will randomly disconnect, and immediately reconnect ??

I'm on 10.7.3 ( upgraded from 10.6.8 -> 10.7.2, but it happened on SnowLeop and 10.7.2 as well ).
Using the LaCie 1.0.8 driver ( the hacked one found attached to this thread )
Seagate GoFlex 1.5Tb USB 3.0
And this NEC/Renesas Expresscard ( WITH the extra power from a USB 2.0 port ).
EDIT:  I'm using Paragon NTFS 9.5.2

I have logs, but don't have a subscription so I can't upload, if someone wants to PM me, I can email the zip with the logs ( like 20Kb ).

The drive will also run for a while copying a large (50+GB) file, and then suddenly halt, disconnect, and then reconnect.
This behavior even happens when it's been sitting idle and you simply dbl-click on the drive icon to open finder.

[ludacrisvp]

lollo78, on 24 November 2011 - 09:24 PM, said:

Hi! the new 1.0.8 lacie driver not work on Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4 (with the NEC 720200 chip) with a western digital USB 3 drive. Console said me:

kernel: PXHCD 0xffffff80f2f68000::UIMCreateControlTransfer - Super Speed device other than LaCie is not supported - Vendor ID[1058]

Than it works only with an USB 3 Lacie drive. Need to be patched!

EDIT: OK I've patched it (now it works for me!). Good luck!
All credits go to modbin and genzai (I'have only used their solution)

This works for allowing charging with the StarTech.com 2 port flush mount expresscard/54 usb 3.0 card.
Model ecusb3s254f

I will have to check a usb drive, however I am not holding out hope as its failing to sync my iphone.

[treestrong]

it seems that with 10.7.3 update restart and shutdown function is broken due to usb3 lacie modded driver. tried 1.08 and 1.07 version. any experience?

[naquaada]

Hello, I alss bought an U3S6 card for my Asus A8N-SLI Premium which has a PCI-E x4-Port. The USB Super Speed Port is listed with the original drivers.

USB Super-Speed Bus:

  Ort für Host-Controller:    USB (Integriert)
  Treiber für Host-Controller:    PXHCD
  PCI Geräte-ID:    0x0194
  PCI Revisions-ID:    0x0003
  PCI Hersteller-ID:    0x1033
  Bus-Nummer:    0x00

USB devices work, though I cannot test USB 3 capability because I don't have USB 3 devices. The SATA6-Ports are also working out-of-the-box, though it's listed as 'Unknown AHCI SATA controller', and it's not noticeable faster, even with an SATA6 HD. It's also the first time the 'orange SATA icon' disappears on my system, so they're mounted as removable drives. Somewhere here must also be the fix for this, is it neccessary? Checking SMART status works and I also use custom icons, so it's no optical problem.

Even if the card seems to work on my system, is it possible got get a modified driver for 10.5? I'm still running my AMD systems, and there wasn't a real reason to renew them. Is there a driver for the Marvell 88SE9123 already? If not, plz keep Leopard compatibility.

Maybe you should add all working drivers in the first post, so it's easier to get them without reading the whole thread.

[fa-mas]

I'm having the same problem and I'm willing to test.  Anyone have any ideas?

gabrielepizza2010, on 18 January 2012 - 09:27 AM, said:

Hi everybody,
i tried the patched kext on my NEC/renesas USB 3.0, when i reboot it shows me correctly the Super speed bus in System Information/ USB, but when i connect any device the OS freeze and i had to do a hard shut down holding down the power button. I tried to change also the ID device (mine is 1033-0194) in info.plst, but the result was i didn't see anymore ay superspeed bus in System Information.
Any idea?
Thanks

[flamesong]

Hi,

This is my first post.

I bought an AKE USB 3.0 ExpressCard either stupidly or optimistically expecting to work out of the box on my MacBook Pro 17 2009 but during the two weeks it took to arrive I discovered that not to be the case and found this thread.

In a nutshell, I installed the ExpressCard without any driver simply to see what the MBP made of it. Nothing, really. I attached a USB flash drive and the LED didn't even light.

I then worked my way through this thread again and installed the modified PXHCD.kext using Kext Wizard and rebooted. The LED on the USB flash drive now lights but it does not mount. The System Infomation utility says that the driver is installed:


ExpressCard:

  Driver Installed: Yes
  MSI: No
  Bus: PCI
  Slot: ExpressCard
  Vendor ID: 0x1b21
  Device ID: 0x1042
  Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x174c
  Subsystem ID: 0x2104
  Revision ID: 0x0000
  Link Width: x1
  Link Speed: 2.5 GT/s

I admit, I am a bit out of my depth but I'm pretty good at following processes. I know somebody managed to get the AKE ExpressCard working on a MBP (Fl0r!an). Can anybody nudge me in the right direction, please, before I put the AKE 23.0 ExpressCard on eBay?

Incidentally, I am not using my USB 3.0 WD Elements drive for the time being simply because it is less bother to use the flash drive and move around plus there is data on the WD drive I'd rather not put at risk until I know everything is working.

[marcelol]

flamesong, on 04 May 2012 - 01:44 PM, said:

Hi,

This is my first post.

I bought an AKE USB 3.0 ExpressCard either stupidly or optimistically expecting to work out of the box on my MacBook Pro 17 2009 but during the two weeks it took to arrive I discovered that not to be the case and found this thread.

In a nutshell, I installed the ExpressCard without any driver simply to see what the MBP made of it. Nothing, really. I attached a USB flash drive and the LED didn't even light.

I then worked my way through this thread again and installed the modified PXHCD.kext using Kext Wizard and rebooted. The LED on the USB flash drive now lights but it does not mount. The System Infomation utility says that the driver is installed:


ExpressCard:

  Driver Installed: Yes
  MSI: No
  Bus: PCI
  Slot: ExpressCard
  Vendor ID: 0x1b21
  Device ID: 0x1042
  Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x174c
  Subsystem ID: 0x2104
  Revision ID: 0x0000
  Link Width: x1
  Link Speed: 2.5 GT/s

I admit, I am a bit out of my depth but I'm pretty good at following processes. I know somebody managed to get the AKE ExpressCard working on a MBP (Fl0r!an). Can anybody nudge me in the right direction, please, before I put the AKE 23.0 ExpressCard on eBay?

Incidentally, I am not using my USB 3.0 WD Elements drive for the time being simply because it is less bother to use the flash drive and move around plus there is data on the WD drive I'd rather not put at risk until I know everything is working.

Ok...here's the deal so far....

1. The following NEC /Renesas Expresscard/34's are the ones I've tried and tested under Snow Leopard/Lion and the hacked LaCie 1.0.8 PXHCD.kext.

http://www.ebay.com/...984.m1438.l2649

and

http://www.ebay.com/...984.m1438.l2649

2. For whatever reason..it can be a little touch and go for OSX to detect the drive, unless the expresscard, and drive are physically attached during boot-up.
Sometimes you can go through a cycle of disconnecting the drive, unmounting the Expresscard ( Remember to power down the card with the menu bar icon for the card ! ), and then connecting it back up carefully and inserting the card once more with the drive connected and powered from the bus.

3. After a little while of inactivity, you probably will get random disconnects from the drive, and Finder may get very unruly ( in extreme cases requiring a power cycle ). You should also go to system preferences and turn off drive inactivity sleeping.

4. Installing programs like SpinMyDisk, KeepDriveSpinning doesn't seem to alleviate the symptom very much either.

The ONE way I found that the drive will NOT disconnect was because I'm running Parallels and one of my virtual machines is actually ON the external USB 3.0 drive itself, and booting that virtual machine. So long as that VM is alive.....no disconnects. I'm not sure WHAT Parallels is doing to the normal hard disk controller drivers behavior, but it certainly keep the drive from disconnecting. Longest stint w/o reboot and no disconnects has been 3 weeks for me ( but then again, I had to power cycle because of an update ).

It has been noted in several places that external drives CAN randomly disconnect, and it happens with a variety of drives. There apparently is a bug in the IOUSBFamily driver stack that causes it ( or so the consensus in the Apple support posts I've scoured through is ). There hasn't been any formal recognition from Apple that there is a problem.

As with a lot of things.....YMMV ( Your Mileage May Vary ).

Just the same.......careful with plugging/unplugging the extra power cord to the expresscard, because those plugs are EXTREMELY fragile, I've come to find.

[flamesong]

Thanks for the reply, marcelol.

I'm not sure how much it helps as the card I have is not one of the ones you linked.

This is the card I have:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/120838582483 - which I think is the same as the one Fl0r!an has.

Given that it only cost just over a fiver, I am tempted to hang onto it just in case a driver materialises.

[marcelol]

flamesong, on 04 May 2012 - 03:54 PM, said:

Thanks for the reply, marcelol.

I'm not sure how much it helps as the card I have is not one of the ones you linked.

This is the card I have:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/120838582483 - which I think is the same as the one Fl0r!an has.

Given that it only cost just over a fiver, I am tempted to hang onto it just in case a driver materialises.

The thing with yours is that it doesn't provide extra power that may be necessary for most of the USB 3.0 capable drives out there. The Expresscard port physically can't give you sufficient current to drive the HD's motor. Also, note that if the "SuperSpeed USB" entry shows up in your "About My Mac" system information, then the card is an NEC/Renesas chipset card, because it wouldn't otherwise show up ( there are other cards out there that use the FL1000 Fresco Logic chipset, and the LaCie driver would definitely NOT recognize those cards. ).

[flamesong]

Well, as I mentioned, Fl0r!an posted that he had got it working on their MBP which is why I thought it would be possible. Plus, I have only tried it with a Transcend USB 2.0 stick which does not require additional power - and in fact the LED lit so it was getting some power from somewhere.

[marcelol]

flamesong, on 04 May 2012 - 05:23 PM, said:

Well, as I mentioned, Fl0r!an posted that he had got it working on their MBP which is why I thought it would be possible. Plus, I have only tried it with a Transcend USB 2.0 stick which does not require additional power - and in fact the LED lit so it was getting some power from somewhere.

I know several people have this solution working on their MacBook Pro's ( After all, I'm one of them ), what I was saying is that your mileage may vary....

[bladykris1990]

Hi. Few problems using this driver.

- when connecting drive, i need to wait around 10 sec to load after detection in system.

- usb drive needs around a minute to have max transfer starts at 1.5mb/s ?!

- coping from system drive to Usb drive is faster than from usb drive to system disk

- kernel_task load 100%

can anyone help me ?

setup:

- MacBookPro5,2

- Nec expresscard usb 3.0

- Arctic usb 3.0 case

- HDD Hitachi 500GB 5.400 (usb)

- SSD Sandisk 120GB (system)

- Drivers Modbin 1.0.8 (PXHCD)

- Snow Leopard 10.6.8 (32bit kernel)

[marcelol]

@bladykris1990: See this.

Not to mention I'm curious how you got the driver for the Renesas u720200 to work with a FL1000 chipset ( Fresco Logic ).....interesting it even loaded.

For everyone else, who's tried this and encountered random disconnects, please see the link above. Unless someone's reported this to LaCie as a bug, or they release the code to the drivers as Open Source, it's going to be tough to get this issue resolved. Mind you, the new MacBook Pro's are supposed to be coming out with USB 3.0 this summer, so hopefully Apple will have gone the better route and chosen a Renesas chipset to implement their USB 3.0, or improved their USB 3.0 stack to better support it. If so, then hopefully LaCie ( and others ) will update their drivers to support the new Lion USB stack. Also, Seagate purchasing LaCie could spell more openness with their driver to support other drives. One can only cross their fingers and hope.

[bladykris1990]

Well, i bought Mediatech Card VendorID Fresco and modbin 1.0.8 kext worked ...

but today ive switch Fresco to Nec card, and still Kernel_task 100% while coping files  

so ive upgrade SL to Lion...

and

Modbin 1.0.8 works almost perfect but still 100 % kernel_task ....

ps. ive tired caldigit driver, but didnt work

New NEC:

Driver Installed: Yes

MSI: No

Bus: PCI

Slot: ExpressCard

Vendor ID: 0x1033

Device ID: 0x0194

Subsystem Vendor ID: 0xffff

Subsystem ID: 0xffff

Revision ID: 0x0004

Link Width: x1

Link Speed: 2.5 GT/s

[marcelol]

As to why you're running 100% CPU....are you sure it's not your File System ??
How do you know it's the KEXT ?

Running Activity Monitor and look at what's consuming the CPU.

IF, you're running an NTFS drive with Tuxera ( especially an older version of the Open Source one ), it's been known to consume A LOT of CPU. Try upgrading to a newer version, or just getting Paragon ( I switched...A LOT better ).

LaCie hasn't updated their driver in a LONG time, and realistically, with the buyout from Seagate, who knows what'll happen, but hopefully it means Seagate picks it up and actually sells it, and makes a driver for it

[bladykris1990]

@Marcelol - thanks for answer.
After upgrade to Lion (x64), driver seems to work way better than on Snow leopard (x32)
its the same when im using NTFS partition or HFS+ Time Machine via usb 3.0 its still 100% kernel_task

Im using Paragon NTFS 9.5.3
Dont you have similar issues with kernel_task ?

Attached Files

•  usb2Hdd.tiff   177.59K   11 downloads
•  hdd2usb.tiff   176.83K   8 downloads
•  idle.tiff   178.89K   3 downloads
•  hdd2usb3hfs+.tiff   170.05K   16 downloads

[marcelol]

 HBU3MAC.zip 514.08K 72 downloads
I've found another manufacturer that's now reselling an NEC ExpressCard/34 card for both Windows and MAC ( Oyen Digital ).

I haven't been able to ( I don't know ) how to get into their driver PKG file. I was able to get into the contents of the INSTALLER PKG, and it's installation actually checks for the existence of the LaCie PXHCD.KEXT, and a USB Host Link driver from DLINK , for conflicts. My thoughts are that their driver is similar to the LaCie card driver ( although their card is a different style of 2 port board, VERY similar to one of the cards I linked to on EBay ).

Perhaps some brave soul will be adventurous to test out this driver with one of these generic ExpressCard's ???

I've attached a link to the ZIP file from Oyen Digital.

Edited by marcelol, 23 June 2012 - 01:38 PM.