So...I have a great deal of faith in thelostswede, and had numerous problems with the first Firewire card (Syba) I installed in my Hackintosh build. So...I bit the bullet and paid the slightly higher price for this card. It arrived today; I installed it and have been in a world of hurt ever since.
First: my build. i7 3.4 2600 Sandy Bridge; Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3, Radeon 6870 1 GB, 8 GB Ram, 550 Watt PSU, a bunch of hard drives, Sony Optiarc DVD burner, Apple wi-fi hack card and natively-recognized BT dongle. Running U1h bios and Mountain Lion -- and I wouldn't be surprised if all of my heartache is due to foolishly living on the bleeding edge...
My build had been working perfectly save for one remaining issue - auto sleep would not work (my display would auto sleep, but the computer itself would not). I could sleep manually and wake without issue - a far cry from my Mountain Lion experience with my first graphics card, a 550Ti (shudder).
I replaced my ASUS DVD drive (one potential source of sleep issues) and added in the Startech PEX1394B3 today and rebooted. As I tested, I could see that Auto sleep still wasn't working properly...however, the Startech card was recognized as a Firewire 800 interface and all seemed well.
An hour later, I realized: manual sleep was now broken, too. When I tried to sleep (either from the OS or the power button) my machine would, at first, sleep and then immediately wake up again. After a couple of failed sleep cycles, the computer rebooted itself and went into some kind of a boot loop or CMOS reset. I mean, the motherboard was really having a hard time. I watched the screens as the machine finally went to the backup BIOS, then complained about errors and offered me the option of rolling back to "optimized defaults". I did so, reset the boot drive, ACHI, etc. Restarted into ML and continue to troubleshoot.
Tried:
Removed entire SystemConfiguration folder in Library/Preferences and allowed it to rebuild.
Tried a variety of sleep profiles via Terminal = 0,1,3, all with similar results.
Went line by line through running processes, and used pmset in Termial to check to see if software was keeping the machine from sleeping (nothing).
Tried darkwake=1 and =0 in boot.plist.
Tried to shut down the computer to begin removing hardware but Shut Down was now broken, as well, causing the system to shut down and then immediately reboot (consistently, and not tied to BIOS or Energy Saver settings that I can see). Another CMOS event / boot loop ensued, but the system eventually was able to POST and I didn't have to redo any bios settings.
Forced the machine to shut down using the power button and removed the card.
Rebooted --> all sleep functionality / stability was restored to its earlier condition.
Shut down (worked fine without the card!); moved card to different PCIExpress slot (swapped with Airport card to make sure slot was working). Result: sleep and shutdown problems returned. Airport card worked fine in its new home on the MB, so I think the PCIExpress slot is OK...
Removed card again (after a force shutdown from Chimera boot screen) ---> result, sleep / wake is restored.
Presently, there is no DSDT for this board (presumably, it's not needed) so it would appear that native Power Management isn't able to handle this card OOB *on my setup*.
So, buyer beware. And in the meantime, I would be extremely grateful for any help a resident smart person could suggest.
