<< Solved >> Installed Intel NIC = Total Chaos!

[lurkingbf]

I was having issues with both my onboard Atheros ethernet, and a TP-Link PCIe ethernet card, with both regularly dropping the connection. The Atheros did it randomly every 15 minutes or so and then would return after 20 seconds; the TP-Link would just drop dead any time it did anything intensive with my NAS, and I would have to reboot.

I had an Intel NIC in another PC, so I removed the TP-Link PCIe card from the Hack, and replaced it with the Intel card. I then uninstalled both the Atheros and Realtek kexts. On reboot, OS X recognized the Intel ethernet card right away, and everything appeared to be working great, as I experienced no network drops at all.

Of course, this being Hackintoshing, nothing could be that smooth. Since the switch, I'm experiencing an issue where any app I purchased off the Mac App Store fails to open. I get the first message noted below asking for my password. After entering my password, I get the second message noted below. If I then follow the instructions to delete the app and re-download it from the app store, this fails as I click the download cloud and absolutely nothing happens. I also can't access my account information in the app store: it just asks for my password repeatedly and never shows me anything. Further, I am unable to purchase any new apps from the app store, either. Wow!

Hard to believe something as simple as a NIC swap could create such chaos. (Although I guess I'm not totally shocked.) Any ideas on what the issue might be? Thanks.

 

[Shiitaki]

Not a surprise, if you look in Clover Configurator and check out the page with your MLB and Serial number, there is a place where it often uses your ethernet's media access control address(MAC). You changed cards so you change MAC numbers.

Having this symptom on two separate NICs seems to indicate something shared between them or something else entirely.

Personally I prefer Intel's NICs because of superior software support and good hardware. Sometimes you can problems with devices sharing an IRQ. If you check your motherboard documentation and see if anything is sharing the electrical IRQ for your built in NIC and slot you've been putting your NICs in to. Windows seems exceedingly good at that sort of thing, but other operating systems not so much. Also, you check for things like the NIC being properly assigned en0 and the serial port being disabled.

Don't overlook a bad network cable or even the server having issues.

There was a lot of chatter recently for real Macs about Apple screwing up Windows file sharing, so it could even be macOS having the problem. This can be checked by transferring using SSH to your server, it's a different protocol entirely.

 

[lurkingbf]

Not a surprise, if you look in Clover Configurator and check out the page with your MLB and Serial number, there is a place where it often uses your ethernet's media access control address(MAC). You changed cards so you change MAC numbers...Also, you check for things like the NIC being properly assigned en0 and the serial port being disabled.

Thanks for the response. This put me on the right path. OS X had assigned en4 to the Intel NIC card I installed. Once I changed it back to en0, all was well!

For others who might encounter this, below is the YouTube video that helped me solve the issue.

Many thanks for the guidance!