The New Beginner's Guide to USB Port Configuration

[UtterDisbelief]

Here they are.

Okay great.

As you can see in Hackintool ASUS uses an add-on ASMedia USB chipset to give you the USB3 gen 2 ports that the Z370 can't.

Your XHC controller tree with the HS and SS ports on it looks fine.

What would I do? Some tests ...

1) Disable the EC0 to EC rename.

2) remove USBPorts.kext and replace it in EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other with USBInjectAll.kext.

3) enable the port-limit removal patches for your version of macOS.

Reboot and see what has happened.

Hopefully you get all your Intel ports operating properl. Mounting on the desktop etc.

Let us know.

(Remember to back-up any vital info before testing. Keep you UniBeast flash drive handy).

 

[LSam]

Okay great.

As you can see in Hackintool ASUS uses an add-on ASMedia USB chipset to give you the USB3 gen 2 ports that the Z370 can't.

Your XHC controller tree with the HS and SS ports on it looks fine.

What would I do? Some tests ...

1) Disable the EC0 to EC rename.

2) remove USBPorts.kext and replace it in EFI/CLOVER/kexts/Other with USBInjectAll.kext.

3) enable the port-limit removal patches for your version of macOS.

Reboot and see what has happened.

Hopefully you get all your Intel ports operating properl. Mounting on the desktop etc.

Let us know.

(Remember to back-up any vital info before testing. Keep you UniBeast flash drive handy).

I tried every combination of the above suggestions. The only way back to getting my usb3 ports back (running at hs not ss) was to re-enable the port limit removal patches, and deleting usbinjectall. I do have a 2 Port USB 3.0 Back Panel with MB 20pin Header Connector plugged into the mother board. I wonder if that's a problem? I’ll try bypassing it in the morning and reapplying the kext.

 

[RadMatty]

I have made some progress but I am not sure where to go from here. I'm attaching what I've got so far in the form of some images.

I have discovered lots of HS ports but only two SS ports and the SS ports that I have don't map to the corresponding HS ports. For this reason I have not been able to test SS05 and SS06. Everything else is running at usb 2.0 speeds. The usb C port and the 3.1 gen 2 type A port seem to be running on a different controller and also at usb 2.0 speed. I am running 10.15.1. Thanks to the author of this thread for the fine work.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

I have made some progress but I am not sure where to go from here. I'm attaching what I've got so far in the form of some images.

I have discovered lots of HS ports but only two SS ports and the SS ports that I have don't map to the corresponding HS ports. For this reason I have not been able to test SS05 and SS06. Everything else is running at usb 2.0 speeds. The usb C port and the 3.1 gen 2 type A port seem to be running on a different controller and also at usb 2.0 speed. I am running 10.15.1. Thanks to the author of this thread for the fine work.

Hi there.

Okay, first thing... You are correct. The red Type-A port and the USB-C are part-controlled by an ASMedia chipset and as such are not easily configurable. The ports do not appear on the XHCI part of the IOReg tree and so don't figure in the 15-limit.

As for the 'missing' SS** ports, your motherboard does have 8x so the others are there somewhere. 4x should be back-panel with 2x yellow and 2x blue ports. There are another 4x on internal headers. It's pretty safe to assume HS03, HS04, HS05 and HS06 will be associated with SS03, SS04, SS05 and SS06, which you have partly confirmed, because this is how the Z270 chipset works.

Your IOReg screengrab shows that you don't have USBInjectAll.kext with a port-limit removal patch, otherwise IOReg would show all ports. (Hackintool can be a little misleading in this regard.) If there is a USBPorts.kext then it's not working.

What might help is knowing what kexts you installed in kexts/Other and in Library/Extensions.

So what to do? You could try removing any 3rd party USB kexts and putting USBInjectAll with a port-limit removal patch in place, and rebooting. This should show all ports - including the missing USB3 ports. If it doesn't then either the patch is incorrect or there is another kext muddling the picture. (If you are using system definition 19,* then make sure you use the new version of USBInjectAll - 0.73).

 

[RadMatty]

Hi there.

So what to do? You could try removing any 3rd party USB kexts and putting USBInjectAll with a port-limit removal patch in place, and rebooting. This should show all ports - including the missing USB3 ports. If it doesn't then either the patch is incorrect or there is another kext muddling the picture. (If you are using system definition 19,* then make sure you use the new version of USBInjectAll - 0.73).

The only third party kext I am aware of is GenericUSBXHCI. Should I uninstall it?

 

[dfritchie]

Yes, that should not be needed.

 

[RadMatty]

It worked! I reinstalled the port limit patches and the USBInjectall.kext and everything was smooth sailing from there on. The only problem I have now is that my USB Time Machine disk will mount, sort of. Actually, I can only see it in Disk Utility. It doesn't actually appear on the desktop or anywhere else. Also, the volumes are not available. If I boot this machine into Ubuntu everything on the disk is available. I had hoped that this would resolve when I got the ports sorted out. Any ideas?

 

[RadMatty]

This is how my customac sees the usb drive that I use for a Time Machine backup. I just won't mount the volume. Works fine in Ubuntu or Windows 10.

 

[HawkTron]

I have a question,
I've configured my USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports to 12, via an SSDT, but when I looked at HS10 I noticed it's a 4 port usb 2.0 hub, bringing port count to 16 according to Ioreg.
So my question is, does Catalina os treat the number of ports in a usb hub individually(in my case 4 ports), subject to the 15 port limit? In other words do the ports in a hub count towards the 15 port limit?
Thanks for your help

 

[UtterDisbelief]

I have a question,
I've configured my USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports to 12, via an SSDT, but when I looked at HS10 I noticed it's a 4 port usb 2.0 hub, bringing port count to 16 according to Ioreg.
So my question is, does Catalina os treat the number of ports in a usb hub individually(in my case 4 ports), subject to the 15 port limit? In other words do the ports in a hub count towards the 15 port limit?
Thanks for your help

Hi there.

To answer your question, no, that hub is attached to 1x XHCI port - HS10 - so those 4x do not count within the 15.