An USB port challenge for a USB Jedi Master - any out there?

[Bunford]

I have a Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H motherboard and all is running fine after some glitches I ironed out. However, I seem to be having an issue with USB 2.0 ports that I have tried to troubleshoot using prompt here, but getting nowhere.

I have a Fractal Design R3 case, a Gigabyte 2 USB 3.5" bay and also a 5 post USB 2.0 PCI card. The motherboard has 2 x USB2.0 ports and 4 x USB3.0 ports and all are working perfectly. Now for the odd bit.

Fractal Design R3:
The front top has 3 USB ports, two of which are USB2.0 and one is USB3.0. The 3.0 works fine but the 2.0 don't work at all.

Gigabyte 3.5" Bay:
This has 1 x USB3.0 and 1 x USB2.0 port. The USB3.0 works fine but the USB2.0 doesn't.

PCI Card:
None of the read 5 USB2.0 ports work.


The pattern seems to be that any USB2.0 port that is not directly on the motherboard is not working, even if (as the Fractal Design R3 front top hub and Gigabyte 3.5" bay suggests), the ports are shared/fed from the same motherboard header. Therefore, this seems to suggest it's a system-wide issue rather than the individual devices. If it was the devices, then I would assume neither USB3.0 nor USB2.0 would be working from it.

Anybody got any thoughts?

 

[Bunford]

Ok, for my system i use the iMac 13,1 SMBIOS from Clover Configurator in order to make it stable due to having 1155 setup. If I got more recent i get weird issues so this is the sweet spot for my machine. However, I just changed to 14,1 as an experiment, and this kicks in the front top 2 USB2.0 ports on the Fractal Design case, leaving just the 6 port PCI USB card not connecting. However, I don't want to leave on 14,1 as I don't have a has well setup and get some stuttering performance if I choose that definition for normal use.

Does this shed any light on it for anyone?

I have also gone through the InsanelyMac tutorial to remove port restrictions on EHCI and XHCI info.plist but using the iMac 13,1 definition, this does not make the front top USB2.0 ports work. Therefore, seem to be something between 13,1 and 14,1 and the difference that is making it work, but I'm not savvy enough to understand what.

 

[RehabMan]

Ok, for my system i use the iMac 13,1 SMBIOS from Clover Configurator in order to make it stable due to having 1155 setup. If I got more recent i get weird issues so this is the sweet spot for my machine. However, I just changed to 14,1 as an experiment, and this kicks in the front top 2 USB2.0 ports on the Fractal Design case, leaving just the 6 port PCI USB card not connecting. However, I don't want to leave on 14,1 as I don't have a has well setup and get some stuttering performance if I choose that definition for normal use.

Does this shed any light on it for anyone?

I have also gone through the InsanelyMac tutorial to remove port restrictions on EHCI and XHCI info.plist but using the iMac 13,1 definition, this does not make the front top USB2.0 ports work. Therefore, seem to be something between 13,1 and 14,1 and the difference that is making it work, but I'm not savvy enough to understand what.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capitan-laptop-support/173616-guide-10-11-usb-changes-solutions.html

 

[Bunford]

I just managed to fix it myself!

Not sure if this is applicable to all, but it seems like too much focus being put on in-OSX fixes. BIOS actually fixed mine. Played around with a few settings and it kicked in. Enabled a few things like EHCI handoff (that are by default disabled) and change a few things to "UEFI First", rather than the default UEFI or Legacy. Not sure exactly what fixed it, but all USB ports have now kicked in and at full speed!

I did also remove port restrictions so that might have an influence too. Either way, if you have a Gigabyte board (as lots of us do), and follow the tonymacx86 guide, you will be loading the optimised defaults in your BIOS to install. Tweaking this post-install may be what fixes USB issues for a few people as it did for me! Just a thought, rather than having people getting frustrated within the OS with kexts and plists

 

[RehabMan]

I just managed to fix it myself!

Not sure if this is applicable to all, but it seems like too much focus being put on in-OSX fixes. BIOS actually fixed mine. Played around with a few settings and it kicked in. Enabled a few things like EHCI handoff (that are by default disabled) and change a few things to "UEFI First", rather than the default UEFI or Legacy. Not sure exactly what fixed it, but all USB ports have now kicked in and at full speed!

I did also remove port restrictions so that might have an influence too. Either way, if you have a Gigabyte board (as lots of us do), and follow the tonymacx86 guide, you will be loading the optimised defaults in your BIOS to install. Tweaking this post-install may be what fixes USB issues for a few people as it did for me! Just a thought, rather than having people getting frustrated within the OS with kexts and plists

BIOS options are mentioned in my guide... maybe I should move it closer to the top of the document...

 

[Bunford]

BIOS options are mentioned in my guide... maybe I should move it closer to the top of the document...

Yeah, noticed it after.

Why, oh, why are these things so difficult?!?! I had it all working, but then it went BOOM! I installed Paragon in order to use NTFS drives. After installing it said it needed to restart. After clicking restart a couple of error boxes flashed up quickly about there being IOUSBHostFamily errors. After that it will not boot up properly. It boot, the Apple icon comes up, the loading bar goes up as per normal and then screens both come on (have dual monitor setup) before ln screen pops up and then going staying black and then turning off and going into 'no signal' mode. Also, barely any of the USB ports work when it boots. Now, the only ones that do seem to be working are the ones on the PCI card, in something like an ironic pee take by my computer

If I login quick enough, with have my mouse/keyboard plugged into the PCI card, the monitors then stay on and system seems to work fairly normally, just without most USB ports.

Completely stumped now