Esata card works on some versions of os x, not on others

[safar]

hello

 

first post here, though long time reader !

 

For years, I've had a Supermicro X8DAH hackintosh (very good beast, no dsdt necessary). I installed in it a Fasta-6GU3 by caldigit (a card that has both USB-3 and Esata, which is important because I'm tight on pcie ports).

It worked good (no driver necessary for the esata part) : 10.6.8, 10.8.2, 10.8.3, 10.8.4

It fails to work (whatever efforts are put into it) : 10.8.5, 10.10.1 (my present system).

 

I've fought like crazy on this, to no avail ; I contacted the card manufacturer, who told me to get lost (and get a mac pro).

 

The problem I face is the card is inside the system, I can see it with ioreg, but the drives attached to it do not show up at all.

 

The card by caldigit has two chips : an esata one, and a usb-3 one (which is working good). The esata Chip is a Marvell 1b4b,9123

 

I tried : AHCI_3rdParty_SATA, AHCI_3rdParty_eSATA, IOAHCIStorage Injector, Intel Generic AHCI SATA, voodoo prayers, every bios settings I could find, bios settings of the Marvell.

 

AHCI_3rdParty_SATA and AHCI_3rdParty_eSATA should work, because they specifically mention that chip. 

                <key>Marvell 88SE9123</key>
                <dict>
                        <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
                        <string>com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort</string>
                        <key>Chipset Name</key>
                        <string>88SE9123</string>
                        <key>IOClass</key>
                        <string>AppleAHCI</string>
                        <key>IOPCIClassMatch</key>
                        <string>0x01060100&0xffffff00</string>
                        <key>IOPCIPrimaryMatch</key>
                        <string>0x91231b4b</string>
                        <key>IOProbeScore</key>
                        <integer>15000</integer>
                        <key>IOProviderClass</key>
                        <string>IOPCIDevice</string>
                        <key>Vendor Name</key>
                        <string>Marvell</string>
                </dict>

I made an ioreg dump of the card (on a vanilla 10.10.1 system), it's attached. One can clearly see the chip is in the system… but it should have drive attached. It's not a cable or external device problem, that's guaranteed (if only because it works by rebooting on 10.8.4)

 

 

Also, because I know the update from 10.8.4 to 10.8.5 breaks the card, I looked at what relevant system extensions were modified by the update… there are a lot, but of those pertaining to ahci or storage, it's only a few. Running a folder diff between the new extensions and the old, I found nothing interesting.

 

 

I hope somebody will chime in !

 

Attached files :

ioreg : the same type of card, working in another computer on 10.8.3 : ioreg_from_10_8_3_other_computer_working.txt

ioreg : the card not working on my main computer, on 10.10.1 : ioreg_from_10_10_1_not_working.txt

[MacUser2525]

I have that card it worked on 10.9.x, 10.8.x for that matter, without any real problems if you don't mind waiting 30 seconds to a couple minutes for the e-sata drive(s) to connect, I did and went back to my Sonnet tempo. No third party .kext were ever needed for it to load perhaps that is your problem remnants of them I would try fresh install on spare partition/external drive to confirm. Oh and if you are trying to use the USB and e-sata at the same time forget it not going to happen.

[safar]

I have that card it worked on 10.9.x, 10.8.x for that matter, without any real problems if you don't mind waiting 30 seconds to a couple minutes for the e-sata drive(s) to connect, I did and went back to my Sonnet tempo. No third party .kext were ever needed for it to load perhaps that is your problem remnants of them I would try fresh install on spare partition/external drive to confirm. Oh and if you are trying to use the USB and e-sata at the same time forget it not going to happen.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, but I did try on fresh vanilla systems (all the ones that I mention don't work were fresh installs), I did wait > 30 seconds, and I was not using USB at the same time ! 

It looks like a combination of hardware (mb + the card) and software problem !

[MacUser2525]

Thanks for the suggestions, but I did try on fresh vanilla systems (all the ones that I mention don't work were fresh installs), I did wait > 30 seconds, and I was not using USB at the same time ! 

It looks like a combination of hardware (mb + the card) and software problem !

 

I would think you are correct one of them stupid PC ideas where it works one minute and not the next but most likely will in another machine. The both used I mentioned was only hard drives I should have been clearer on that point, now I have read my reply again.

[safar]

okay, I've tried two other cards : NewerTech MAXPower USB/eSATA 2x2 Host Adapter, and HighPoint RocketU 1144E.

 

And I think I'm beginning to "understand" : what all these cards have in common is to have two chips : 1 for esata (generally Marvell), the other chip for USB-3.

 

Some versions of OS X only "see" one of those chip, not the two of them.

 

I'm sure this could be solved with some kexts.

 

If you who are reading this do not know the answer, but do know who I could talk to about a custom kext development… please chime in !

[MacUser2525]

okay, I've tried two other cards : NewerTech MAXPower USB/eSATA 2x2 Host Adapter, and HighPoint RocketU 1144E.

 

And I think I'm beginning to "understand" : what all these cards have in common is to have two chips : 1 for esata (generally Marvell), the other chip for USB-3.

 

Some versions of OS X only "see" one of those chip, not the two of them.

 

I'm sure this could be solved with some kexts.

 

If you who are reading this do not know the answer, but do know who I could talk to about a custom kext development… please chime in !

 

They all have two chips the Cal Digit requires driver from them for the usb3, the e-sata part native support in OS X, if the newer ones have that native for them ports then try using the GenericUSB .kext you can find on here for the usb3.

 

If your interested in a two card solution this USB3 card works out of the box as it has the same chipset used by Apple on it.

 

http://www.amazon.ca/Optimized-Ports-Inateck%C2%AE-Expansion-Version/dp/B00ID2ZDCW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417120875&sr=8-1&keywords=Inateck+KT4004

[safar]

hi thanks again for being there. Actually, I presented the problem the wrong way here. It's esata that works with the caldigit, and USB 3 that don't. All the other cards I tried behave the other way round (usb 3 works, no esata).

Today I did a chat today here, and I was advised to try GenericUSBXHCI… which did work !

 

But all the cards I tried should be recognized by OS 10.8.3+ without any drivers.

 

So now it clearly seems that the problem is one of "double chipset pci-cards". I wish I understood why on the hackintosh and some version of OS.X, os X instantiates only one of the two chipset without "external help".