Fix USB 2.0 on Alienware Graphics Amp on Alienware M17r2 (2019)

[alectardy]

All of my specs are as follows
Alienware M17r2
i9 9980hk
UDH Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB
16 GB 2667 MHz DDR4
Mac OS 13.1 (22C65)

Open Core -0.8.9
all kext are up to date as of today 02-23-23

My system is currently running perfectly and has been for a long while. But now that the laptop is starting to show its age, I decided to use the Alienware graphics Amp, which is a weird proprietary PCIe Extenal GPU encloser made for Alienware laptops. I decided to stop using thunderbolt 3 as my main way to connect all my USB to my laptop at home, and I decided to use the 4 USB ports on the Alienware Graphics Amp (AGA). In windows everything is working fine, but now that im booting into mac os, I have found that all devices that use USB 2.0 do not work. The AGA has 4 USB 3.0 ports that all work in USB 3.0 mode, but when a device like a keyboard is plugged in it does not work.

What I have found,
I know the exact port, HS03 that is dedicated to the AGA at USB 2.0 Speed, marked as port 3 via IOreg
I know the exact port, SS08 that is dedicated to the AGA at USB 3.0 Speed, marked as port 18 via IOreg

I have tried to do port mapping in various ways, including the hacktool way turning on and off the port limit as well as using USB tool box in windows with no luck.
My Biggest clue is that the two ports (HS03, SS08) do get recognized but in different ways. The properly working device has various apple 3.0 USB ports under the discovered (usb 3.0 hub) that the computer thinks is attached.

Here are various relevant attachments to the issue.

Im not sure if there is some patch that i can do to force the HS03 to work in the same way as SS08, and include the 4 USB ports, There are two photos below showing the differences in the ports as well as what I mean in the IOreg

 

[Feartech]

All of my specs are as follows
Alienware M17r2
i9 9980hk
UDH Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB
16 GB 2667 MHz DDR4
Mac OS 13.1 (22C65)

Open Core -0.8.9
all kext are up to date as of today 02-23-23

My system is currently running perfectly and has been for a long while. But now that the laptop is starting to show its age, I decided to use the Alienware graphics Amp, which is a weird proprietary PCIe Extenal GPU encloser made for Alienware laptops. I decided to stop using thunderbolt 3 as my main way to connect all my USB to my laptop at home, and I decided to use the 4 USB ports on the Alienware Graphics Amp (AGA). In windows everything is working fine, but now that im booting into mac os, I have found that all devices that use USB 2.0 do not work. The AGA has 4 USB 3.0 ports that all work in USB 3.0 mode, but when a device like a keyboard is plugged in it does not work.

What I have found,
I know the exact port, HS03 that is dedicated to the AGA at USB 2.0 Speed, marked as port 3 via IOreg
I know the exact port, SS08 that is dedicated to the AGA at USB 3.0 Speed, marked as port 18 via IOreg

I have tried to do port mapping in various ways, including the hacktool way turning on and off the port limit as well as using USB tool box in windows with no luck.
My Biggest clue is that the two ports (HS03, SS08) do get recognized but in different ways. The properly working device has various apple 3.0 USB ports under the discovered (usb 3.0 hub) that the computer thinks is attached.

Here are various relevant attachments to the issue.

Im not sure if there is some patch that i can do to force the HS03 to work in the same way as SS08, and include the 4 USB ports, There are two photos below showing the differences in the ports as well as what I mean in the IOreg

missing your EFI folder

 

[alectardy]

missing your EFI folder

Sorry, thought I Uploaded it

 

[Feartech]

Sorry, thought I Uploaded it

if you are wanting to use SSDT-USB.aml for your usb ports, then will also need to use USBInjectAll.kext

 

[alectardy]

understood, that has now been done, and unfortunately, no changes have occurred. the HS03 has no ports attached to it still, which i belive to be the issue. Is there some sort of acpi patch that I can do to force those ports?

 

[alectardy]

I believe this is the source of my issue. The 3.0 port SS08 is able to generate this apple USB port thing, which is allowing the 4 USB ports on the device to be found. When in 2.0 mode this apple USB port link is not happening. Any help would be appreciated, I'm losing my mind over this.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Hi there.

You can see in the screengrabs from IORegistryExplorer that the USB2.0 personality (HS**) of each of the hub ports, is not showing. Only the USB3 ones (SS**). Normally the 4x ports on the hub would show up in both, enabling either type of device to be recognised when plugged-in. That's the basis of the problem.

Getting the USB2.0 ports to be recognised on the hub is tricky. It uses a Realtek chipset. This is the RTL 8153 USB 3.0 hub which also features gigabit ethernet.

I've checked with Apple and there is no complete official driver included in their kit for this item. However you can buy a PC add-on hub - for example this one:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MNKHOKY/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

... which claims the card reader and Ethernet parts work with macOS. I can't test this for you, but maybe check for drivers on their web-site or for a similar product?

 

[alectardy]

Thank you for the response, it was very informative.
Im not sure exactly what I can do from here, but maybe you would be able to help me.

for something with a driver issue, My first thought was to go into windows and look at the hardware info for the device,

For the superspeed part of the hub (SSO8) device manager sees it as a generic superspeed usb hub
Hardware id's
USB\VID_0BDA&PID_0401&REV_010F
USB\VID_0BDA&PID_0401

For the 2.0 part of the hub (HS03) device manager sees it as a generic USB port
Hardware id's
USB\VID_0BDA&PID_5401&REV_010F
USB\VID_0BDA&PID_5401

The wacky thing is that the 3.0 ports for this device do work, in mac os, so I have this feeling that I'm so close.
Thank you for any ideas that you might have

https://devicehunt.com/view/type/usb/vendor/0BDA/device/5401

What divers would you recommend to try?

 

[alectardy]

or maybe I can go about it a different way? and somehow spoof the card to be something els? Would this be possible with SSDT-EC-USBX? or some other acpi patch?

 

[UtterDisbelief]

or maybe I can go about it a different way? and somehow spoof the card to be something els? Would this be possible with SSDT-EC-USBX? or some other acpi patch?

Yes, those device IDs are Realtek as I explained.

No, I don't think you can spoof a *hub* device to make built-in drivers work. As far as I'm aware the only USB "hubs" Apple ever used were Thunderbolt ones - a whole different animal.

This is just a case of Alienware making hardware that is not fully macOS compatible. The Windows world is full of machines it is difficult to fully hackintosh.