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Any reason why a front panel USB upgrade won’t work?

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Nov 26, 2014
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Motherboard
Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H
CPU
i7 4790k
Graphics
GeForce GT 740
Mac
  1. MacBook
Classic Mac
  1. 0
Mobile Phone
  1. 0
I’m running a stable Clover / High Sierra build and I don’t want to mess it up. I’m trying to use my front expansion bay to install a hub, something like this: https://www.newegg.com/p/0J2-00G6-00042

On a Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H will this plug and play or am I playing with fire? I’ve poked around the forums and they have mostly discussed PCI card expansion, but I def need it in the front, not the back. I have a front panel USB 3.0 built into the case that seems to work fine.

Interestingly the MB specs claim I have 14 total ports
6 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports (4 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header)
8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB headers)

It’s unclear to me if these expanders are taking advantage of the internal ports mentioned above or creating a new hub entirely?

Is there another solution I’m missing?
Thanks!
 
I’m running a stable Clover / High Sierra build and I don’t want to mess it up. I’m trying to use my front expansion bay to install a hub, something like this: https://www.newegg.com/p/0J2-00G6-00042

On a Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H will this plug and play or am I playing with fire? I’ve poked around the forums and they have mostly discussed PCI card expansion, but I def need it in the front, not the back. I have a front panel USB 3.0 built into the case that seems to work fine.

Interestingly the MB specs claim I have 14 total ports
6 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports (4 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header)
8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB headers)

It’s unclear to me if these expanders are taking advantage of the internal ports mentioned above or creating a new hub entirely?

Is there another solution I’m missing?
Thanks!


Hi there.

Ususally these port extensions are just hubs. Looking at the item photos the main board connects to a single USB port and also takes SATA power. This shows it is a hub. The device only takes 1x port of your 15.

The only problem with this can be that these ports are not configurable, only the one the hub is plugged into is.

:)
 
Hi there.

Ususally these port extensions are just hubs. Looking at the item photos the main board connects to a single USB port and also takes SATA power. This shows it is a hub. The device only takes 1x port of your 15.

The only problem with this can be that these ports are not configurable, only the one the hub is plugged into is.

:)

Thanks for your response! I'm taking this as a good thing that it's not going to put me over my maximum. Pardon my ignorance on this, but practically speaking, how does their configurability affect how I can use them? I assume it probably affects power you can expect to draw from it but otherwise, does it really matter?
 
Thanks for your response! I'm taking this as a good thing that it's not going to put me over my maximum. Pardon my ignorance on this, but practically speaking, how does their configurability affect how I can use them? I assume it probably affects power you can expect to draw from it but otherwise, does it really matter?


Power shouldn't be an issue because the ports have their own SATA power feed, the lack configurability will affect things like wake-from-sleep. Otherwise their function will be dependent on the 20-pin USB3.0 motherboard header being configured correctly itself (in the case of the hub you linked to). This header has 2x USB3 ports, so as long as you configure these as 2x USB3 and 2x USB2 ports then the hub should recognise all devices plugged into it. Just don't use the ports for, say, a bluetooth dongle etc.

:)
 
...
Interestingly the MB specs claim I have 14 total ports
6 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports (4 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header)
8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB headers)

In the language of Port Mathematics... each of those USB 3.0 ports counts as TWO ports (one for the 3.0 variety and another for the 2.0) so if I'm adding correctly you actually have 20 ports which is over the 15 ports that Mac OS wants to see. You will need to eliminate a couple using Hackintool (the Best!) to fix the count.
 
In the language of Port Mathematics... each of those USB 3.0 ports counts as TWO ports (one for the 3.0 variety and another for the 2.0) so if I'm adding correctly you actually have 20 ports which is over the 15 ports that Mac OS wants to see. You will need to eliminate a couple using Hackintool (the Best!) to fix the count.

Thanks for the clarification. I will definitely do so: it's interesting because I haven't noticed any problems with these ports being unconfigured, despite the fact that I'm using almost all of these ports except one of the internal headers (hence why I'm trying to expand).
 
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