30 replies to this topic

[djohnsto77]

The Orinico card linked here at Newegg definitely works right out of the box on my Mac Pro 3,1 on 10.8.2. No hacking, drivers, or anything required. The only thing is you must plug-in a molex power cable into the card for it to work. There is an extra molex cable in the older Mac Pros for a DVD, so you can buy an extension try to get it down (I haven't done that, the drive is hanging out of my computer with a short extension now).

It will not work properly without this cable attached. There are two USB ports on the outside and a connector that can be split into another two so you could replace the USB ports on the front with USB 3.0 ports if you're adventurous. I haven't checked out how hard that would be yet.

[ edit: You also must remove PXHCD and/or any other kind of driver hacked or not so that the Apple driver takes control ]

[ Update:  User

TimeWalker75a

has verified this also works for the ExpressCard version of this card for laptops, just forget about the power cord part]

Here is the link:

http://www.newegg.co...=9SIA1DS0DV6313

[daxure]

Could you give me an information about your Motherboard type ?

[djohnsto77]

daxure, on 09 October 2012 - 12:51 PM, said:

Could you give me an information about your Motherboard type ?

It's a genuine Apple Mac Pro 3,1

[djohnsto77]

Here is the device tree from About...

[TH3L4UGH1NGM4N]

Score, I'm about to get this usb 3 card.  How are your speeds like say with your backup drive you have connected?

[mitch_de]

Here in germany (EU) i cant find that card type.
Orinco has an homepage here but not list that card.
This looks like similar to the ORICO PFU3-202I :
http://www.orico-onl...ls.html?pid=173  ORICO PVU3-2O2I
Omly other card name (newer?) with same chipset?

[djohnsto77]

TH3L4UGH1NGM4N, on 11 October 2012 - 01:44 AM, said:

Score, I'm about to get this usb 3 card.  How are your speeds like say with your backup drive you have connected?

It's fast, both in the Finder and command line. The USB3 hard drive I have is just a pocket drive, not built for performance and I get about 9 - 10 megabytes/sec writing to it. So it's definitely not just running at USB 2.0 speeds.

mitch_de, on 11 October 2012 - 06:58 AM, said:

Here in germany (EU) i cant find that card type.
Orinco has an homepage here but not list that card.
This looks like similar to the ORICO PFU3-202I :
http://www.orico-onl...ls.html?pid=173  ORICO PVU3-2O2I
Omly other card name (newer?) with same chipset?

That looks like the same card.

[djohnsto77]

I did this easy write speed comparison. I wrote junk from /dev/random to the hard drive when it was connected to the USB 3 bus then did exactly the same thing when it was attached to the USB2 bus, the difference is pretty clear:

USB 2.0:

sh-3.2# dd if=/dev/random of=/Volumes/Terabyte/junk count=500000
500000+0 records in
500000+0 records out
256000000 bytes transferred in 306.077265 secs (836390 bytes/sec)
sh-3.2#

USB 3.0:

sh-3.2# dd if=/dev/random of=/Volumes/Terabyte/junk count=500000
500000+0 records in
500000+0 records out
256000000 bytes transferred in 26.385148 secs (9702428 bytes/sec)
sh-3.2#

[TH3L4UGH1NGM4N]

The USB 3 certainly does make a difference for your HDD.  Thankful for the speed testing, always proves useful in knowing how much of a speed bump is gained.

[daxure]

I`ve found out too from an colleague in PXCDH.kext download site information about
ORICO PFU3-2P 2 Ports PC USB3.0 PCI-Express card which is working without PXCHD.kext in full speed of 5GB/s


NOTE>chipset on this particular model is called FRESCO FL1009 (not 1100 or other) of same ORICO USB3.0 manufacturer won`t work out of box on 10.8.2

I`m gonna get one cuz my NEC/Renesas USB3.0 is not working as should be in full speed

mitch_de in ebay.de there are plenty of this cards

[TimeWalker75a]

I have Fresco Logic FL1009 in my laptop (Dell Vostro 3450) and I can't get it to work, so I have no idea how are you planning to enable it.
CalDigit - Nope
PXHC - Nope
Intel Z77 native drivers - Nope

[daxure]

TimeWalker75a please read this post

[TimeWalker75a]

Thanks for the heads up, might as well try 10.8.2 now ..
Edit:
Snatched the IOUSBFamily from 10.8.2 update ...
Dude ... perfect!

http://puu.sh/1f4eq
http://puu.sh/1f4eQ
http://puu.sh/1f4fa

I never actually would have thought that it would work at some point .. I've even considered swapping out the daughter-board for a NEC/Renesas chipset. Glad I didn't though!

[djohnsto77]

I'm glad you got it working, that's one thing I forgot to put in my opening post -- to get rid of PXHCD and any other USB 3.0 drivers you've installed. I'm going to add that plus the ExpressCard version for laptops works too.

[TimeWalker75a]

It's not an ExpressCard, but an actual 2-port daugtherboard on the laptop rather (an additional board connected to mainboard), since the chipset is the same it works absolutely fine nevertheless..  I would assume ExpressCard would work in the same manner.

-Input devices are recognized
-USB 2.0 / 1.1 mass storage devices are recognized with hot-plug capability, appear under USB 3.0 Hight Speed Bus
-USB 3.0 devices worked from boot, but refused to mount after hot-plugging. This was resolved after the first restart.

I'm staying on an older version of UEFI bios which has no support for my FL1009 controller in the SystemXhciDxe drivers (wake functionality is broken on newer versions. supposedly due to USB 3.0 support which was't possible in OS X until now.. might have to try newer version again at some point) , so the tests concluded with AJA resulted in 50/50 R/W speeds, meaning the ports are not actually working at full speed, even though they show 5Gb/s theoretical speed for my USB 3.0 Passport HDD.

[djohnsto77]

TimeWalker75a, on 15 October 2012 - 04:03 PM, said:

It's not an ExpressCard, but an actual 2-port daugtherboard on the laptop rather (an additional board connected to mainboard), since the chipset is the same it works absolutely fine nevertheless..  I would assume ExpressCard would work in the same manner.

-Input devices are recognized
-USB 2.0 / 1.1 mass storage devices are recognized with hot-plug capability, appear under USB 3.0 Hight Speed Bus
-USB 3.0 devices worked from boot, but refused to mount after hot-plugging. This was resolved after the first restart.

I'm staying on an older version of UEFI bios which has no support for my FL1009 controller in the SystemXhciDxe drivers (wake functionality is broken on newer versions. supposedly due to USB 3.0 support which was't possible in OS X until now.. might have to try newer version again at some point) , so the tests concluded with AJA resulted in 50/50 R/W speeds, meaning the ports are not actually working at full speed, even though they show 5Gb/s theoretical speed for my USB 3.0 Passport HDD.

So it's more or less part of the motherboard or a PCIe card? I don't understand PCs that much, I've been an Apple guy since I got my first Apple //c.

[TimeWalker75a]

Yeah, it's a part of the motherboard .. in a way.
I've asked someone who has a FL1009 based ExpressCard and they said it works ever since 10.8 was released..
The person has introduced this neat trick to me:  http://puu.sh/1fagR
The ĀllowAnyXHCI part need to be added in the info.plist of AppleUSBXHCI kext .. this allowed the controller to work since 10.8 release from MAS. Now it just work with no edits to the plist ..

[TimeWalker75a]

I've noticed though that after a sleep cycle the USBs no longer work.
The message comes up about improperly ejected devices and as soon as you click 'OK' mass storage devices are unloaded and no loger receive power after replugging. Input devices plugged into the USB 3.0 port just freeze up but power is still fed to them until you unplug them ..
Can you confirm your card keep working after a sleep-wake cycle ? I know this is not a huge deal for a desktop machine, but for a laptop sleep is a must IMO.

P.S. Updated the bios to latest versions - the speeds remained the same.. about 50/50. So it's the WD Passport that is limited by speed, not the ports, which is totally understandable. Sleep if still broken, so rolled to older bios version right away ..

[djohnsto77]

TimeWalker75a, on 15 October 2012 - 07:15 PM, said:

I've noticed though that after a sleep cycle the USBs no longer work.
The message comes up about improperly ejected devices and as soon as you click 'OK' mass storage devices are unloaded and no loger receive power after replugging. Input devices plugged into the USB 3.0 port just freeze up but power is still fed to them until you unplug them ..
Can you confirm your card keep working after a sleep-wake cycle ? I know this is not a huge deal for a desktop machine, but for a laptop sleep is a must IMO.

P.S. Updated the bios to latest versions - the speeds remained the same.. about 50/50. So it's the WD Passport that is limited by speed, not the ports, which is totally understandable. Sleep if still broken, so rolled to older bios version right away ..

Yes, I've been noticing the same "Disk improperly ejected" or whatever error too. The computer goes to sleep then wakes up then goes back to sleep...I don't really care I'm used to leaving it on all the time anyway. We're at the bleeding edge of technology here I guess.... lol

[daxure]

about ORICO PFU3-2P USB3.0 PCIe (with 2 ports & Fresco FL1009 chipset)



works with both USB3.0 ports transfer rate between 2 connected external 3TB HDD`s you see yourself